Multiplayer connection problems

[NicholasH]

Hi

My friend and I have had some difficulties playing together.


When either one of us create a server (Host new game), we get the following notice:
"Failed to determine external IP address. Other players might not be able to connect."

and indeed, when the other person tries to connect, they get the error message
"Couldnt establish network communication with server."

So far, we have tried:

• Creating a new port forward rule (not sure if done correctly)

• 58MadMax's solution (viewtopic.php?t=7710)

We can find each others server in "Browse public games"
We get the same error messages using "Connect to server"

Using player.me is not an option, as my friend uses a mac
My firewall is not blocking anything with factorio
We are both running the same version of factorio (0.16.51)

We bought the game a year ago, and ran into the same problem, so we decided to wait and hope it would get fixed. From what i can tell this has been a problem since 2016, so it seems we will have to do something on our end. Please help us figure out what that something is

[Zavian]

See the pinned post viewtopic.php?f=49&t=53992.

Note that this isn't a Factorio bug, but an issue with how your internet connection is setup. (Most likely caused caused by your isp using NAT).

What might work is using the steam version and inviting through steam. (I've never played multiplayer through steam, but I think doing it that way will fall back to tunneling via Steam's servers, if a direct connection isn't possible). If that doesn't work, then you might be able to setup a vpn connection between yourselves, and then effectively play on lan, where the vpn connection is acting as a lan.