Port Forwarding CAX30 just doesn't work...need help please.

Tell me about it... i took your advice on just doing what was required... 7777 / 7778 and 27015 - those are the 3 that i port forwarded this time. Still on the website canyouseeme.org my ports are showing up as not open. 

I can't help but wonder WTAF am i doing wrong or is it this particular modem? All the tutorials i see show different UI's when inside of the modems web browser. And it just seems like everyone does port forwarding with ease... but with me it just doesn't work or i am to stupid to figure it out.

idfk anymore...

Usually if you cannot access the game server on the LAN (without using the WAN IP), then the port forwards will not matter much. Currently that canyouseeme site will not report servers using just UDP, and they will also not detect TCP services that are not actively being used, even if the port is forwarded.

But a site that can tell you if a port is forwarded properly without a server active on it, is GRC shields up https://www.grc.com/shieldsup

Click on proceed, then type in port 7777 then click on the button that says "User specified custom port probe". if the port is forwarded but no service is detected running on it, then it will list it as closed, but if it is not forwarded, it will list it as "Stealth"  (you can confirm this by trying a port outside of the range you forwarded as well as a port in the range)

From the looks of things, I suspect that the port is forwarded fine but something on the PC is preventing it from working properly.

I am unsure of all of the causes, but I know that ARK dedicated server has some issues with the split tunnel driver of many VPN client applications (e.g., private internet access, etc.), as well as some 3rd party AV software such as malwarebytes premium (their network shield).

GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2024-07-05 at 00:54:55

Results from probe of port: 7777

    0 Ports Open
    1 Ports Closed
    0 Ports Stealth
---------------------
    1 Ports Tested

THE PORT tested was found to be: CLOSED.

TruStealth: FAILED - NOT all tested ports were STEALTH,
                   - NO unsolicited packets were received,
                   - NO Ping reply (ICMP Echo) was received.

I've tried it with the server running listening for those ports and i get the exact same response.

I've listed ports 7777, 7778 and 27015 in the firewall inbound exceptions and turned off windows antivirus completely and realtime protection as well.

I have no other AV that laptop. soooooooo.......

The stock windows defender will not interfere with ARK dedicated server, thus it is fine to keep that on (it is best to have some AV running whenever exposing any server to the WAN).

From the GRC report, it shows the port at closed, thus meaning that the port is forwarded but nothing is actively using it LAN side, thus that data is dropped.
If the port was not forwarded, it would be listed as stealth as the router would not react in any way to the probe, thus causing the probe to time out. In cases like that, something on the PC is stopping it from properly running the server.

In cases like that one potential solution is to run the dedicated server in a virtual machine with the network access set to bridged. It also provides an extra layer of protection in case a server exploit is ever discovered and used, then potential harm would be limited. For example if using my main PC, I will sometimes use a windows virtual machine hosted in virtualbox https://www.virtualbox.org/ though in my case, I can run an ARK dedicated server locally. Though if doing that, I will sometimes need to disable PIA or at least the split tunnel function to avoid this error, unless I run it in a VM.

So having the dedicated server running doesn't open the ports? Because that's what i did. Started the server. Made sure it went through all the checks and it is running.

Then i checked it via the GRC link u gave me and it says closed.... 

I'll try the Virtual Machine thing but i have no idea what that even is or how to even use it... so i'll be a bit before i respond more. 

Thank you for trying to help me with this. It's been super frustrating for months..almost a year...

For a virtual machine, there are many options such as virtualbox. https://www.virtualbox.org/

Then you simple download a ISO of windows or any other OS you want, Microsoft allows you to download a copy of windows directly from them. For example, using the windows 10 installation media tool (which you use the option in the tool to download the ISO file for windows 10)  https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

Or the windows 11 ISO download (3rd option on the page): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11/

The way it works is you create a virtual machine, and then decide on how many CPU cores and how much RAM you would like to allocate to it. Only challenge is running it on a laptop can get tricky if it doesn't have much RAM, since a VM will essentially be doubling the operating system overhead since you are running a second copy of windows as an application.
For me, since I run it on a desktop system, I allocate 8 cores along with 16GB of RAM to it.

Then I have the network driver for virtualbox set to bridged. This makes the VM look like a separate physical system on the network, and also get around any port issues from the VPN split tunnel.

In terms of CPU performance, there is very little overhead if you have the hardware virtualization turned on in the bios, (most laptops will have it on be default). Overall a VM is useful if you want an OS environment tailored specifically to a server you want to run. They are also useful for their snapshot function which allows you to restore it to the condition in the snapshot, which is great for testing random software without risking the main OS, (though the VM will not run software properly that requires GPU acceleration, thus while game servers can run, games themself will not run. (the emulated GPU is slower than what is found in most modern mid range smartphones).

Beyond that, ARK dedicated server is one of the more frustrating servers to set up since it is quite finicky, and even with a proper setup, it can still once in a while require multiple connection attempts especially if you have a client connected over the LAN along with multiple wanting to connect over the WAN at the same time. Most of the time it will work fine, but once in a while there will be errors joining and they will need to retry, and the server gives no good info on why that happens and the devs do not put any effort into addressing those issues when users complain on the forums and on reddit.

got the VM running / ASM downloaded and installed with SteamCMD ... set the server up and network to bridged. Port Forwarded the VM and started the server. Same issue, still couldn't connect and it couldn't find the server.

I called xfinity and am having them send me one of their modems so i can get away from netgear entirely. See if that helps... will post back here with my findings.

I'm done till then.. ty again for all the help

That is really weird at that point, does it at least allow a local connection via the console commands?
If it can connect locally to the VM at least, then one other potential troubleshooting step is allowing the router to respond to pings in its security settings.

Other than that, it would be interesting to see if the Xfinity rental router works any differently, but it is strange to see a VM not work, especially if a LAN client cannot connect.

PS, the LAN browser in ARK is very unreliable, even for me, it does not show up reliably, and I typically have to use the console command to connect. In my case, I simply set a steam launch command so that the game simply connects automatically to the server once launched, via +connect IP:port +password "YOURPASSWORD" (without the quotation marks). For example, if the local server is at IP 192.168.1.10:7777 and has a password of abc123, it would look like +connect 192.168.1.10:7777 +password abc123

In my case, that made it so I don't have to bother with the server browser.