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Ark Dedicated server is timing out after left idle


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Ark Dedicated server is timing out after left idle

Good morning/afternoon/evening.

 

I have been trying to run a local ark dedicated server from home but I have been having an unusual issue wherein if there are no players online after a while (I haven't yet been able to determine a proper time length) I am finding that both RCON and attempts for players to join are resulting in timeouts.

 

Now the only third party applications I am using are Ark Server Manager, and from what I can tell, ASM is only responsible for the easy start up and customizations of the server, so I have tried multiple things to rectify this(after all, I took a pay cut to keep a job during Covid, it's expensive to run servers through the dedicated hosting sites), including:

  1. Reboot the host
  2. Confirmed that all ports in the ranges with a couple extra(1 port number below and 1 port number above) have been forwarded
  3. Moved from a dynamic DNS solution to a static IP for my home internet
  4. Confirmed with my ISP that all internet traffic from their end is allowed to run through my home connection
  5. Tried switching network adaptors
  6. Hard disabled IPv6
  7. done multiple server validations.

It seems that if someone logs in before the issue occurs, the server runs apparently uninterrupted indefinitely, but it's hard to keep track when I lose people's interest because of the server instability

Ark Server Manager does allow me to schedule 2 server reboots a day, and it seems like if I space them out, it feels like everything it working when I come home after work, but I have still found that there are issues with it dropping out. It is still actively running, and I can see event logs, but nothing to indicate there is a problem with the server's communications.

Windows Firewall has been confirmed to have exceptions entered for all ark ports in TCP and UDP

 

The host:

  • AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
  • 24GB 2400MHz RAM
  • Windows 10 Professional(I also did try Window server 2019 Standard, but it still has the same issues)
  • The server is running off a 512GB M.2
  • There are 0 mods installed or subscribed
  • Home internet is FTTP 50Mbit download/20Mbit upload speed

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated because I am getting pretty close to my wits end with this instability that I can not seem to locate

 

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21 minutes ago, Larkfields said:

Have you disabled sleep mode and power saving in the operating system?

I forgot to mention that. It's definitely not the Host OS going to sleep as those are set to never turn off. 

 

I tend to notice it the most when I remote in just before lunch, just before the end of lunch, and when my shift at work ends. I will remote into the host and see the server is online, and when I launch the game, the server shows up as online with a latency of 70-110(which is high) and that's when I'll be unable to connect.

 

Looks like I have hit my maximum posts for the day, could you PM me if you have further ideas? I can give you discord details there too if you'd prefer

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1 hour ago, 1nc0mp3t3nc3 said:

I forgot to mention that. It's definitely not the Host OS going to sleep as those are set to never turn off. 

I tend to notice it the most when I remote in just before lunch, just before the end of lunch, and when my shift at work ends. I will remote into the host and see the server is online, and when I launch the game, the server shows up as online with a latency of 70-110(which is high) and that's when I'll be unable to connect.

Looks like I have hit my maximum posts for the day, could you PM me if you have further ideas? I can give you discord details there too if you'd prefer

The forum says you can't receive messages ?

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  • 2 weeks later...

as a little update to this:

 

Larkfields helped by checking that networking hardware was not going to sleep.

While I do not believe this was the case (as I am remoted into my host machine every day during my work week), I put in a registry tweak in order to enforce the no-sleep policy.

So far, I have had a server running stable for 8 days with only two small hitches:

  1.  I had ASM set up to check for Updates to the ark server once a day at 01:30 and vaildate files afterwards. This started to break when it failed to get updates. This has since been turned off
  2. I had a script set up to move old world saves and backups to an archive HDD in order to help prevent my primary disk from filling up in the long term. This turned out to be a tad too aggressive and moved people who had not logged in for more than 12 hours. I have put in exceptions to prevent user profiles from being moved
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14 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

Those two things are a little bit strange. I have ASM checking for updates every 2 hours wihtout an issue, and am running backups to a separate drive on the same interval.

Are you running some separate scripts outside of the one built into ASM?

I had ASM check for updates and do a file validation and make a backup file, but then coded in scheduled tasks to move the saved files out of the M.2 and onto one of my HDDs reserved for archiving. I kinda went a little ham with my powershell script and got it to move all files not modified within a certain timeframe so that was my own mistake. Hey, this is a learning process for me and it's been... interesting.

 

I may actually make a second script to move player files out when they don't log in for more than 60 days, unless I get notified in advance so that I can keep my RCON looking clean of inactive players

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OK, cause I just have ASM saving the backups on a separate disk. No need to move them later.  Then all you would need is your script to move inactive player files. Which is actually a pretty good idea to keep RCON cleaner.

I keep the ASM data directory, the servers, and the backups on separate drive arrays. Basically eliminated any server lag when running the backups, and keeps the space on my SSD's neat.

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18 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

OK, cause I just have ASM saving the backups on a separate disk. No need to move them later.  Then all you would need is your script to move inactive player files. Which is actually a pretty good idea to keep RCON cleaner.

I keep the ASM data directory, the servers, and the backups on separate drive arrays. Basically eliminated any server lag when running the backups, and keeps the space on my SSD's neat.

so, I discovered something new yesterday.

ASM is starting up the servers upon startup of the application(after rebooting the host), but I am finding the shootergameserver.exe process is opening in the background, taking a port, and not actually publishing to Steam or Epic games server list. ASM itself shows no indicator that the server is running, but when I start the server manually, it will tell me the port is in use.

 

For now, the workaround I have established is to just kill the automatic startup of the server, but it would be nice to get some automation happening again, in case I am not available to babysit the whole process during my work hours

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