My friends can't connect to my server but I can.

Hello, recently I decided to make a Minecraft server. I obviously used Bukkit's instructions and followed a YouTube tutorial just to be safe. Now it seems that I've set everything up correctly except for my ports. I can connect to my server just fine (yes, I click multiplayer and added the server). The odd thing is that when I give my friends my IP to join the server, they can't see the server as online.

I'm willing to post my batch file and server.properties file if I have to, but help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Note: My router is a DGND3700v2. I have a static IP address (confirmed by Portfowarding.com's application). I also recently just figured out my port (25565) isn't open (confirmed by many different sources).

 

Did you portforward?

 

Yes, I followed Portforward.com's instructions on how to portfoward on my router. The problem with that is that they didn't use my particular router, just another Netgear router, so I'm not particularly sure I did it correctly.

 

Whats the ip?

 

portforward.com advertise their port checker tool that you can download. It will tell you if a certain port is open.

 

Yeah, I downloaded that last night and checked. It said my ports weren't open on my external IP.

Also, is the server supposed to be run from my external IP that I see when I go to portfoward.com's home page or user their port checker? Because if so, the way that I connect to my server is through a different IP (the one I see when I type ipconfig in command prompt). I tried with my external IP, but no luck.

 

Yeh, you use the external IP for your friends to connect.
Have you set your computer's settings to a manual local IP? If your computer is connected via WiFi then your local IP could changed.

Are you using a static external IP? Many internet providers don't give any static IPs to residential plans. This means that your external IP might have changed. You can use services like no-ip.org if you need a temporary one. I think you can even set it up with a custom domain so you have a web-address style IP.

I have a netgear router and you have to setup a service then add a firewall rule (it's way of portforwarding). That sound similar maybe? In the firewall rule I had to allow incoming and outgoing connections to my LOCAL IP.

Other than that I'm really not sure :/

 

Yep, I'm using a static IP. I was doing some testing earlier and I set up a service and firewall rule (inbound/outbound) for my local IP (I'm assuming the local IP is the one I see in command prompt).

I now added both the local and external IPs to the server list in Minecraft and I can see both as online, but still nobody can connect. I used Portforward.com's application, though, and it still says that my ports are closed. I'm starting to think this may be an ISP issue.