Right. I have a VPN connection at my new place, and seems like Live can't cope with it. My Xbox is unmodded. I initially tried connecting the box to the wall socket, and it got IP and DNS addresses through PPPoE, which means it got through the troubleshooting checklist all the way to the last one, "Xbox Live not available" or something like that. I assume that the Xbox can't open VPN tunnels? Then I thought to try connecting it through my PC, but I'm now clueless. Is it possible? If it is, how should I configure the cards? I thought of forwarding the ports Xbox uses through the another NIC which is connected to the net. The problem is that I can connect to the net using the VPN with either NIC, but I only get a "network cable not attached" when I connect the Xbox to another NIC with a crosswired cable. I thought that I shouldn't get that error message even if I haven't configured anything yet. The cable seems to be functional, too. And now when I tried to connect the Xbox straight to the wall socket again, it couldn't even get the IP and DNS addresses anymore. So, basically, am I trying something that is not possible? And could I have broken the Xbox ethernet port when I was toying around with the cables, because the PPPoE no longer worked as much as yesterday? I was told that it could possibly work if I bought a router that can open VPN connections. I'd just like a cheaper solution... Unless I broke something already. :/
I don't anticipate the VPN in and of itself being a problem. All a VPN is is a Virtual Private Network. Basically a network in a network. I am a little confused on what exactly you are trying to do. But from what I gather, my advice to you would be if you can't get an IP and ping your box, you'll never be able to play on live. Some more detail on your configuration and I could be a little more helpful.
It seems like I have two problems here. First, Xbox Live refused to work even when I plugged it directly into the ethernet socket. I was told that Xbox cannot itself open VPN tunnels. It was able to acquire DNS and IP addresses via PPPoE in here, but could not reach Live. I assume that the problem indeed lies in the VPN. Secondly, I tried to route the Xbox through my PC which has two NICs. The first one which connects to the internet with the VPN connection, the other one which was supposed to connect the Xbox to my PC. I planned to route Xbox's internet traffic via my computer and a port mapper. The problem there was that I got a "cable not attached" error between the Xbox and the PC. Tried both normal and crosswired cables. No more obscure configurations in here besides that. This PC is now connected to the ethernet socket of my room, no routers or switches at the moment. Like already said, Live didn't work even when I plugged it straight to the wall socket, without the PC in between. I scourged through numerous tutorials on connecting the Xbox to a PC, but they all assumed that the Xbox was modded. Should it be possible to create the connection with an unmodded box?
This is correct, you will not be able to open a VPN tunnel from your Xbox. For some reason I assumed that you still had a direct internet connection. Silly me. You should be able to do internet connection sharing if you are using XP. I am not sure if older Windows OS's have it. Otherwise you'll have to use some kind of proxy software. One question I have is how do you know you are getting an IP on the Xbox without it being modded. Oh, and you will have to use a crossover cable to connect from your xbox directly to your pc's nic. Then you'll have to staticly assign an IP to your nic and your xbox. Unless, of course, you are running some kind of dhcp server software on your pc.
Yeh, forgot to mention that I am currently using Xp. That is what I have been trying to figure out. Apparently that isn't possible. So, basically my best (if not only) shot would be buying a router which is capable of opening VPN tunnels?
