Wii Wifi Woes

[Breaker]

I can't for the life of me get Nintendo's Wifi to work right. I have a wireless router and my Xbox 360 works absolutely fine, but whenever I try to connect to people with the Wii it NEVER works. NiGHTS, Super Smash Brothers, etc. Are there ports that need to be opened for the Wii? Is it just the built-in wireless that sucks? I've been considering buying one of those ethernet adapters and trying to run it that way so that it's wired. Has anybody else had the same troubles and gotten it to work? Thanks.

[MottZilla]

I don't know specifically about the Wii and online play but you have to assume there are ports that it wants open/forwarded to it. I think UPnP is supposed to have something to do with automatically configuring stuff. But I'm not too clear on that.

My Xbox 360 will have problems (NAT will be restricted) unless I set the Xbox 360's IP to be the DMZ. This enables it to have access to all ports incoming and outgoing. This makes the NAT open and I have no problems connecting to others.

[Breaker]

The thing that sucks about that is that I have an iPhone and two laptops which always fuck it up. I can't have a single dedicated local IP set to DMZ because the 360, iPhone, and laptops are constantly switching addresses when they're turned off and on. I'm not sure how to fix that.

[vegeta1215]

I have my computer (which plugs into a wireless bridge which connects to our wireless router) set to use a manual IP address, which is just a few numbers below the DHCP starting address on our router. Works great. I can print and ftp between computers without having to change settings since the addresses don't change. You may want to give that a try.

I had my Wii connecting straight to my wireless router, and it worked well despite being nearly out of range. I bought the lan adapter and now plug my Wii into the same wireless bridge as my computer, and it works fine for online play, but Wii Connect 24 is finicky. It probably works better if you're plugging directly into the router connected to your DSL/Cable modem though.

[MottZilla]

You should be able to set them to a static IP. The 360 can as I had to do that to make it DMZ.

[Mak-X]

Try opening up all UDP ports for your Wii in your wireless router.

When I first got Smash Bros. I thought my internet wasn't working but it was just the servers. Eventually, I just set the wireless connection to Auto assign an IP address after trying it manually.

Can you get online with Smash Bros. at all to the match screen?

[Breaker]

Try opening up all UDP ports for your Wii in your wireless router.

When I first got Smash Bros. I thought my internet wasn't working but it was just the servers. Eventually, I just set the wireless connection to Auto assign an IP address after trying it manually.

Can you get online with Smash Bros. at all to the match screen?

Yes, but I have never been able to connect to anybody. It stays on the waiting for people to join screen until it times out.

[Radium]

Just shut off the router's built in firewall and disable wireless security. Bam! Wifi suddenly works for everything perfectly.

[AlexMax]

You should be able to set them to a static IP. The 360 can as I had to do that to make it DMZ.

for future reference, this is a terrible idea especially if your router hands out dynamic IP's.

if your router supports upnp there should be no reason you should ever have to enable the DMZ, just find the upnp setting in your router preferences and tick it, you should get an 'open' connection without any further configuration.

[Breaker]

for future reference, this is a terrible idea especially if your router hands out dynamic IP's.

if your router supports upnp there should be no reason you should ever have to enable the DMZ, just find the upnp setting in your router preferences and tick it, you should get an 'open' connection without any further configuration.

Right, I'm not completely ignorant of port forwarding my router... my 360 has always been "Open", as I've forwarded the ports that it needs, but I still can't get a connection with the Wii. I'm not sure which ports the Wii needs and can't find a straight answer online.

[MottZilla]

for future reference, this is a terrible idea especially if your router hands out dynamic IP's.

if your router supports upnp there should be no reason you should ever have to enable the DMZ, just find the upnp setting in your router preferences and tick it, you should get an 'open' connection without any further configuration.

My router lets all my devices specify their IP, if not it will give it one. If your router can't do this that isn't my fault and sounds pretty shitty.

[AtmaWeapon]

My Wii is in my routers DMZ with a static IP and I still can only connect to friends when I play SSB:B. The rumor I'm seeing around the internet is some recent system update really broke some people's connectivity, but of course there's no official statement on that. I've ticked just about every option in my router trying to get better results, and I'm content to blame the failure on Nintendo at this point.

