[HELP] Attempting to join my friends modded, non-dedicated server does nothing.

[CrystalMint]

I will be sitting at the main menu and either attempt to join via invite or via steam overlay and nothing happens. The main menu stays up and I'm able to interact with everything as normal, as though the attempt to join never even started.

After a moment however, a pop-up will appear to state "connection failed/timed out to host" with the option to accept or cancel. Neither of these options do anything.

Yes, I've got the correct mods installed. I have double and triple checked.
Yes, I have the map installed.
Yes, I've tried verifying the file integrity and completely reinstalling ark altogether, but this still hasn't fixed the issue.

I'm able to join official Fjordur servers, but if i attempt to join my friend (modded or vanilla), it will not allow me to join, whilst other people are able to her with no issues. Does anyone know where the issue may lie, or how to resolve it?

and in case it's relevant, my specs are Intel Core i5-3570, and GTX 1060 6gb with 22gb of ram.

[🦊 Hermit]

Has your friend port-forwarded their router and set Ark's processes to permitted in their antivirus? If others can join them then it's unlikely these are the causes of the issue, but it pays to make sure.

Is your friend set to appear online on Steam? Sometimes with direct connections, some games will refuse to connect if the hosting player is invisible.

You mentioned you tried joining through Steam's overlay, but have you tried joining directly from the Steam client's server listings? At the top of the Steam window select View > Servers, change the filters to Ark Survival Evolved, and if you have your friend's game in your Ark favourites list you can switch to the Favourites tab too, that should make it show up. Joining from there can sometimes have better results.

[CrystalMint]

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

Has your friend port-forwarded their router

Unfortunately that's not an option as my friend still lives with her parents, however in regards to your other suggestions

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

Is your friend set to appear online on Steam?

Yes, she's online and set to visible.

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

have you tried joining directly from the Steam client's server listings?

Thank you for this suggestion! it helped us partially solve the issue! For whatever reason, i cant join the server because its private. if she sets it to public, it shows up in the non-dedicated server list, but we want to avoid randoms joining. for some reason, she doesn't show up in the list of friends servers when its public though, even though we are friends on steam.

do you know what might be causing this? she jokingly blocked me a little while back, but unblocked me a couple of days later. could this have any effect on the situation perhaps?

[🦊 Hermit]

I'm afraid I have no idea what could cause that, no...nor any way to fix it either. I'm sorry I can't help more. I wouldn't have thought a temporary block would cause such an issue, but idk.

Only other option I can think to try is maybe see if a server whitelist would help? I know they work on dedicated servers, but I don't know if they do on non-ded. Tell your friend to go to this location:

Steam\steamapps\common\ARK\ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64

In that directory, make a new .txt file, and name it 'PlayersJoinNoCheckList' (without the quotation marks). In that file, put the Steam ID of each person who will be joining the server session, including her own. Add each one on it's own line, one below the other.

Then in her Steam library, right click Ark, select Properties, and in the window that comes up look for the 'Launch Options' text box. In there, enter the following, including the minus sign:

-exclusivejoin

If that works, it might allow you to have the session set to open so you would be able to join, but it would only allow people who's Steam IDs are listed in the text file to enter, preventing randoms from showing up. As I say though, I'm not sure if it works with non-dedicated sessions, so make sure to keep your save backed up in case it does fail and somebody does join uninvited to cause problems, then you can revert to backup if you need to.