PC Connecting To Game Issue

[AKaplan]

Whenever I join a game, about 95% of the time it will say "unable to join game" or the other 5 million ways of wording f*ck You, You Cant Connect To This.

When I connect sometimes it will load for a year and then put me in a empty lobby by myself.

When I get in and my friend gets in, either through server browser, Join Game in progress or Windows Live invites, he either cant get in or gets in and i'm booted out.

Vice versa also. He can get in most all games but when I join if i DO get in he gets booted.

We've tried staying off of the same ventrilo IP, to no avail.

I have forwarded the Windows Live Ports,

1096 which I was told to forward,

I have windows firewall and my avast! firewall/all protections off, and UPnP enabled.

I have tried accepting game invites and join-in-progress functions.

Sometimes I can re-connect to one i was booted from but it will say Already Kicked From Server.

I am on Fairpoint 3mb speeds DSL in NH, USA

Please don't tell me to forward more ports and do 50,000 things to my modem.

I don't have the patience any more, the game looked so fun and I bought it anticipating this.

I haven't been so frustrated at a game in years.

HELP PLEASE,

[Vinny]

Usually things like appearing in a room by yourself means that you either joined after the game started, or after the game ended. Also, booting eachother out can just be the result of haveing the same IP address, in other words 2 computers may not be able to play if they are both connected through the same internet connection. Online Multiplayer isn't perfect, Rockstar Games didn't even create it. It was originally created as a mod, and later adapted by Rockstar because of how popular it became.