friggles88

So I figured out the issue. PureVPN has some pretty unreliable servers regardless of the protocol selected, and in some cases all of the ones they display do not work at all. And when connected there's considerable latency even on US servers. I switched VPN providers to NordVPN and found another post where I copied the text from the config file and it worked just fine. Checked on my PS4 browser and I was protected. No issues. Thanks for all of the help.

Fraser, All I was provided with was a user name and a password via email. I have not received any files from them. As such, I assume I cannot use the advanced section of Hybrid VPN unless I have those files? I have the geo-filter enabled for the playstation, however I have been keepting it in spectating mode. UPDATE: I am finding that it allows me to connect just fine when I select only the country and let it autopopulate the rest of the server information (protocol, city, etc.). However, the problem now is that I cannot connect to the games data centers... according to the message received in game. Sometimes it will connect me to a game lobby however the game lobbies are unplayable. I assumed at least that the lobbies would have minimal rubberbanding, but it occurs about every 5-10 seconds. Is there anything else you suggest that I do? Also, according to my router I have the latest version of the firmware.

I have an xr500 netgear router. I set up the hybrid vpn after i obtained a PureVPN account username and password. I entered the username and password, following the Hybrid VPN guide in the support section of this forum. I selected PureVPN as the vpn service provider. For the country i entered UnitedStates, and then went through several different cities for VPN server locations. Regardless of using TCP or UDP protocols, only a few of them would allow me to connect and show "connected" but in game i could not connect to the game servers or play matches. They would all stall during the "checking for update" screen in modern warfare. I even tried restarting the router and the PS4 and I get the same issue. I have my log available. Please let me know what I should do next.

Here's what happened when i got in touch with their tech support.... mind you lots of time was wasted by tier 1 support literally restarting my modem and router to resolve the issue... below is what transpired. In summary, IP passthrough could not successfully forward ports, the ATT tech could not get ports to open even when they forwarded ports on my router or used IP passthrough on the gateway, and double NAT still exists and cant be removed. 1) tech support saw that I performed IP passthrough with the xr500 in fixed mode. They said this was the best option for setup to have all ports open to my xr500. 2) tech support saw that ps4 was setup on the xr500 with static ip reservation, and that ports were forwarded for the static ip reservation. The list of ports consists of psn ports and black ops 4 ports. They said "it looks like your ports are forwarded and should be open" 3) tech support then checked if my ports were open using canyouseeme.org, and checked ports like "80" and others. The results showed that the reponse timed out for every port tested and that they did not appear to be opened. 4) tech support made me factory reset my router, and then we reconfigured IP passthrough for my xr500. Later today (because they killed an entire 2 hrs) they set me up again with someone to set my forwarded ports with me. Which all went through successfully in the setup, but when testing the ports on canyouseeme.org, they all timed out and did not appear to be open. 5) tech support denied my request to set up the cascaded router mode several times and repeated that "IP passthrough will solve your problems" and "if you set up cascaded router per the instructions it will literally screw up your router". 6)Double NAT continued to appear when doing tracert 8.8.8.8 in command prompt: two private IP addresses within the first two hops. ATT support said there is no way to remove the hop to their gateway in the second hop. TL;DR

Fraser, I was not able to get the IP Passthrough to work with the cascaded router mode. No matter how many times I tried, entering the information as specified, I could not get a cascaded/bridge mode to work where the settings saved into my gateway. I think I'll reach out to tech support. I tried this link with instructions by VoIP-Engineer on 4/19/2018 7:21PM: https://forums.att.com/t5/AT-T-Internet-Equipment/adding-a-cascading-router-to-existing-AT-amp-T-router-modem/td-p/5115126 Then i also tried the instructions by rreddy on 5/15/2017 9:41PM:https://forums.att.com/t5/AT-T-Internet-Equipment/Strict-NAT-Bridge-Mode-What-is-IP-Passthrough-Can-I-enable-on-my/td-p/5296974?source=ESSZ0SSPR00facsEM&wtExtndSource=20180216034450_AT&T Internet Equipment_Wireline_LITHIUM_1348403815 THe main problem I was having with the second set of instructions is that they did not specify where the IP address came from when entering information for cascaded router setup. I have my private IP address of my router known, but with the passthrough option it is public IP addresses handed off from my gateway. In the first link, he used the public IP addresses similar to those handed off by my gateway. This is all pretty confusing so I am hoping a tech can help. I'll get back to you guys as soon as I hear from them.

