I know a lot of people have gotten CL_ParsePacketEntities errors and have been wondering what it means and how to fix it. I don't know the former, but if you're the user of a Linksys Cable/DSL Router or a user of a Linksys Network Everywere NIC, I may have some help for the latter.
Part I
One of my friends owns a Linksys 4-Port Cable/DSL router and has had problems playing when he is creating a server. After a very short time, the game will bomb all of the clients back to the main menu with the dreaded CL_ParsePacketEntities error.
At first glance, I thought he may have forgotten to set up port forwarding or DMZ, but it dawned on me that had he not done that, no one would be able to connect.
My next step of thought was to upgrade the firmware on the router. Alas, updating the firmware to the latest version did not help.
Finally, after reading all of the various 'help me' threads regarding the error, I decided maybe it was some other piece of hardware causing the problem (I know, for a fact, he doesn't use a cd-crack). Thus, I asked him to bring his machine and his router over to my home so we could test them and troubleshoot on my home network.
Lo and behold! The moment I attempted to host a game from my machine, not his, with the Linksys router on the network: CL_ParsePacketEntities error. He has since gotten a new cable/dsl router and hasn't had a single problem hosting games.
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Part II
Another of my friends recently built a new machine. He was playing on various public servers and was getting random CL_ParsePacketEntities errors.
This was a pain, at first, because I was thinking it could have been a problem on any of the remote connections. However, I had him bring his machine over so I could take a look and make sure he had all of the correct drivers and did not have any silly cd-cracks. All of his drivers were in order and he had no cd-cracks.
We plugged the machine up to my LAN and I tried hosting up a local game. Lo and behold: the dreaded CL_ParsePacketEntities error box appeared on his screen.
At this point I'm a little frustrated for what could be causing the problem, though I'm thinking it could be a piece of his hardware. Logically, it would make sense to take out the NIC card and swap it with another one since the error is on a net based game, so, naturally that was the last thing that hit my mind.
We yanked his network card, which was a Linksys Network Everywhere 10/100BaseTX card, and replaced it with a CompUSA el cheapo that had a Realtek 8139 chipset. He had no problems connecting to the local game, and, so far, he has had no problem connecting and playing through the zone or through public servers.
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I don't know if this is much of a help to people, but I wanted to share it because if it helps even one person avoid the same frustration, the space it consumes on the forums is worth it.
The Linksys router issue really bugs me because that's not exactly a cheap piece of equipment and if people who have Linksys routers have the same issue, they'd have to fork out the cash to buy another cable/dsl router.