Problems Joining Games Using Internet Connection Sharing This article was written about products for which Microsoft no longer offers support. Therefore, this article is offered "as is" and will no longer be updated.
This article was previously published under Q236429 SYMPTOMS
When you try to join a multiple-player game on the Internet, you may receive an error message, the connection may time out, or you may be connected but not be able to see, or be seen by, the other players. For example, when you try to join a multiple-player game on Zone.com, you may receive the following error message:
Error, can not initialize lobby connection.
CAUSE
This behavior can occur if your computer is on a network that connects to the Internet using an Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) host or any other Network Address Translation-based (NAT) solution.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, disable ICS, and then connect each computer to the Internet. For information about how to disable ICS, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 230112 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/230112/EN-US/) How to Disable Internet Connection Sharing
MORE INFORMATION
NAT technology sends requests from computers connected to an ICS host as if those requests were coming from the same computer. This behavior prevents two computers, including the ICS host, from joining the same multiple-player game on the same Web site. This behavior can also occur if an Internet game is hosted by a client computer on an ICS network. For example, assume that an ICS network has an ICS host, Client 1, and Client 2. When Client 1 hosts a multiple-player game, neither the ICS host nor Client 2 can join the game. However, you can play the game on a typical local area network (LAN) without encountering this issue.
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