Fraser, I play mostly CoD and that is my primary focus, so as far as it goes that is where I have seen this issue. Now that I am back I can talk about some of the items above. I have a BGW210 gateway made by ARRIS. I tried changing the NAT from "Secured" to "Open" as you suggested, it did not change the double NAT when I ran tracert 8.8.8.8, the exact same private IP address showed up. I did a bit more researching and it looks like I'll have to talk to tech support with AT&T. I found out that NVG and ARRIS gateways can actually be used in bridge mode, but I have not tried it yet and will likely get with AT&T to have this handled. Link to AT&T forum with instructions on IP Passthrough and DMZ setup on AT&T gateways (They say it's IP Passthrough, but the links in the "Solved" post for NVG/ARRIS take you to bridge mode setup for an NVG gateway): https://forums.att.com/t5/AT-T-Internet-Features/How-To-Setup-DMZ-and-IP-Passthrough/m-p/4320234#M3837 The link for NVG/ARRIS redirects to this page: https://forums.att.com/t5/AT-T-Internet-Features/How-to-put-the-Motorola-NVG589-in-bridge-mode-or-as-close-as-you/td-p/3552057/page/2 The second link I have posted shares a lot of info on my BGW210's setup that I didn't know about, not sure if this will work but I'll give it a shot and reach out if its better. Thanks for all of the help up to this point.

Just answering some of your questions before I get home and can research a bit more: e38, I’ve tried asking for just a modem and they will only give me the gateway, no other option is available apparently. I will check again with DMZplus service and see if that resolves anything. Fraser, let me just clarify something. I can still connect to those players and play with them but over the course of about two minutes after they join a party that I’m hosting it kicks all of them out and they have to rejoin. The only way to get it to work is to have them all join and quickly search for a match. This only happens on my connection and I believe it’s due to double NAT. While I don’t generally get any issues with my connection, I would like to resolve this one as I sometimes get very strange network performance for hours at a time, no consistency to it, and the issue appears to not be correlated with network congestion, or busy periods of internet use in my area. I also get lots of network error codes from Call of Duty games that aren’t even searchable thru their system, I’m hoping I can resolve these problems with removing the double NAT.

Fraser, I’ll try changing the NAT type and see if double NAT is removed. Also, I have everyone in my geofilter and have for a while, they haven’t moved or changed ISP’s and if they did I would add them. Typically I run my router without geofilter because I rarely have issues connecting to poor servers, I also have open NAT, but I have the NAT of both my gateway and router which still shows as Open in many of the games I play. e38, Im not too familiar with bridge mode, maybe I’ll research that and see if it’s possible with gateway and my router. Also, the IP pass through feature with the gateway is intended to act like a DMZ (which I doubt, because I’m set up that way and still have double NAT), but there’s no DMZ setting on the router, even tier 2 support has mentioned that’s not possible. So whatever I’m using is as good as it gets, but I’m sure there’s some minor options I can change that may make a difference. all, I’ll get back to you and let you know what works and what has issues when Im at home so hopefully in the future others can resolve this issue.

Alex, are you saying that there is no way to disable NAT using an alternative method with the xr500 (other than AP mode) that will still allow me to have all the features of the xr500? also, my gateway doesn’t have a DMZ mode, just what’s called IP pass through, I’ll have to check my Gateway when I get home, but if there is a way to disable NAT on the gateway would that also work or would that give me potential issues (might be a question for my ISP)? Ive seen this handled differently before (https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-Pro-Gaming-Routers/Setup-XR500-ATT/m-p/1510930), although I have a PS4, but have not tried this specific fix mentioned in the link and there’s no response from the person who started the thread to know if it actually worked. My setup utilized the IP pass through option in this link from AT&T (https://www.att.com/esupport/article.html#!/smb-internet/KM1188700) I used the “fixed” mode and entered the MAC address for my xr500. For some reason the IP pass through option has its own NAT. And what I’ve found out too is the DMZplus is a service with an additional fee, and I’m not sure if that would solve the problem either (I don’t really have any more info on it). what are your thoughts?

