Setting up UPnP

Universal Plug And Play (UPnP) is a technology to allow, among other things, Internet applications to configure home routers and gateways, bypassing manual port forwarding configuration. UPnP was introduced in Windows XP and is supported in that and later versions, including Windows Server 2003. To take advantage of UPnP, you must have support enabled in Windows and UPnP capable hardware (typically a broadband router using NAT traversal). If you meet both of these requirements, setting up DC++ is normally a simple process. UPnP support is only in DC++ 0.4033 and later.

To enable UPnP on DC++, open the Settings panel, select Advanced, scroll down to the bottom, enable "Use UPnP Control". Restart DC++.  If your UPnP system is setup correctly, DC++ will now automatically create the required port mappings for DC++ to operate in Active Mode. It will also detect your external IP address, and switch into Active Mode.

Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble getting this all to work (or see messages in the DC++ system.log like "Failed To Create Port Mappings"), and you are sure you meet the minimum requirements mentioned above, firstly, download a UPnP diagnostic tool. The recommended one is Mark Gillespie's UPnP test tool . This program will tell you what network interfaces on your computer support UPnP. If none of your network interfaces are reporting UPnP capabilities, try the following suggestions:

1. Ensure your UPnP hardware has the UPnP service switched on (some routers default to off), consult your manufacturer's documentation.
2. Ensure Windows UPnP services (Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services) are running. "Universal Plug and Play Device Host" and "SSDP Discovery Service". Both of these XP services should be set to "Automatic" startup and "Started" status:
3. Switch on the UPnP User Interface. To do this: Open "My Network Places", and in the Network Tasks Panel, select "Show icons for networked UPnP devices".
4. Reboot both your PC and your UPnP device (router).
5. If the diagnostic tool is still not reporting any UPnP devices, considering more drastic actions like upgrading your router firmware, as many routers have UPnP implementation bugs.
6. If you do not see your router as a network device in "My Network Places" after several minutes, UPnPTest will fail to create an UPnP mapping to the router, resulting in something looking like: INFO: Adapter #0 - 192.168.8.17 - UPnP Disabled. Make sure the windows firewall or your third party firewall is not blocking UPnP packets. To do this, go to Control Panels -> Windows Firewall -> Advanced Tab -> Security Logging -> Settings. Enable Log Dropped Packets. The log file is located at: C:\WINDOWS\pfirewall.log If you see any packets being dropped with the port 1900 or 2869, the the firewall is misconfigured and is preventing UPnP from working.

If you have done all of this, and are still having UPnP problems, send me an email, I will try to help. mark.gillespie@gmail.com

Very important note: I will ignore ALL support requests from people who have not tried the above troubleshooting tips and do not provide at minimum the following information:

What steps you have already done.
Your UPnP device model number and firmware version.
Your operating system and service pack level.
What firewall you are using (if any).