Epic Games/Dedicated Server Issue

[GenieWH]

Epic Games/Dedicated Server Issue

A friend of mine has a hosted server that he runs a cluster of arks (For the various islands) He recently updated it to the -crossplay capabilities and because of that, I could play on those servers. It took a little while for it to work properly, but I could finally see the server in my EGS version session list for unofficial servers. Everything was fine in the world... until yesterday.

Yesterday, my friend migrated his server within the host provider; transferring the cluster from a rig that housed multiple servers, to a single rig (to help reduce ping) The entire cluster was transferred securely, and the files data copied successfully; everything working on his end. The IP address of the cluster changed however, and now the servers will not populate in my EGS version of the game.

From what my friend is telling me, nothing but the IP has changed; -crossplay is still enabled, no mods were added and everything should be in working order, but the server will not populate in my list in the EGS version.

Any thoughts?

[GenieWH]

Are people just not responding to posts anymore? Or are people just anti-Epic? 3 days without so much as a sniff. #SadPanda

[Tsudico]

If he can adjust the command line on the server directly, he might be able to add -PublicIPForEpic=<IP> where <IP> is the new IP address. Otherwise, I don't think people have responded because there is no reason that anything should have changed to cause you to loose access. If the server is set to use Multihome (because the server still contains a cluster of servers), then Epic clients should be able to use that just fine.

 

[GenieWH]

36 minutes ago, Tsudico said:

If he can adjust the command line on the server directly, he might be able to add -PublicIPForEpic=<IP> where <IP> is the new IP address. 

My guy questioned this; he said there is no such command line or delineation for epic games vs/ steam.ip in the server code. Is this something he just crams into the file or whats that about?

Also; clarify multihome?

Thanks for responding though, I appreciate it. As far as he is concerned, I should be able to see it. He literally switched it from a shared server to a dedicated server within the same host; changing only the computer its being stored on, and the ip. He claims nothing else changed. So I have no idea why it does not appear.

[Tsudico]

3 hours ago, GenieWH said:

My guy questioned this; he said there is no such command line or delineation for epic games vs/ steam.ip in the server code. Is this something he just crams into the file or whats that about?

Also; clarify multihome?

Thanks for responding though, I appreciate it. As far as he is concerned, I should be able to see it. He literally switched it from a shared server to a dedicated server within the same host; changing only the computer its being stored on, and the ip. He claims nothing else changed. So I have no idea why it does not appear.

From the PC Patch Notes:

Quote

v312.13 - 06/26/2020

• New command line arg: -PublicIPForEpic=<IPAddress> 
  • If this command line arg is used, this is the public IP that EGS clients will attempt to connect to.
  • If this command line is missing and -Multihome is specified, then EGS clients will attempt to connect to the Multihome IP
  • Note that if you're using Multihome and specify a non-public IP address, then players will not be able to connect to your server using EGS. Make sure to set a public IP address (e.g WAN or external)

It depends on the server host, but they might allow for a config option to add command line specific arguments (especially for when there are events, such as the current summer event). The argument would go into that config option.

Multihome is for when you are running a cluster of servers from one IP address (using different ports), for example:

• The Island (Port: 7777, Query Port: 27015)
• Scorched Earth (Port: 7779, Query Port: 27017)
• Aberration (Port: 7781, Query Port: 27019)

These are all on the same computer so if the server programs used the same ports they would conflict and you wouldn't be able to connect. By specifying Multihome, the programs know you have multiple servers running from the same public IP and so they act differently. But you still need to define each port manually.

Epic clients have had problems connecting on and off since Ark launched on Epic when dealing with crossplay servers. While it has improved considerably, it can be difficult when you are going through a server provider to make sure they are doing everything correctly to deal with both Steam and Epic clients.

[GenieWH]

6 minutes ago, Tsudico said:

From the PC Patch Notes:

It depends on the server host, but they might allow for a config option to add command line specific arguments (especially for when there are events, such as the current summer event). The argument would go into that config option.

