XR1000v2 How many Servers and Players should I see?

[SouthernGypsy]

After a week of messing with the XR1000v2 (newest firmware) and reading some of the forums I have noticed something and wondering if mine is defective or if something else is wrong.  Whenever I see people posting screenshots of their Geo-Filter page I always see Multiple Servers and Multiple Players shown in their screenshots...  But when I look at my Geo-Filter page I see 1, sometimes 2, once in a great while maybe 3 servers which never show up for long... they show up for a moment and disapear, and never see more than 1 or 2 players and often those players and servers are marked as "blocked", even though I have not blocked any sever or any player.

I'm using an Xbox Series X, located in Batesville, Arkansas and am playing CoD MWIII. I have a nephew I play with who lives in Lubbock, Texas and a nice in Austin, Texas and so have my Geo-Filter currently set to a 685 mile radius which is just shy of crossing into Mexico to the south and Canada to the north and large enough to cover both of their locations and most of the servers in the central part of the US.

I usually see the Dallas server and a player icon in Dallas when they connect even though one is in Lubbock and one in Austin the icon always shows in Dallas. Other than that I only occasionally see some random server pop up in the north east US, or Canadian border, or out west but they display and disapear, same thing for players, and often both of them are marked as blocked, especially players. I rarely see a player who isn't marked as blocked but that maybe because they are out of my Geo-Filter range.

I have my Geo-Filter set to NOT Strict because everytime I set it to Strict my Xbox tells me it can't determine my NAT type with a "Can't get a Teledo IP Address" message, a tech who's also a fellow gamer from my ISP figured out turning off stict mode seems to solve that about 70% of the time. That is compared to having it happen most of the time if I leave it set to Strict, or turning the Geo-Filter Off totally fixes it almost 97% of the time, and before I got this router I had NEVER got the message at all and always had a Open NAT.

I set up the Geo-Filter exactly step by step per the instructions in one of the Pinned topics here on the forum titled something like"Ultimate Guide to Setting up the Geo-Filter" written by one of the moderators it appeared.

Oh, and turning the Filtering Mode OFF does NOT make more servers or players show up on the map.

Anyone have any ideas why I never see but a couple of random servers/players when all the screenshots of other peoples Geo-filter page shows their map full of them?

[Netduma-Fraser · Accepted solution]

What you're seeing is normal. Depending on the game you may see more/less - CoD shows a lot of servers when booting up the game but that's it - you'll only see a couple when searching normally.

There will be a server when you do the NAT test that is being blocked, add it to your allow list (you may need to do it a few times) and then you shouldn't get it again with strict/filtering on.

[Netduma-Fraser · Accepted solution]

What you're seeing is normal. Depending on the game you may see more/less - CoD shows a lot of servers when booting up the game but that's it - you'll only see a couple when searching normally.

There will be a server when you do the NAT test that is being blocked, add it to your allow list (you may need to do it a few times) and then you shouldn't get it again with strict/filtering on.

[SouthernGypsy]

I actually thought about that the other night when messing with the NAT, trying to figure out the server address and adding it to the safe list, but wasn't sure if it always used the same one when testing NAT and also, when I tried to I wasn't able, it pops up and goes away so fast I can't see any of it's information. Is there a way to freeze the screen or something when it's poping up and disapearing so fast?

Also, would I be adding a port number (like port forwarding) or an IP address to add it to my "safe" list?  I don't actually remember seeing any kind of whitelist or safelist option in the router, beyond port forwarding but that is only internal to my net as far as I was aware unless you can also do an IP address of some kind though I have never tried that.

[SouthernGypsy]

OK, I re-read what you said and thought about it and realized you meant to use the Geo-Filter page do add these severs. So I turned off Filtering and Auto Ping, and because of the Unable to Determine NAT Type error and Unable to get a Teledo IP Address error when it was on, I already had Strict Mode turned off.