I have an AT&T fios gateway (modem router combo) that I’ve configured to work with my xr500 router by using IP Passthrough per the ISP technician. I don’t usually have many gaming issues on my PS4, but sometimes cannot connect with other players at random although NAT type is Open 100% of the time. Ports are forwarded and all, but that has not resolved the issue. I have a suspicious that my network is experiencing double NAT. I checked on my PC by doing run>cmd>tracert 8.8.8.8, and saw the first two hops were private ip addresses (192.168._._ for both), which from what I’ve read indicates double NAT. I’ve read a way to get rid of this is to enable access point mode on the xr500, but then you lose all features of the router as a result (QoS, geofilter, etc.). Is there another way to fix double NAT without disabling all router features as when considering access point mode? Is there a way to simply disable NAT on the xr500 so I can keep all my features of the xr500? Any help would be appreciated. Sorry I don’t have the model of my gateway available at this time.

Thanks again for your help, just a couple follow up questions, I can share the photo do geofilter later when I’m home: 2) if I’m connected to a dedicated server, and am in a lobby on that server, then blocking a player that connects to that lobby (if I could indeed see him on the map) won’t do anything at all then unless I’m hosting a game for example in a custom match or in a voice chat party (PS4), is that correct? Secondly, If this is the case then wouldn’t geofilter also not work since you can’t block players? Or does geofilter simply allow searching for matches until all players connected are within my radius? How does it know players are outside the radius if it won’t show me players connected to the dedicated server? This may involve some rather technical details that may go over my head but I’m just genuinely interested. If they are independent of one another, then I completely understand. 3) this is extremely helpful, thank you! 4) will post photo when I return home.

I am having a few issues with the XR500 on black ops 4: 1) My xr500 shows a ping to the host that is entirely different than shown in the Bo4 ping plot. It seems like the Bo4 ping is correct based on the gameplay, why? This makes it extremely difficult to narrow down the servers that are unfavorable within the xr500. The dedicated server icon shows up to most of these places. 2) the geofilter doesn’t show all of the players connected to the host like it used to in WW2 unless I’m the host of a custom match. Why? I need this feature so I can block players with bad connections. 3) can I get a legend that shows the symbols in the geofilters next to their meanings? 4) when setting the geofilter to “filter” and with strict mode turned off, all of my friends added already, I cannot find a match. I live in central US with the Chicago, Texas, Missouri, and Alabama(?) servers within my radius, all of which are allowed, and I cannot connect. My NAT type is type 2. 5) some players shown in the geofilter live in the same city or really close together and the icons for these players cannot be separated when clicked, is there a way you could allow the icons for these players in the geofilter to expand outward from their original point so that they can be viewed and distinguished? Kind of like the interface for multiple points in one location in Google Earth. i appreciate your help

No problem, i appreciate the advice in helping solve this. It could be server inconsistencies as mentioned, but its oddly consistent: The in game ping would go from 30-35ms at times and spike up to 80-100ms on the chart. What is odd is that after it spikes the ping plot will disappear, the server location on the geofilter will disappear, and there will be no information on the host on the map (as typically evident by the icons, or even having the ping plot)."Skiped spike rrt" would also show in the logs at the same time this occurred, but I do not know if it disappears before or after skiped spike shows up. This behavior is oddly consistent, but where it becomes inconsistent is when it shows a dedicated server in Belgium as the host. When it shows the Belgium server, it gives me a suspiciously low ping (35ms), and it spikes up to 100-150ms on every gunfight, but the ping graph never disappears, and skiped spike shows up again in the logs. Edit: When i mentioned it shows a ping spike for the duration of the game in my last post, i meant to say the ping spikes were consistent. Not necessarily that the ping was elevated the entire game. Keep in mind, I am located in the mid-western United States. I have all wifi devices turned off and unplugged, I have QoS enabled (which was rigorously tested at dslreports.com, tuned to best anti-bufferbloat settings I could get). I've taught myself quite a bit about optimization of my internet connection for gaming, but I don't want to think I've learned it all. Perhaps I could talk one-on-one with an individual with your team and review my settings to see if there's anything else I could optimize?

Yes, it shows an increase in ping for the duration of the game while also showing "skiped spike rrt" in the logs. It just happened again tonight, and on the server where I typically have the lower ping. I just logged off and for about the last 7 minutes it showed "skiped spike rrt" in my logs, the exact same time I was connected in the laggy game.

I have been receiving this "skiped spike rrt" about once or more every two weeks. Each time it comes up I get very laggy games on dedicated servers that I usually have the best gameplay on. I don't quite believe that "it's just something for the dev's to worry about", especially after seeing the location of players in the lobby relative to the server in comparison to my location. Could you at least briefly tell me what it is? You can be as technical as you want, I would just like to know what it is at least.