Having trouble connecting to a certain friend we both have open nat types and had our ports ...

Hey there, Rex!

I'm sorry to see any connection issues with your friend! You mention you both have Time Warner; are you guys within the same city, likely the same zip code, and have them as your ISP? If so, this is a common occurrence where customers are linked on the same
node the ISP uses and is causing what's called "invisible NAT" and making it impossible to connect up together. A node is essentially a device in the city the ISP gives a neighborhood their services. To resolve this, you'll need to work with Time Warner to
get a static IP address for one of you, or one of you needs a new ISP.

However, if this isn't the case, post back with the modem and router manufacturer and model numbers that you have, and have your friend jump in here with the same. We'll work together to get those devices playing fair.

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Hey there, Slidez!

Sorry to see any connection issues with a friend! This sounds particularly like you guys are in the same city/neighborhood with the same ISP trying to connect up. If this is the case, then what you are running into is a situation where Xbox Live believes
you guys to be coming from the same public IP address, likely with the same internal IP addresses (during the actual NAT process), and it creates a weird issue where you can't connect up to each other. It's more common than you would think, too.

The only way we know how to fix this, minus the workaround you've discovered, is by calling up your ISP and having them give one of you a static IP address. Most ISPs won't do it for residential accounts, though.

You can give it a shot! Let me know how it goes. I'm happy to address any other concerns you might have with this.

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Xbox Forums Staff



Be sure to check out the Xbox Forum Guidelines and if you're a member of the Xbox Insider Program, check out the Xbox
Insider Program Forums for help with Insider Program troubleshooting.

Hello, Kathy!

Sorry about the awfully late response, I've been juggling schoolwork and whatnot. My friend and I both have had Open NAT Types since we encountered this issue last time (although we haven't attempted to play since the creation of the post), and we are sure it always happens no matter the NAT type. No NAT errors have ever come up for either of us that might even be connected to this issue. We have tried hard-resetting our consoles, we have changed IP and MAC addresses, everything, and the error still occurs. One thing that we have tried is recreating a scenario that could simulate a NAT Type error, specifically by purposely changing our IP ports to ones that stray from Open NAT types. The error occurs even then, and when we revert back to our usual IP, it still happens. Now that I think about it, however, we have not run Multiplayer Connection Tests on our systems to see what happens, or rather my friend hasn't. Usually, my test says that I'm good to go, and no errors or anything are stated. I'll get my friend to run a test at some point, but that will have to wait for tomorrow since he's probably asleep, unlike me. I will definitely update you on the result and we'll see where we go from here.

With the best of regards,

I'm having the same issue with trying to chat with a friend, we have both restarted our x boxs and both our nat types are open, I can join his group simply just not chat, please help!

I've friends in Ireland and I live in the UK and sometimes we have problems connecting even though our NAT types are open, have you both tried resetting your routers completely and starting from scratch as this could stop any router confusion.