Port Forwarding: Need some help here!

[Mysterious Tree]

So to give context, I have a curse and I swear internet logic has it out for me.

My issue lies in the fact that I've tried port forwarding several times now, and literally none of it has ever gone smoothly. This is again one of those instances. I have successfully port forwarded once before for Minecraft but that was my only success and it took me like two weeks to figure out some invisible jester rule in my firewall was screwing stuff up.

Now here I am again with port 7777. I have done everything I should have. I've added this port under UDP protocol in my router, leaving the external IP empty, and my internal IP filled in with the one I already statically assigned before during Minecraft's shenanigans. I have also added the inbound allowance rule in my firewall for port 7777 on all areas under UDP (domain, public and private). The server also has this port set as 7777 in its startup batch file. But even with the server up and all of this in place, no website designed for checking this gives me a green flag saying my port is open.

I... really don't want to have to reset my firewall yet again. It would be the third time this installation that every program I have will ask for permissions again, not to mention adding in any custom rules I made again as well.

Is there anyone out there that's smarter than internet neanderthal me who could help? I could really use the assistance.

Edit: I should also mention that I have tried turning my firewall off already. And while this opens up Minecraft's port again (yippee going to have to fix that again too eventually so screw you future me), it doesn't seem to do anything for port 7777 despite these literally having the exact same rules in my router, except that Minecraft has both TCP and UDP protocols assigned, while this one is only UDP as mentioned before. Also, it is late here, so if whoever replies is multiple hours later than when this was posted I will probably not respond for half a day as my brain is toast and is succumbing to the whisperings of its bed.

[Vig]

Ok which country are you in and what router do you have, i.e is it supplied by your isp if so i struggled with mine for 6 months and it never played ball... i bought a new router and have never looked back it just works when you port forward wherebye the propriatry ISP one did not. When you set the ports on the server installation, mune always asks to allow the server through the firewall so i never have to manually do this. all that is set is the router forwarded... i use a range i.e 7777:7800 so that many maps/servers are configured in one go i do the same for Rcon

[Mysterious Tree]

I currently don't use RCON as I host from my own computer, and my current router, while I don't know its model, I know it can port forward as I've done so with port 25565 successfully.

I will also say that this issue... seems to have just magically disappeared? I figured I would test if I could join because why the hell not and I honestly should've before posting this (my bad). And despite the websites that can check for open ports saying my port is closed harder than a pickle jar, my Ark client could join the server without any hassle using the external address. So ??? I guess.

God internet is freaking stupid

[Vig]

lol Glad u resolved

[Vig]

if ya ever want to join a friendly 9 map cluster then you are welcome just press unofficial and search for BigPond

[Mysterious Tree]

I'm not really comfortable playing with unknowns, but thank you nonetheless for the offer :)
Right now this server I'm hosting is just to play with a friend and nothing else