This just does not make sense --any ideas?

[hellsbell]

Ok, after hours (*no really, hours*) searching through the forums using the search and manually going through pages of stuff, I have a problem I have not been able to fix.

I am a Developer myself, and have recently started setting up a server. I am very happy with the tutorial and guides out there, but something is just not working.

First I tried just connecting to other peoples servers. (*keep in mind I do not think myself above the directions of others and have followed the UP TO DATE versions of the guides*). I not only tried this on my home computer(s) but I went over to a friends house and tried it there too. I would get as far as after the character selsction screen, the EQ client would then hose and I would get back to desktop (*in my friends situation, he has alot less ram so his box gave him the curtousy reboot*)

He is runnin WinXP pro with latest drivers/DirectX/patch and is able to connect and play on live servers easily enough.

I am running WinXP pro with latest stuff on one box, and win98SE on second. I tested them out by patching/connecting to live.

SOO that not working, and still wanting to play EQ minus SOE, I decided to put up my own server on my home network (*lynksys router firewall admisnistered by me so I know whats going on and all*) I dnloaded a working version of eqemu server 5.0 and set it up, got it working, and had the SAME problem that I had trying to connect to another server. (*yes the server was setup right, I followed all the directions*)

So I thought, hey: basic trouble shooting, maybe if I put the server on the same computer???!?

And voila! It works!

Ok I have a problem with this though. While its great and all that I can now play withmyself in my room.... It is about as creepy as it sounds. I would like to make my server public (*and have gotten it to register with the login servers,*) but when I have tried thus far, I have gotten nowhere (*i.e. cannot zone in past char select screen*)

I dont get an actual error in the world/zone servers, and that is what annoys me. My client just times out/disconnects. (*As per the world server*) and the zone server, without a client connection times out, and the world server tries to start another one (*zone server*)

I have done everything I can think to remedy this situation short of putting this server on my Linux box (*slackware flavor*) and recompiling the thing so that others can connect to it. That still leaves the problem of me connecting to it.

I dont think this is a problem with my internal firewall, I did kill it off when I was doing the internal failed test... I am hoping this is a bug that someone knows how to fix with a patch maybe?

Or next version perhaps?