Howdy-Ho! As the title states, I'm having issues getting a dedicated server up and running for Custom Edition on my home computer. I would like it mainly for testing purposes, using multiclients to stick multiple players in the map via multiple instances of haloce.exe.

I've been doing this on Halo: Combat Evolved for over a year now, and I've literally no idea why this isn't working.

What happens: I start haloceded.exe and it loads SAPP and starts the correct map/gametype combo. I then attempt to join the server from my own haloce.exe, and all I've seen so far is the "Unable to join game!" message.

What I've tried:

Port forwarding. I made the server run on port 2300 just to be safe (identical to the setup of my Halo PC server), while my client ports in CE are set to 2303/2304. I've set my router/firewall to open UDP ports 80, 2300-2400. I made sure both the server and the client applications are running v1.09, but I have HAC2 installed so that really shouldn't matter anyway.

I've unblocked all Halo applications (including CE and the Dedi exe file) in the firewall as well.

At this point I'm at a loss...and I can't think of any reasons I can't join my own server on my own PC - unless CE does some screwy thing where I can't join a server using the same map as the client...but since PC has no issue doing that I wouldn't assume it would be an issue here.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Never run the server and game Halo CE on the same machine, and try to use different physical PCs to host the server and the clients respectively. If you absolutely have to, use a virtual machine for the server and run it on different ports, like what you are doing now, and join the server using the Halo CE game installed in the actual PC.

Maybe when we were running pentium 4s that might be viable, but as I've said before, I do this on a daily basis with halo PC and it works absolutely fine. Going through a VM would be ridiculously redundant. If it works for PC, logically it will work fine for CE, I'm far past the whole "dedicated" argument. As long as the server and client don't get in each others way, there's absolutely no reason to follow your instructions other than old superstition. Obviously this isn't a server for playing on, just running tests, it doesn't need to be smooth as silk, just needs to work.

People do this all the time on HPC I think its ridiculous that no one would on CE....

I used to run dedis from my pc, and join them from same pc, there should be no problem doing this.
you have the init and ports set on the target arguement?
Edited by Maniac1000 on Jan 10, 2014 at 06:26 PM

I do indeed. I have the port set to 2300 (which is what I set my HPC server to run on, no I don't try to run them at the same time).

I have checked the issue, and even tried running the server with identical settings on another machine, with no luck joining then either. That should rule out the server trying to use my external IP as opposed to my subnet mask/internal IP.

I had Btcc22 help me troubleshoot it, and still having 0 success in getting it "joinable".

Also, this problem does not just occur to me, it happens to anyone trying to join the server (yes they have the same map/version).

At this point I'm pretty much out of ideas.

Well if no-one can join umm.
I assume you looked here.
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?nid=237
Edited by Maniac1000 on Jan 11, 2014 at 02:31 AM

I did, and opened the ones I thought applicable - including the 6073 inbound/outbound for over directX7

I didn't think to open all the GameSpy ports, as I assumed the issue would be there for a Halo PC server as well, seeing as they both use the GS service. I could be wrong, will open them all and report back tomorrow

ok

Reinstalled CE, seems to be working fine now. No clue what was up with that, but it's all good now. And no, opening the other ports didn't work, so I just reinstalled after that. Now it's fine. Thanks for all the help :)