Friend can't join any games but can host his own

[doguozkan]

Hello.

A friend is unable to join any games. He can host his own game, and it's possible to join his game and play that way, but the game runs noticeably slower and he doesn't own any DLCs, so that remains a worst-case option.

When playing with the 2.8.1 Steam version, he is usually able to join the lobby but gets stuck on the lobby screen when the game starts. Occasionally, he can't find the lobby at all and can't use direct join either, but this is a problem we've been having in all combinations of hosts and players with 5 people (or as few as 2), and is intermittent. Once, he was able to get to the loading screen in this version but got stuck there for about 10 minutes before we have to restart.

When playing with the 2.8.1 stellaris_test branch, he is able to get to the loading screen (when he's able to find the lobby), but then gets stuck there. Occasionally the host will receive the message "Player lost" on the waiting for players screen. Kicking him allows the game to begin without him, but he is still stuck in the loading screen. We have also tried using hot join to skip the lobby with this version, but he crashed once (error.log file was empty) and got stuck in the loading screen afterwards.

The logs in the Paradox Entertainment\Stellaris\logs folder have nothing useful as far as I can see.

Let me know if I can provide any more information.
Thanks.

 

[AndrewT]

I was thinking he must have Steam ports blocked by a firewall somewhere, but the stellaris_test branch uses different ports so that seems unlikely.

Has this always happened for him with this game? Or it was okay up to some point?

Does it also affect our similar games CK2, EU4 or HOI4? CK2 is free to play on Steam now FYI.

What happens when he tried to join, any error?

Any mods involved here?

Can he try from a different machine, either on the same network or elsewhere, as a test?

 

[doguozkan]

He bought the game recently and has never been able to play a multiplayer game. We haven't tested any other Paradox games. No errors other than the "player lost" message on the host side. No mods. No other computer or network to test on, but if it would help, we could try switching accounts.

I'll see if we can try CK2. Do you have any other suggestions in the meanwhile?

Edit: Same issue in CK2. He can host a game and we can join him but he can't join our games.

 

[AndrewT]

Then it seems clearly an issue with his computer, local network or ISP. Lacking the ability to try different computers or networks I can't really see how to narrow it down further, I'm sorry. They definitely can't install the games on another machine elsewhere, say another friend or relative, as a test?