Any network gurus out there? Can't get a PS3 game to connect...

So I got Payday 2 for my PS3. Two copies, in fact, since I have two PS3s at my place for LAN action.

It's awesome. Had a blast with playing it cooperatively with the girlfriend using the two PS3s at my place.

But then when a couple of my friends got it, I found I could not connect to them. Or public games. I just cannot connect to anyone externally. Which is especially odd, since this game supposedly does not even have a LAN mode. So I don't understand why there's a distinction between connecting to my 2nd PS3 vs connecting to someone else.

Or actually, it seems like it "sort of" connects externally. What happens is if I create a game and someone tries to connect to it, the headsets activate and we can hear each other. The game invite screen claims that the person trying to connect is already "in game," but their character does not show up and they just keep seeing the "waiting for game to respond" message forever. Same result if someone else hosts and I try to connect to them.

Keep in mind, I have never had another PS3 game that could not connect. I've had ones that had frequent disconnection issues (Dragon's Crown, most recently), but never one that did not work at all.

I tried e-mailing Overkill about it... they responded back pretty quickly, just saying they'd never heard of this problem and have no idea what's wrong.

Given all that... does anyone have any thoughts on possible solutions, or just why this could be happening?

I have tried turning off my other PS3 and using only one. I have tried wired, I have tried wireless. I have tried port forwarding on my router. I have tried putting my PS3 in the router's DMZ. I have tried running the ethernet cable straight from my modem to my PS3, instead of through a router. I tried checking the signal level on my modem, which seemed high, so I put an attenuator on to get it down to ideal range.

None of that has worked. Quite frustrated as I'm really into the game, and was looking forward to getting a 4-man team together (honestly, that's kinda the whole point of the game).

Are there settings in my modem I should try taking a look at? I don't consider myself an expert.

Does anyone have any thoughts about why this might be happening? Could my ISP be blocking certain connections beyond my control? And why is it I can get my PS3s connected to each other for this game, even though LAN play is not supported?

 

Thank you, I will try it, though IIRC I already had those ports forwarded years ago... I will re-check it for sure... I am pretty sure I just had them set for BOTH instead of just UDP though. So I will try switching them to UDP-only.

I also had not thought to disable UPnP on the router or modem, only on the PS3 itself, so maybe that will be the solution.

My biggest follow-on question though is, do I also need to change any settings on my modem? I had assumed my router was the problem originally, but even when I bypassed my router and went straight from the modem to the PS3, I got the same results. So my working assumption has been that the problem lies with my modem or with my ISP somehow. I don't think the router can be the problem if it is not even connected...

 

For anyone who has crazy network problems of their own, I found a solution to this problem for your future reference.

Turns out my ISP had me set up with a modem that could also act as a router. Though since it didn't support a wireless mode and also only had one port on it, I had run my cable from there into my own router.

The solution was simply to switch the modem into "bridge mode"... so that it acted only as a pass-through modem and not a router as well... and then I was able to connect to games.

I had forwarded the appropriate ports previously on my own router... but it hadn't mattered because the modem's own router function was blocking them before they got to my router.

And, to confirm: yes, this game is totally a blast with a bunch of people. Played with 2 friends tonight and it was awesome.