XBOX Live and Network Address Translation (NAT)

OK so not really Embedded but this has been driving me mad for months...

When on XBOX Live I occasionally had issues connecting to sessions, or could connect but with no voice - funny thing was it was always with the same people.  Over Christmas someone mentioned that I should check the NAT (Network Address Translation) type on my router.  You can do this from your XBOX 360 by doing the following:

1. Go to the System area of the Xbox Dashboard.
2. Select Network Settings.
3. Select Test Xbox Live Connection

You should get something like this:

If your NAT is set to Moderate or Strict then chances are this is causing the problem - the table below outlines the implications and a full discussion can be found at https://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/connecttolive/xbox360/connectionmethods/troubleshootliveconnection-testnat.htm.

In my case the NAT type was moderate and the fix was surprisingly easy.  Firstly give your 360 a fixed IP and then drop it into the DMZ, and voila the NAT Type changed to Open - no more connectivity issues.

Happy gaming

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2007
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• Anonymous
  February 05, 2007
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• Anonymous
  February 27, 2007
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• Anonymous
  March 13, 2007
  heey people!! a friend of my has her NAT on moderate and she keeps disconnecting to xbox live! does anybody can explain me how to turn it on OPEN? (its to connect 2 xbox 360's on 1 router) thanx michael

• Anonymous
  April 21, 2007
  You also need to set your port forwarding on the router for UDP: 80 For your xbox ip address as soon as i set that and UDP+TCP: 3074 My Nat turned to Open :D

• Anonymous
  April 23, 2007
  Hello peepz, umm i'm not sure if my problem is related to any of yours but any help would be appreciated, so far, i'm able to connect to Xbox live, but the thing is, (GEARS OF WAR) everytime i try to "join someones session", a pop-up comes up and says i lost connection to the host. and this happens "EVERYTIME". so when i run the connection test, everything seems to be confirmed or  connected.  

• Anonymous
  May 01, 2007
  I'm looking for a solution to get 2 xbox 360s to show open NAT on One router. none of the above solutions help one will show as open and the other as moderate every time, depending on which was turned on first

• Anonymous
  August 07, 2007
  The solution requires 2 public ip addresses & 2 routers I used Netgear RP614NA & the wireless counterpart 54m version With cable modem->Hub(used linksys 8 port switch)->router #1 ->xbox 360#1,pc! With cable modem->Hub(used linksys 8 port switch)->router #2 ->xbox 360#2,WII! Since each xbox has its own router and each router has its own public ip address your able to have port 88 for example open on both xbox 360's. When you run the xbox live test both show open. Hope this helps!

• Anonymous
  August 22, 2007
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• Anonymous
  August 26, 2007
  So there is no way to have 2 360s work flawlessly on 1 router? Me and my roomate both have 360s and normally game together with a few other friends, but since moving in for school 1 person can play at a time. The other gets disconnected.

• Anonymous
  September 14, 2007
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• Anonymous
  September 14, 2007
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• Anonymous
  September 15, 2007
  Here's a doozy for y'all. I cannot host Gears of War matches.  It has nothing to do with the NAT; my NAT is open.  I can host matches in that I can host up to three people total.  However, it seems after three people, it firewalls EVERYONE in the session, booting them all at once.  Either that or it resets the connection, I'm not sure.  But mind you, not until there's four people does it suddenly kick everyone.  I could be mistaken but I swear I think my router just simply resets.  It happens every time and as a result I can't host a fraggin' match.  At all.  Does anybody have any suggestions?  It's a Netgear gateway/router, the standard router/gateway they give you when you sign up for Comcast. Note, I can join matches and there's no problem.

• Anonymous
  September 20, 2007
  Yeah well I have search the web up and down and there is no such thing as a D-Link 540 wireless router.

• Anonymous
  October 01, 2007
  There is no Dlink 540? whats the exact model number?!?

• Anonymous
  October 23, 2007
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• Anonymous
  March 08, 2008
  i recently perchased 2 plasmas and 2 360's. i have it hooked up to one modem and router. both sytems work individually on halo 3 and using xbox live. we cannot join parties with each others and the nat is set to open. how do i fix this problem. im hoping somthing simple.   thanks