Port Forwarding doesn't work

[Alastaire4u]

Hello, Rogers community!

So before writing this thread, I checked the forums and while there were numerous similar topics brought up, I haven't really found a clear, consistent answer and a solution. I have installed the XFinity App on my phone, followed all the steps, found my computer on the wi-fi web (apparently some other people have an issue with this because they don't see their computer) and specified a port number. Everything looks good judging by the app, but when I try to check whether my port is open through canyouseeme.org, the port is shown to be closed. 

Now, one thing that I would like to add is that I really would prefer not to go with the whole "bridge modem" solution because it's not that big of a deal, I just want to play some old video games with my friend through a program called "DoSBox", and it needs port forwarding. Can anyone help me out with advice to actually get the port opened? One person mentioned on the portforward issue threads that maybe the port is still closed because somebody from Rogers has to actually do something on their end?

Thank you in advance for any advice

[Alastaire4u]

Since I see that there are no replies, I must ask two additional questions. 

So this might sound as an ironic question but it's not, Im just genuinely curious... What is the point of adding the "Port Forwarding" option into the Rogers Xfinity App if it literally doesn't work for anyone? I've read numerous threads on the Rogers Reddit community and about half a dozen threads here and the situation is very obvious - this feature doesn't work for if not everyone, then definitely for most users. I understand that the advice that people get is "get your own router" - which is understandable... But if that's the case, why even include the option to port forward through the Xfinity App in the first place, if it doesn't work?

The second question that I have might require a seperate thread but in a nutshell, if you connect your own router and do the whole bridge mode thing with the gateway, how will that affect the numerous devices that are already connected to my wi-fi in the house? So if let's say I would get an Asus AX86 Pro (people tend to recommend this model often), do i need to have each device log into the wi-fi again with passwords and things like that? Im far from being a tech knowledgably person, but if its an easy process, then I could handle it.

[RogersMoin]

Hello, @Alastaire4u.

We welcome you to our Community and thank you for your post.

What ports are you trying forward? Opening up ports can be risky if you are not technically inclined. Please be cautious with port forwarding, as it can put your home network at risk.

Is the Advanced Security feature turned on? More info about Advanced Security: Turn on Advanced Security with Rogers Xfinity app.

If yes, you can turn it off and check the port you forwarded is open.

Regards,

RogersMoin

[Alastaire4u]

Hello, @RogersMoin - Thank you for the reply.

On the Rogers Xfinity App, Advanced Security is turned off by default from what I understand, and I never turned it on. I also followed the advice of one user on these forums and tried to temporarily turn off the firewall in the gateway options, unfortunately this brought no results whatsoever.

In terms of the ports that I tried opening - the software that needs them opened (DosBox) doesn't specify which port has to be opened, so I tried several 4 or 5 digit options just to see if it works, and none of them are shown as opened in the online port checker tool. I've also tried Rogers preset open ports for games like Minecraft and GTA V just to see if that would work - no dice, the ports are still closed.

[-G-]

@Alastaire4u Okay, but before you set up the port forward, you need to make sure that the software on your computer will accept network connections on that port, and that your computer's internal firewall also is not preventing your DOSBox emulator from initiating or receiving network connections.

Also, port forwarding on the Xfinity Gateway could be working exactly as you set it up... but if test sites, such as canyouseeme, cannot initiate a network connection and receive no error responses, they will assume and report that the port forward is not working.

What specific game are you trying to get online?

[-G-]

One other thing: if your game runs on DOS, and if it has LAN/multi-player support, it may only be able to do this with Novell NetWare / IPX.  According to the DOSBox manual, you first need to obtain and configure the required software to provide a working IPX network stack... and then you need to set up an IPX tunnel in DOSBox (setting up a tunnel is similar to setting up a VPN) to allow two computers to connect with each other over the Internet.

Novell NetWare's IPX/SPX and IP are two totally different network protocol suites.

[Alastaire4u]

@-G- Thank you for your replies, so to start things off:

I haven't tried using DoSBox yet after "opening the ports", I simply stopped at the point where I checked the websites such as canyouseeme, yougetsignal and a few others, and since they all stated that my ports are closed, I never bothered to test out DoSBox. My internal firewall I have disabled before the port forwarding attempt, both the gateway as I have mentioned, and the internal one on the PC - the websites were still showing ports as closed. In terms of software I really don't know what to say, whether its compatible or not, in order for the ports to be open. I do know that I have played DoSBox through their IPXNET on my actual network with no problems whatsoever (two PC's in one household), so I assume software wise it should be fine. 

Finally, I do realize that maybe the port is actually open but websites state its closed, although I doubt it - I can try to run DosBox through a port that I wanted to open to share the result