Zugg Software :: View topic

Newbie Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 5

Since I purchased cmud months ago i've been playing discworld without issue. Suddenly when i attempt to connect I get an error screen saying the ip address or name cannot be found. I haven't touched firewall settings or other internet settings to change this. I have spoken with others using cmud and they are able to access discoworld through cmud. Any ideas why I am not able to?

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2007 3:27 pm

It's more than likely not a problem with zMUD. Try pinging the server (run->cmd->ping www.google.com, replacing the address with that of discworld) and see if it resolves. Also, double-check that zMUD is trying to connect to the right address and port.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Have you had any errors? Sometimes ZMud will bork up the connection stuff in the process of crashing, which I guess means you need to recreate your character icons. If you can trace this issue to a specific setting, you may also need to send your settings file through the Migration Guide.

Newbie Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 5

Sorry I posted this in the wrong section. Meant to post it in the cmud section.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

From your other post:

Newbie Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 5

Yes, I've tryed pinging them and looking up the ip and I get no response what so ever from the server however i asked around the disc for other players and some said they are using CMUD without difficulties.

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:26 am

Hmm this is an odd issue, i used to have an issue (in 2.05) with the name failing, but the IP would work, now that doesnt do it either.

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:15 am

If you tried pinging them from the command line and got no response (or if you tried connecting them via telnet) with no results, it's likely that your firewall (or something else) is preventing you from getting through.

Newbie Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 5

I do not think it is a firewall issue because if I go to the discworld home page I can play through the provided java. I tryed uninstalling CMUD and re-installing it to no prevail. I am completely baffled on this because as I had said...I used it friday morning and friday night it was gone. This is a real bummer considering discworld is the only mud I play(other muds supplied by CMUD work).

Wizard Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Posts: 1265 Location: USA

The web page uses a different port than CMUD does to play the game. So it could still be a firewall issue.
Also some muds block pings. So you wouldn't necessarily be able to ping them anyway.

Another thing, I have seen muds block an ip address or range of ips because someone had disobeyed the rules of play.
If this is the case then you would need to contact the wizards of your mud and try to get them to unblock your number. Or wait until your number changes if they did not block a range. (Don't hold your breath...)
Again this is different when connecting to the web page than when connecting through CMUD. Sometimes you will be able to connect one way and not the other; as in your situation.

An even more obscure possibility is if some software on your computer is using the same port that CMUD uses to connect to your mud.
Are you running a web server? Are you running your own mud from your computer? And lastly and even less likely, scan your computer for viruses.

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:51 pm

from inside the game the IP can be gotten from 'mudlist discworld'

You can still connect via the IP which is '82.68.167.69' but for some reason, it wont ping.

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:53 pm

It's also possible that your DNS server isn't working and cannot convert the hostname into an IP address. I've actually been having that problem myself with our Comcast broadband provider lately. They'll have a problem where the network is up and running, but their DNS server is down. So any host/IP that is cached on my computer still works, but it cannot look up any new hosts.

Unfortunately, the cause the problem is outside of CMUD's control. CMUD just asks Windows to connect to a Hostname via it's WinSock network library. It's up to Windows to lookup the IP and make the network socket connection. There are lots of places for this to fail, from Windows itself, to your firewall or network security software, to your hardware router box for your ISP, to your ISP itself (and it's DNS servers, etc), to some router on the Internet being down, to the MUD server itself having trouble. And it can be complicated to track down exactly where the problem lies.

Newbie Joined: 14 Oct 2007 Posts: 5

WOW!!! Thanks a lot Shalimar. I made a new session name with that IP address and the port and I am now able to connect. Unfortunitly I am computer illiterate when it comes to all the terms Zugg was speaking of but i suppose the problem may be solved now...as long as I can get all my colors and triggers back to normal. Thanks again for the help from everyone Very Happy

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:11 pm

Basically, the URLs (eg. www.zuggsoft.com) you type in your address bar make no sense to Windows. Windows can't actually connect to them - it needs to know the IP address of the server. It doesn't make sense for everyone who wants to know the address of a site to have to download a huge list of IPs, so each internet provider has a DNS Server, which keeps a list of which URLs belong to which IP addresses. Whenever you enter a URL, Windows requests the IP of that URL from the DNS server, which sends it back. If you can't connect to a DNS server, you can't convert URLs into IPs, and you can't connect to servers.

It's also possible for DNS servers to have errors that only knock out part of their list, and for them to have outdated lists that're still waiting for an update. The latter's especially common when a site moves servers (and thus changes its IP address).

You would not believe the number of times the DNS server has died on my provider. Now I use another provider's DNS - someone nicely gave me their DNS server IPs :)

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 10:18 pm

Do you never get any timeout issues with that Fang? I've tried using other DNS servers in the past due to Orange having flaky DNS but it often ends up worse due to timeout.

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:03 pm

It doesn't with the ones I've used - providers like to move their DNS servers around, though, which means you need to get updated IPs every now and again. That can get annoying, but it's better than the alternative in some cases.

Also, what's the contention like on your orange? My mum has it and it's horrendous :( When I'm there it's always throttled to 50k/sec or something stupid - not good if you're downloading 350mb files every night.

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:03 am

Whenever I do the online broadband tests I get very poor results though as to whether or not that is a sign of a lot of contention I don't know. I live in a fairly small town so I wouldn't think too many people are about to contend with. Unlimited torrent upload usually tops out at about 25k/s whereas download varies and the max I've had is around 100k/s.