am having an issue connecting to servers(any) and more specifically my own server that I have made for me and my family to play on.

the setup

my workstation computer I have VMware workstation 8, in which one of the VMs running on it is a minecraft server with 8gb ram, 4 cores

all of my kids computers(4) and wife's computer connect no problem, my laptop also has no problem, but trying to play from my workstation doesn't work

currently have firewall turned off on both my workstation and the server VM(still protected from the3 outside world by fortiGATE hardware firewall

I always get a java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: no further information



I have tried it with different settings, clean installs of latest java 64 and 32 bit, different memory settings for jvm arguments from -Xmx1G at the low end to -Xmx32G at the high end(when using 64bit)

computer has more then enough power to run game, can run local game when the server is running in the VM with no lag, with a 512 texture pack running

computer has 96gb ram, 2x xeon 2687 v2 , 2x Radeon R9 290x
Server logs don't even show a connection attempt
Client error logs show:

[13:17:00] [Server Connector #1/ERROR]: Couldn't connect to server
java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: no further information: /10.1.1.99:25565
at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.checkConnect(Native Method) ~[?:1.8.0_05]
at sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.finishConnect(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_05]
at io.netty.channel.socket.nio.NioSocketChannel.doFinishConnect(NioSocketChannel.java:191) ~[netty-all-4.0.10.Final.jar:?]
at io.netty.channel.nio.AbstractNioChannel$AbstractNioUnsafe.finishConnect(AbstractNioChannel.java:228) ~[netty-all-4.0.10.Final.jar:?]
at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.processSelectedKey(NioEventLoop.java:497) ~[netty-all-4.0.10.Final.jar:?]
at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.processSelectedKeysOptimized(NioEventLoop.java:447) ~[netty-all-4.0.10.Final.jar:?]
at io.netty.channel.nio.NioEventLoop.run(NioEventLoop.java:341) ~[netty-all-4.0.10.Final.jar:?]
at io.netty.util.concurrent.SingleThreadEventExecutor$2.run(SingleThreadEventExecutor.java:101) ~[netty-all-4.0.10.Final.jar:?]
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) ~[?:1.8.0_05]