Emulator

Game Name?

Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution

Game ID? (right click the game in the game list, Properties, Info tab)

GPSE8P

MD5 Hash? (right click the game in the game list, Properties, Verify tab, Verify Integrity button)

c0d2c8a25b12249ee70c5655b2270069

What's the problem? Describe what went wrong.

Normally when using the tapless BBA to connect to an external DNS server, 99% of users do not have any issues.

However, certain users appear unable to connect to the chosen DNS server through Dolphin, regardless of DNS server choice (SCHTServ.com's, Sylverant.net's, or private newserv instances), and will always get an error 102. This is strange because connecting to the IP address directly in a web browser works perfectly fine, which would indicate there doesn't seem to be any sort of blocking.

Through wireshark logs (posted below), it appears they are hitting some sort of DNS server for the chosen IP address, but a bogus response is received and server logs for the DNS server itself show they never connected to the desired destination.

Interestingly, if the user changes their network to something like a mobile hotspot, they are able to connect to the DNS server fine and be re-routed to the game server. While this possibly indicates it is not an issue with Dolphin, what exactly could be causing this issue? Users are at a loss as to how to fix this with their main network.

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. Set DNS server in Broadband Adapter (HLE) to chosen address.
2. Attempt to connect to online server in-game.
3. Immedately receive Error 102.

This is very difficult to reproduce as it only affects a small number of users with no obvious cause.

Is the issue present in the latest development version? For future reference, please also write down the version number of the latest development version.

Yes - 20207

Is the issue present in the latest stable version?

Yes - 19870

What are your PC specifications? (CPU, GPU, Operating System, more)

Windows 11 - not sure if anything else would be relevant

Is there anything else that can help developers narrow down the issue? (e.g. logs, screenshots,
configuration files, savefiles, savestates)

Here are a couple of Wireshark logs as to what is actually happening. 217.160.146.96 is the DNS server. It is always publicly accessible if anyone wants to try and reproduce.

9    2.079556    192.168.88.230    217.160.146.96    DNS    86    Standard query 0x0000 A gc01.st-pso.games.sega.net
10    2.080601    217.160.146.96    192.168.88.230    DNS    102    Standard query response 0x0000 A gc01.st-pso.games.sega.net A $IPADDRESS

$IPADDRESS is the user's own external IP address, a very strange DNS response.

4072    19.101516    192.168.5.192    217.160.146.96    DNS    86    Standard query 0x0000 A gc01.st-pso.games.sega.net
4084    19.169890    217.160.146.96    192.168.5.192    DNS    167    Standard query response 0x0000 No such name A gc01.st-pso.games.sega.net SOA ns-200.awsdns-25.com

Bogus response, as the DNS server that is meant to be connected to cannot return a DNS response of this type, and never with an SOA section.