Factorio Forums

I am getting the message "Could not establish network connection with server" a lot since switching to Windows and the standalone/DRM-free version.

It seems that I can connect to bigger / headless servers, but every personally hosted server (often named "XYZ's game") I've tried to connect to so far gives me this error message.

I've dug around in the various Windows control panels and the firewall settings and made sure that Factorio.exe has the maximum possible privileges.

I'm at a loss of what else to try. I rarely had this issue previously playing on a Mac or on Windows with the Steam version.

Any tips?

Steam networking works around possible home internet issues to allow you to connect when the Factorio isn't able to establish a connection. That is why using Steam works better than not using Steam. So you could try these things:
1. Use Steam again
2. Set up portforwarding for Factorio, this may magically solve things (it did/does for me)

I tried configuring my router to no avail.

Steam it is then.

Thanks!