[Virtual Machine] ~ "Your protocol version is different"

[Zehryo]

Hi everybody.

I have no L2j versions to provide, because I dont have my own server....yet. But I'm planning a small machine to play with few friends and the problem I'm facing these days might come up later.

The problem is all about the famous error message that goes "Your protocol version is different....". Well, actually, usually it ends with "please continue", while mine says "please restart your client and run a full update". Which I did, btw.
This small difference aside, this error is driving me crazy! >.<

The thread's title says "Virtual Machine", so here comes the whole situation.

I'm playing on a private server with its customized system folder. They provide an installer which adds a (customized as well) launcher which, in turn, updates the system folder automatically to the latest revision every time you run it.
Everything works like a charm, no problems whatsoever. Until I tried to run it on a VMWare Workstation virtual machine.

The VMWare version is one of the latest (10.x) and I've installed Windows 7 Ulti x64 on it. It's bare, just the minimum required to make it run (but 4GBs RAM) plus vcredist 2010, .net framework 4, Firefox, VLC, WinRAR and Microsoft Security Essentials. Firewall is off.
The virtual network adapter is set as bridged, which gives me a direct access to the router as well as a LAN IP which I can ping from the host system and everything.
3D options are ON and the log-in screen looks perfect, no artifacts nor any other kind of graphical problems. The only note, if it's even worth to be mentioned at all, is that I get a message box telling me AGP is not available (although DXDiag says otherwise), but I just have to click OK and everything works fine.

So I log-in and get to the server list, smooth. I select the server, click to connect and.....I get disconnected. And at the bottom of the screen I see a message saying my protocol version is different.

Thus obviously I've spent like over an hour (if not two or three) googling around. When it wasnt about botting, most of the forum threads were abandoned, seemingly before the issue got to any working solution.
I did stumble on the "-L2ProtocolVersion" parameter method, which I've performed with the shocking, and yet quite obvious, result that both my host and guest systems' L2 client use the exact same protocol number. Not a hard guess, since I just copied the game folder from host to guest, right?

Just to be sure everything was up to date and not corrupted, I've even completely deleted the system folder and let the game launcher re-download it over again. Nothing done.

So we have:
- L2 client on the host physical machine: works perfectly
- L2 client on the guest virtual machine: protocol version error
- both clients show the same -L2ProtocolVersion number
- the virtual machine has a bridged network connection
- the guest system has no firewall on
- the guest system has barely anything installed
- the guest system's internet connection works perfectly
- trace-routing the game server gives the same result from both the machines
- telnet-ing the log-in and game server ports gives the same result from both the machines
- pings from the guest machine are just 3-4ms higher than host machine
- host's network traffic monitor/limiter software reveals both host and guest game instances connect to the same IPs and ports

I cant really think about anything else that could tell me where the problem resides. Any help or idea is very welcome.

Thank you.

[AntV]

Issues with VMs and L2 are not at all uncommon, I've been struggling with them for years.
Since you checked and both the client version and the needed client version, there is a chance the server has some sort of anti-bot system that understands the virtual machine as a bot and returns an error that is translated as a wrong protocol error. (I have seen this before, my best guess is it doesn't like the fact the graphic card or some other hardware part is emulated)
That is why you run into many bot talk threads when searching for a solution.

The only option I can recomend for such a case is dual booting.
You could also try to talk with the server's administrator to figure this out, but I wouldn't have high hopes in managing to solve this.

[Zealar]

Do you try VirtualBox (oracle one) ?

Also what about connect normal not protected server still same?

[Zehryo]

Issues with VMs and L2 are not at all uncommon, I've been struggling with them for years.
Since you checked and both the client version and the needed client version, there is a chance the server has some sort of anti-bot system that understands the virtual machine as a bot and returns an error that is translated as a wrong protocol error. (I have seen this before, my best guess is it doesn't like the fact the graphic card or some other hardware part is emulated)
That is why you run into many bot talk threads when searching for a solution.

The only option I can recomend for such a case is dual booting.
You could also try to talk with the server's administrator to figure this out, but I wouldn't have high hopes in managing to solve this.

Well, dual-booting is not an option, since the point is playing L2 on a system that is not meant be used for games without having to dual-boot or mess up system configurations.
Making the game, as well as anything related to it, run in a virtual machine has, to me, the only purpose of keeping the host system "clean".
But it could also be a good method to workaround certain OS's (read: server versions) limitations.

So....VM or death! ^o^

[Zehryo]

Do you try VirtualBox (oracle one) ?

Also what about connect normal not protected server still same?

Havent tried any, to be honest.

Oracle's VM is totally new, to me, while testing the VMWare machine on another server sounds more effort taking than I planned. ^^'

But I guess trying Oracle's solution wont kill me. I'll let you know, but still, if anybody has any other idea on possible causes and solutions, they're very welcome. =)

Thank you. ^^

[Zealar]

Don't forget dualbox can be protected from server side too and there is not easy solution for it. Btw server protection bypass is not this community goal.

[Zehryo]

Don't forget dualbox can be protected from server side too and there is not easy solution for it. Btw server protection bypass is not this community goal.

I doubt it's a matter of multi-box protections. Every time I try to log-in there's always only one client active, which is the virtual machine's one. =o
And anyway, for what I remember, the server I'm playing on at the moment has a limit of two boxes. ^.^

[AntV]

You've got it wrong.
The servers anti-bot script translates your VM as a bot due to parts of your computer being emulated.

[UnAfraid]

**** does such stuff and this is not the place to discourse it.

[Zehryo]

Oracle VirtualBox proved to be full of problems. Latest version has problems with Windows VMs so I had to install the version before. Windows 7 installation hangs at the files expansion phase. In Windows XP, VB's "additions" is supposed to automatically install drivers for virtual peripherals, but fails miserably, so I cant get the network card to work.

In the end, that is not a viable solution at all, it seems!! >.<

[UnAfraid]

Oracle VirtualBox proved to be full of problems. Latest version has problems with Windows VMs so I had to install the version before. Windows 7 installation hangs at the files expansion phase. In Windows XP, VB's "additions" is supposed to automatically install drivers for virtual peripherals, but fails miserably, so I cant get the network card to work.

In the end, that is not a viable solution at all, it seems!! >.<

Never had issues with Virtual Box neither with last version.

[Zehryo]

Oracle VirtualBox proved to be full of problems. Latest version has problems with Windows VMs so I had to install the version before. Windows 7 installation hangs at the files expansion phase. In Windows XP, VB's "additions" is supposed to automatically install drivers for virtual peripherals, but fails miserably, so I cant get the network card to work.

In the end, that is not a viable solution at all, it seems!! >.<

Never had issues with Virtual Box neither with last version.

Lucky you, what combo of VirtualBox/Windows/Host system do you have?

[UnAfraid]

Oracle VirtualBox proved to be full of problems. Latest version has problems with Windows VMs so I had to install the version before. Windows 7 installation hangs at the files expansion phase. In Windows XP, VB's "additions" is supposed to automatically install drivers for virtual peripherals, but fails miserably, so I cant get the network card to work.

In the end, that is not a viable solution at all, it seems!! >.<

Never had issues with Virtual Box neither with last version.

Lucky you, what combo of VirtualBox/Windows/Host system do you have?

Windows 7 Ultimate + Virtual Box that's all

[Zehryo]

[....]
Windows 7 Ultimate + Virtual Box that's all

What version of VB? And what host OS? =o