[2.0.73] Multiplayer game list fails to load, shows JSON parsing error 520 instead

[ReTrooper]

Since about two days ago (Feb 11th) the list of MP games fails to load. This never occured earlier and I could join MP games the days before without issues.

Now I suddenly get the following message instead:

Code: Select all

Download failed (status code 520): failed to parse JSON response: Unexpected character (s) at ?:1

My OS is pretty old (Windows 7) and I suspect that it might be at least partially responsible for the issue, though I (should) have all available updates installed.

It is not purely my system causing the connection issue, since I am able to read the server list JSON in my browser (at multiplayer.factorio.com).

I attached the log file and a screenshot of the error message.

There are several suggestions for this (or a very similar) issue in this thread:

[Windows 7] Error trying login in game "InitializeSecurityContext failed: SEC_E_ILLEGAL_MESSAGE"

I have tried them all, but to no avail. My OS was up to date before anyways.

Via M45-Science: Factorio Server Browser I was able to figure out an address of a server and could successfully connect to it via direct connection in factorio. Hope this info helps to isolate the problem.

[Honktown]

I also have this issue. Yes I am also on Win7.

[Loewchen]

OP has this issue: 99521

[Honktown]

OP has this issue: 99521

I am in that thread. I am one of the people who applied the solution at the time, to success.

I know the chances of a resolution this time are "slim to none", but I ran into it the other day. It might've been the first time I tried Public Games since 2.0 released.

[DoctorLife]

Hi. Have same problem. All KB's installed.
It was fine a few months ago.

[eugenekay]

Heroku (Wube’s infrastructure provider) publishes a list of the Available Cipher Suites; this article was last updated April 17, 2026, which may indicate that a change was made recently.

There no longer appears to be any overlap with the Windows 7 Cipher Suite List, which will lead to a TLS negotiation failure. Microsoft has abandoned support for Windows 7 (released in 2009 - 17 years ago! Extended support ended in 2020 - 6 years ago), so an update to this list is unlikely to happen.

It is possible to bring your own TLS stack on Windows - this is the approach used by Firefox - but the developer must then assume responsibility for maintaining & distributing a Root Certificate Store, and the use of custom Root Certificates becomes much more difficult for all users.

The use of an Operating System which is currently supported by the Vendor would be a good idea.

[DoctorLife]

And? This is not a reason to stop working things that worked flawlessly. And now let's run to update Windows on medical equipment for the sake of factorio. This is stupidity and irresponsibility. Understand, computers with Windows 7 are not 2%. Supermium reports 7 as 10. Half of the medical industry is on Windows 7, because what was later is unusable. And this will not change in the coming years. "Windows 7 obsolescence" is just a Microsoft aspiration.

[Rseding91]

Nobody is running Factorio on medical equipment. So that fails as an argument.

[Sanqui]

And? This is not a reason to stop working things that worked flawlessly.

It's not like we (Wube) changed something to break Windows 7 on purpose. In this case our server provider is responsible for maintaining industry standard security. Meanwhile we rely on the operating system to give us tools to securely connect to the Internet. To solve this issue, we would have to either intentionally lower the security standards for everybody or invest developer and tester time to substitute Windows 7's obsolete networking stack. Maybe in the medical industry they can afford to do but we cannot, sorry.