So I went to the Xbox Series X and there are several testing options; Test Network Connection, Test Remote Play, Test Network Speed and Statistics, Test Multiplayer Connection, and Test NAT Type. After running each of them a few times I realized the same 3 servers always come up. One on the Coast in Washington State, one in Central Iowa, and one in Western New York. After running each a few times I figured out the NY State one is the only one that shows during the NAT test, but it also shows up in the Test Remote Play and Test Multiplayer Connection test but not in the Test Network Connection or Test Network Speed and Statistics test. So I'm guessing it is acting as the primary NAT server for my area of the country (Arkansas). So I actually added all three but named that one "Dedicated NAT Sever" and the other two I called one "Dedicated XB Servers" because it actually had XB360 in the severs name string, and the other I called "Dedicated MS Server" since it has Microsoft in the Name string. Oddly the one being used for NAT didn't mention Xbox or MS in the name at all but does seem to be the NAT Server.

I thought that had it fixed so renabled Filtering and Strict mode and tested again, the first 4 tests passed, but when I got to the Text NAT Type test, it returned with "Can't get a Teredo IP Address".

I think we maybe on the right path but clearly that wasn't a total fix, any other suggestions?

[SouthernGypsy]

OK, I think I have it figured out and hopefully fixed (although stand by for a couple of last questions that came up)...

I played with it some more, running some more test with Strict on and off and Filtering on and off and realized something. That NY server there is TWO servers practically on top of each other, and to make it complicated there is also a "Blocked Player" that keeps showing up right on top of them (though I have not blocked anyone or anything) but I was finally able to click on the second server in that same spot, the ID address is only a couple numbers different from the first so probably two servers in the same location, if not the same room, both run by the same company. Anyway once I was able to also add that second server now I can turn on strict mode and filter mode and get an an Open NAT without the Can't get a Tereo IP Address error. So hopefully it stays fixed.

I do have another quetion though. I keep seeing Icons which are the same icons used for Players (white head and shoulder with no circle) but instead of saying Dedicated - Server or saying Player it says "DEDICATED" and "PEER" though it acts more like a server. I also noticed when me and my Nephew who lives out west of Dallas and niece who lives in Austin play CoD that what is clearly the CoD Dallas server shows up as a head/shoulders icon as well even though the Geo-Filter identifies it as Dedicated / Server, and other times the same head/shoulders icon but says "Dedicated / Peer" but again is clearly some kind of game server because we hit the same few of them everytime we play and it shows us as connecting in Dallas (Dallas has the best ping to me and him by far so we hit those a lot).

What is the difference in a Server and a Peer, both of which are being identified as being Dedicated?

And is the Geo-Filter just displaying the incorrect icon for them?  ..ie. showing a player icon when it's clearly a CoD server?

[Netduma-Fraser]

Glad to hear you were able to get it sorted. It'll be misclassified on the map which is why a server could appear as a peer and vice versa, it doesn't have any bearing on the connection quality, just a visual thing. If you provide the IDs for any you feel are incorrectly classified we can fix them,

[SouthernGypsy]

Awesome, Thanks. I can take a screen-shot of my screen where I saved them and named them.

What IS a Peer anyway in this situation?  If it's not a Server and not a Player?

[Netduma-Fraser]

It will be a server or a player, those are the only two things it can be - its used to denote a player - unless it's misclassified.

[SouthernGypsy]

Well the info part of the screen identifies it as a "Peer", but a couple say "Dedicated" and three others say "Peer" yet they all appear to be acting as severs of some sort for CoD because when we play CoD we always get connected to one of the same group in Dallas and no server icon ever shows up, only the head/shouldes icon usually used for players.

Here is a screenshot of my page and the ones I'm talking about I named as "CoD Peer / Dallas" or "COD Server / Dallas" depending on how the DumaOS had reffered to them, though ALL of them, even the one it correctly reffered to as a server still shows the head/shoulders player icon rather than a server icon.

[Netduma-Fraser]

Dedicated always refers to a server, peer to a peer. If it's misclassified it will appear incorrectly. CoD only uses servers so you can be reasonably certain any icon that appears on the map will be a server and should show as a server and if it doesn't it'll be mislocated.