Solving Connection timed out Error The Isle Evrima Dedicated Server

The client server architecture

For a server/client connection to work(the client being the game itself) , a server has to bind a an ip address. The isle server binds to the local network address, for example “192.168.1.100”. This local address is tied to a computer/server. Everyone with an internet connection has this “LAN” with a collection of IP addresses that are typically in the same format, but can be different. In a Local network we can easily connect between devices because everyone has a unique IP and there is no firewall. BUT, the Isle dedicated server is meant to be ran publicly with outside access. Others can’t use our LAN ip address, so our server advertises its “public” ip address to the server list.

When someone sees your server, They attempt to connect to the public ip address advertised by your server, which is sent out over yourservers Query port(typically 7778)

The client attempts to connect via your Game Server Port(typically 7777), which has the public IP address, and manages what goes “inside” to the local area network, and where it goes.

The router checks the incoming connections port to see if it has any forwarding rules, and if it does, it sends the connection to the ip address you have forwarded (your isle server)

Back to the problem

As you can see in the error message, the users client failed to connect. We see the IP address and the port. What could this mean? Well our game client could not connect. But notice this is your networks public ip address that is being advertised by your server, not the private address that you need to use within your local network. So that leads us to 3 possible issues you are having.

Your router doesn’t have Hairpinning enabled.

You’re game client is grabbing the public IP address, but you need to connect to a device in the local are network (your own computer or another inside your home). In this case, most modern routers have something called “Hairpinning” enabled, but some don’t, and in that case, you won’t be able to do this. The resolution here is to run the server in a place other than your local network, enable hairpinning on your router, or buy a router that supports it. You can also try to use a VPN on your game computer, and then try to connect, so that you go out, and then back inside your network, using your public IP. Other than that, there is no way to direct 1 IP to another on windows.

“NAT hairpinning, also known as NAT loopback or NAT reflection,^[23] is a feature in many consumer routers^[24] where a machine on the LAN is able to access another machine on the LAN via the external IP address of the LAN/router”.

You are forwarding your Query port, but not the game port.

In this case, your server is being listed, but the client can’t connect because the actual game server port is blocked. Your resolution here is checking https://canyouseeme.org/ with port “7777” If it failed, the port is blocked at either your router, or computer/server firewall. If this fails, please don’t spam dedicated server hosting communities with issues involving port forwarding. It over shadows people with real issues, and can usually be resolved with a few google searches.

The Server has an internal issue that caused the game thread to fail.

This can be identified by red text within the console. This is the least likely issue, but looks for an error indicating that the game server listen port (usually 7777) failed to find to an interface. In this case, something on the computer your server is running on is currently using that port. This can be identified by viewing the “resource monitor” in windows, and checking the tcp bind section to see if a program is using port 7777/7778. If it is , stop it and try again.

Anyways, I’ll be linking this back to those that have issues.