[Flash Man]

For all my devices on my network I specify an IP Address for each MAC Address. Usually you will have to do this in both the router and on the unit. Specifically on the wireless section I only allow the MAC Addresses for my wireless units.

If you cannot specify static IP Addresses with your router then you should look into changing the lease time for each IP Address. This means each device can keep their IP Address for a longer time, even if they disconnect.

Like everyone else said UPNP should definitely be enabled on your router. If you post what type of router you have I could look into it more and specifically tell you what you need to do.

I had absolutely no issues with my Wii's wireless. I have not specifically tried any games on the Internet though. The only thing that I use my Wii's networking capabilities for are the basic Nintendo functions: WiiWare, Virtual Console, the Mii voting channel and some other channel. Although this seems like it should be sufficient enough to say that my Wii works on the Internet.

Interesting that everyone seems to put their Xbox 360 into the DMZ. I use mine just fine via Xbox Live. I only go on there to download games, and use the XNA Game Launcher. It does not seem to have a problem. I do not usually play games online though; I do not have any to play online.

[firebug]

What OS Does your host computer run? Windows Vista absolutely would not let me connect my Wii. Wired, Nintendo wifi usb, wireless router... It would allow me to set up the connection, and would tell me it was working, but wouldn't actually connect to anything. Eventually I just 'upgraded' back to XP, and everything worked like a charm.

[ctrl-alt-delete]

What OS Does your host computer run? Windows Vista absolutely would not let me connect my Wii. Wired, Nintendo wifi usb, wireless router... It would allow me to set up the connection, and would tell me it was working, but wouldn't actually connect to anything. Eventually I just 'upgraded' back to XP, and everything worked like a charm.

That very same shit was happening to me.

[obi]

Right, I'm not completely ignorant of port forwarding my router... my 360 has always been "Open", as I've forwarded the ports that it needs, but I still can't get a connection with the Wii. I'm not sure which ports the Wii needs and can't find a straight answer online.

This might help (from Nintendo.com (http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/onlineFirewall.jsp)),



TCP:
Allow traffic to all destinations on ports: 28910, 29900, 29901, 29920, 80, and 443

UDP:
Allow all traffic to all destinations. (Necessary for peer-to-peer connections and game play). Our Network Test tool can be used from a computer behind your firewall to test if outbound UDP is allowed.

[Breaker]

Thanks Obi! I'll do this and see if I can get it working.

[obi]

S'alright, hope it does the trick.

[Breaker]

You know, my router is password protected and I just realized I've never had to enter any network information or a password when mith my Wii... I'm thinking it might be trying to connect to somebody else's unprotected wifi and that's why it's so shitty and can't connect to anything.

[obi]

Now that would be funny

[Breaker]

Grr... if anyone wants to help me test out Super Smash Brothers Brawl and play a match or two, send me a PM or an IM (BKTecra) with your numbers.

[Nicholas Steel]

bump for if anyone is still having a problem, the Nintendo Wii does NOT require ANY port forwarding. Just make sure you have the name of the connection + the security ID code. If you wanted you could make it use a static IP ("default router" = "gateway").

[AtmaWeapon]

Also I remember at some point after the I had to change the channel on my router; for some reason nothing worked until I picked a different one.

[ctrl-alt-delete]

Also I remember at some point after the I had to change the channel on my router; for some reason nothing worked until I picked a different one.

Routers should almost always be set to channel 1 or 11...they seem to work the best for everything.

[Nicholas Steel]

Mines set to channel 6 (default) and works fine. changing channels affects frequency right?

[gdorf]

Yeah. The only reason you should have to change the channel on your router is if you get interference from other appliances in the house.

My portable phone also operates in the 2.4ghz frequencies and my microwave effects some of the channls. Over time I've found that channel 2 works best for me. :shrug:

[Nicholas Steel]

I let my router auto detect and it suggested Channel 11, so I manually configured it to it... don't want it changing channels during a game :P