Question Port forwarding is not working at all

[Torvva]

I've been trying to forward ports for an old game I wanted to play, which I did before many years ago without issue. However I've long since gotten a new computer and router since I last played this game around 8-9 years ago, and it's not going quite so smoothly this time around.

I'm quite certain I've set up everything correctly (not the first time I've done this, and just to be sure I've checked numerous guides including the ones on portforward.com and my ISP's website's support section), I've got a static IP set up for the computer and set the proper ports to be forwarded, however no matter what I do the ports do not open.

I'm at a loss here. All of the relevant programs have been allowed through Windows Firewall (I'm on Windows 7, if that's important). I've used a few port-checker programs to check if they are open, and 1 of 2 things happens every time I check: if it's a TCP port, the connection to the server times out. If it's a UDP port I'm checking however, the connection works, but it always tells me the port is not open/reachable, despite being forwarded in my router settings. I've tried resetting the router and the computer to no avail.

After some Googling (and checking other threads on this website) I found other people with the same issue, but their problem was always that their ISP was preventing it somehow. I've checked my ISP and although they do filter a small number of ports, none of them are the ones I'm trying to forward. My public IP matches the one on my router's WAN port (which starts with 142.161.), so there shouldn't be another router in the way. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bill001g]

First step is to set the router DMZ to point to your machine. This is to eliminate issues with improper configuration of port forwarding. DMZ is so simple it almost can't be done wrong. This is only for testing though not a good long term solution.

At this point if it still does not work I would be suspect of the PC. In many cases it is the program itself causing the issue. The pc receives the data but the program does not send back a response so the scanner marks it as closed. Be very sure the program is listening on the ports you should be able to see in the network tab of the resource monitor.

If this still gets you nowhere the brute force approach is to load wireshark and capture the data. You will quickly know if you machine is receiving the data and not responding or if it never receives the data in the first place.