Multihome is for when you are running a cluster of servers from one IP address (using different ports), for example:

• The Island (Port: 7777, Query Port: 27015)
• Scorched Earth (Port: 7779, Query Port: 27017)
• Aberration (Port: 7781, Query Port: 27019)

These are all on the same computer so if the server programs used the same ports they would conflict and you wouldn't be able to connect. By specifying Multihome, the programs know you have multiple servers running from the same public IP and so they act differently. But you still need to define each port manually.

Epic clients have had problems connecting on and off since Ark launched on Epic when dealing with crossplay servers. While it has improved considerably, it can be difficult when you are going through a server provider to make sure they are doing everything correctly to deal with both Steam and Epic clients.

My guy asked his host about the -PublicIPForEpic add, and -Multihome. Apparently they say "It wont work with passwords"

Kinda at a loss still... *sigh*

[GenieWH]

So my guy, he removed the password this morning and I could direct connect through command line, but I could not see any other servers in his cluster (trying to transfer to rag, for instance)

He said he added the publicipforepic command with the direct ip address. I still dont see the server. It seems like there is a lot of issues back and forth and I honestly do not know what to do. Every recommendation is "just buy it on steam"
I am trying to not do that, as some of my friends got the game on Epic to play with me, and it was working just fine up until this Saturday...

/sigh

[Tsudico]

11 hours ago, GenieWH said:

My guy asked his host about the -PublicIPForEpic add, and -Multihome. Apparently they say "It wont work with passwords"

I don't know whether their information is incorrect, outdated, or the server software has regressed and has this issue again. I know that people have indicated some success with Epic users being able to join with passwords, but again this seems to change from day to day.

45 minutes ago, GenieWH said:

So my guy, he removed the password this morning and I could direct connect through command line, but I could not see any other servers in his cluster (trying to transfer to rag, for instance)

He said he added the publicipforepic command with the direct ip address. I still dont see the server.

-PublicIPForEpic should only be used if you aren't running multiple servers on the same host. Since this seems to be a cluster configuration, in this case Multihome should be used instead.

49 minutes ago, GenieWH said:

It seems like there is a lot of issues back and forth and I honestly do not know what to do.

Honestly, none of this is your fault or the fault of your server operator or provider. This is all down to Wildcard. My guess, and it's just a guess, is that they used Steam's APIs for connecting to servers prior to launching an Epic Games Store version and so now they are trying to duplicate Steam's API without breaking it. Some examples where this can and seems to cause issues:

• Passwords - If steam does X, Y, and Z in order to hash their server password but Wildcard only does a subset of them (or in the wrong order) then Epic clients won't be able to connect to the server. If X, Y, or Z is based on the server IP address, then it breaks for either LAN or WAN players.
• LAN/WAN play - Steam's networking seems to perform extra steps to determine whether your server is on the same network as you (which means you need a local IP address) and will add communication to get that IP so that LAN connections work without additional steps from the user. Epic users currently have to choose LAN or WAN and if they choose WAN then they need to connect to the server manually through a console command.

59 minutes ago, GenieWH said:

Every recommendation is "just buy it on steam"
I am trying to not do that, as some of my friends got the game on Epic to play with me, and it was working just fine up until this Saturday...

I can only hope that Wildcard will figure out the issues. It seems that they constantly are 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

[GenieWH]

How does multihome configuration actually look? I assume -Multihome is the command arg, but you mentioned something about each server having their own IP addresses set up. You said, I quote, "By specifying Multihome, the programs know you have multiple servers running from the same public IP and so they act differently. But you still need to define each port manually."

My friend told me each server in the cluster has its own IP and the ports for the server and query. If the server did not have a password, I could use console to connect directly to it using the IP port. If he initialized -Multihome, what all would he need to do? Like, how would it look, and in which file?

[Tsudico]

2 hours ago, GenieWH said:

If he initialized -Multihome, what all would he need to do? Like, how would it look, and in which file?

I use Ark Server Manager...so how it configures things would be different than how he might have to. For me, all I do is indicate I have a set IP address and make sure my ports are different and Multihome configuration is completed automatically. Otherwise I think the command line arguments have to be adjusted and Multihome set to true in one of the ini files.