Factorio Forums

I only get the typical ''can't connect'' error message, no details. I can't join ANY games at all. I used to be able to. Maybe this home has a problem with port forwarding, I never had to do it up until now. The problem is that I have ZERO chance to configure the router at this home. Besides using a 3rd party program, anyone has any suggestions?

I assume you use Windows. So check if your home network is marked as a private network, as the windows firewall might block access if you are connected to a “public” network.
And check any firewall application you may have, those may block the network traffic.

I assume you use the Steam version.
Try this:
Grab the DRM-free version from the factorio homepage download section and run that to host a server in your local network.
(As far as I know, Steam prevents running multiple instances, so you need this for this test.)

Then try to connect to that server using a direct IP connection to localhost or 127.0.0.1
If that doesn’t work, something is horribly wrong with your network setup that need to be fixed.

Next, try running the server on either a bridged virtual machine or a second pc/laptop on your network, if available.
If that works, great, your local network is functional and you can continue looking at the connection to the outer internet.

Thanks for the tips, I still can't join games. I tried with my phone hotspot so I assume it's probably from my laptop, not the router (maybe).

I also noticed that I can join games with a dedicated server like "comfy" games but if it's a random person, I can't join, any ideas why this is happening?

p.s. can you confirm, I should mark my network as public?

See 52433.