LAN game stuck on joining lobby

[Sir Travelot]

My wife and I play Civ6 via LAN regularly, but today we can't join a game anymore. This happens with a new lobby or a loaded save, with either PC hosting. We've restarted the router and both PCs.

At the "Retrieving Host Information" step, the game just sits there until it times out with a "failed to join" error.

Oddly, after each failed attempt (or just running the game?), when we verify the local files, 3 files have to be reacquired (If I verify twice in a row, the second attempt returns no errors).

Any ideas, folks? I'm completely at a loss as to what the culprit could be. We were playing last night, and wake up this morning and we can't play anymore :(

[Sir Travelot]

Oh, I should add:
We can play any other game over LAN just fine today.
We can also play civ6 via internet (but slow compared to LAN)

[tempest.of.emptiness]

That pattern (three local files that have to be reacquired after a file verification) is associated with either Windows or Anti-Virus software interfering with game files. Windows will do this as part of its UAC protection system, which protects files in specific folders from being changed. Anti-Virus software will do the same sort of thing, but in any location that hasn't been specifically permitted to allow changes.

To stop your Anti-Virus software from bothering Civ VI, you'll need to add the game installation folder to the white list for your AV software. This tells the software not to try to prevent changes to files in that location.

To stop Windows from bothering Civ VI, the "simple" way is to make sure that the game is installed to a location that Windows will not try to protect. For example, most programs like to install themselves into either the "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)" folder, both of which Windows protects. This includes Steam, and then once Steam is installed there all of your Steam games will be as well (by default they are installed into subfolders in the location Steam was installed).

To prevent Windows from interfering with any of your games, you could uninstall them and then reinstall them to another location that Windows does not protect. For example, you could create a "Games" folder on your storage device and then install your games there. In the case of Steam, you'd want to uninstall it and then reinstall it to the folder you created, then reinstall all of your Steam games. Naturally this is a hassle, but it will prevent this sort of thing from being an issue with any of your games.

I would suggest starting with adding the game folder to your AV software's white list, because if that fixes the problem then you might not have to move the game to another location.

Note that this will fix the problem with the files not verifying due to having been reverted to old versions by your AV software or Windows - which may fix your problem joining multiplayer games, *if* that is the cause of it. It is also possible that this symptom is not related to the underlying cause of your inability to join games, in which case further troubleshooting would be required.

[Sir Travelot]

That reply is so hecking helpful, thank you! We're on the case...

[Sir Travelot]

OK, I whitelisted the game and launchpad in AV software, and it's already installed to a different physical drive than windows in a steam library folder. The error is still present on both PCs.

The three files being reacquired are segments.bin, dnacontext.bin, and products.bin in the launchpad folder. I'll do some google-fu.