Sea of Thieves only came out in 2018 but it feels like the game has been out for ages, such has been the redemption arc for it. Having a rocky start to its maiden voyage way back then, Rare has finally caught the strong wind in its sails and is now going full steam ahead. It’s no secret that Sea of Thieves had a lackluster launch due to bugs and a lack of meaningful content.
The team at Rare has turned the ship around though with consistently good updates that have added both great content and quality of life improvements. Now, Sea of Thieves stands as one of Xbox’s most successful games, consistently topping both Game Pass and Steam Sales charts. The latest update, however, has taken the game to whole new heights.
Called A Pirate’s Life, the latest Sea of Thieves update is an original story questline with a Pirates of the Caribbean crossover. The content update is fantastic and has received critical acclaim. Rare has been building up to this moment ever since the launch of the game and to see their original vision finally come to fruition is wonderful.
Lavenderbeard Error is haunting Sea of Thieves players
Despite its greatness though, Sea of Thieves is not quite free from its own set of errors yet. While the content injection has been spectacular, the problem with bugs and glitches within the game still remains. For instance, A Pirate’s Life questline launched with a lot of game-breaking glitches that stopped your progression through the story. Similarly, players have been reporting that Sea of Thieves has been crashing a lot lately due to an error called Lavenderbeard.
Also read: Optimal graphics settings for the best performance on Sea of Thieves
According to official Rare support, the Lavenderbeard error comes up in Sea of Thieves when the game is unable to connect to a server. This can either be because of the online services being down, a new update, or something on the player’s end. A lot of times, the lavender beard error does appear due to either Xbox Live or Rare servers going down. However, ever since the A Pirate’s Life update, players have been reporting this error while others can jump onto the servers just fine, meaning that it is not a server-wide issue.
While no official patch has been released to fix the latest wave of Lavenderbeard error in Sea of Thieves, there are still a few things that you can try at your end to fix the issue. So, try out one of the following fixes and hopefully, your Lavenderbeard error will go away.
1. Verify Sea of Thieves Game Files on Steam:
Sea of Thieves is a live-service online multiplayer game, and that goes hand in hand with an increased number of updates. The game gets frequent updates and patches other than major content pushes to fix different bugs and glitches. However, sometimes, rather than fixing the problem, these updates can introduce a lot more issues into the mix. For instance, files can get corrupted while downloading and result in all sorts of errors while trying to play the game.
An easy fix for this is to verify the integrity of game files and make sure that everything is present and intact. In order to do that, all you have to do is follow these steps:
- Right-click Sea of Thieves in your Steam games library.
- Select Properties and click the option that says Local Files.
- Once you’re in, select the Verify Integrity of Game Files option.
- Steam will now start scanning through the game files for Sea of Thieves and if it finds any missing or corrupted files, it’ll automatically download them again. Once the process is finished, you can restart your PC and launch the game again.
2. Allow Sea of Thieves in your Firewall settings:
Since Lavenderbeard is mostly a server connection error in Sea of Thieves, a lot of times it arises due to a player’s own firewall interference. Windows has a pretty strict firewall that can sometimes fail to detect certain applications and thus block them from communicating with its servers. So, in order to fix this problem, you need to head into the Firewall settings and allow Sea of Thieves through manually.
In order to open up your Firewall settings for Sea of Thieves, follow these steps:
- In the Windows search, type Control Panel and open it.
- Within the Control Panel, select System and Security if it is sorted by categories. If it is sorted into icons, skip to the next step.
- Select Windows Defender Firewall and within it, click the Allow an App or Feature through the Windows Firewall option.
- Click the Change Settings and consent to admin permissions. Now, search through the application list for Sea of Thieves. If you’re unable to find it, you can hit the Allow Another App button and look for the executable file and add it to the list manually.
- Once you’ve spotted the game, check both private and public boxes to allow full network access to Sea of Thieves.
3. Change NAT Type and open ports for Xbox:
In order to play Sea of Thieves, you need to join a public server with other players in it. This means that the game has to communicate with other Xbox consoles or PCs. However, sometimes the NAT settings on our router prevent open P2P communication between machines resulting in issues like the Lavenderbeard error.
NAT is essentially the firewall that your ISP places to monitor and filter the traffic coming in and going out of your router. There are three types of NATs; strict, moderate, and open with the latter being the best option for online gaming. You can check your NAT type by going into network settings on your Xbox console and running a connection status test.
In order to change your NAT type, you’d usually have to contact your ISP and ask them to do it, especially if there’s another distribution box between your router and the main ISP line. However, sometimes that’s not needed and you can essentially open up your NAT type by simply opening some ports within your router settings. In order to open ports on your router for Xbox, follow these steps:
- Open your router settings by entering the default gateway IP into a browser. You can find this on the back of your router or within adapter options in Windows.
- Log into your router (you can find the username and password behind the router) and head to port forwarding/DMZ settings.
- In DMZ settings, you’ll be able to find your Xbox console and allow it.
- For port forwarding, you’ll have to enter different ports and add them to the list. Here are the ports that you need to open for Xbox consoles:
- UDP Port 88
- TCP and UDP 3074
- TCP and UDP 53
- Port 80 (TCP)
- UDP Port 500
- Port 3544 (UDP)
- Port 4500 (UDP)
- Save these settings and log out. Your NAT type should now be moderate or open if it hasn’t been blocked by the ISP.
4. Change QoS Router Settings:
If you’re playing the game via Wi-Fi and have a lot of other devices in your house as well, chances are that those other devices are slowing down your Sea of Thieves connection. Most routers provided by the ISPs are not powerful or smart enough to differentiate between different types of internet traffic. So, even if you need quick packets being sent and received while gaming, your router may not realize that and could give preference to someone else just streaming Netflix.
Thankfully though, most modern routers have a setting called QoS (Quality of Service). This feature allows users to prioritize traffic between different devices. So, you can tell your router to send and receive data faster between your Xbox console and thus improve the connection. In order to turn on QoS and prioritize Xbox, follow these steps:
- Open up the Router settings and log into it.
- Look for QoS or Quality of Service and select it.
- Turn on QoS and add your console to the list.
- You can also blacklist and restrict access for devices that you don’t want in your network.
5. Connect to your router with an Ethernet cable:
Most people game on their consoles using Wi-Fi and it makes sense too since it is so convenient. However, a wireless connection is not the most stable thing in the world, especially if you’re not close to the router itself. Furthermore, if you’re still running an older 2.4 GHz router and don’t have a 5 GHz connection, your Xbox console won’t be able to communicate very fast with your router. So, we recommend hooking up your console or PC directly to the router using an Ethernet cable.
Doing so will not only improve the stability of your connection but will also push your device up the pecking order for data packet priority and also reduce lag. So, this is something that you must-do if you’re serious about your gaming.
If none of these fixes worked for you, then you might have to just straight up delete and reinstall the game. And, if that doesn’t work either then you’re sadly out of luck and the only other way for you is to contact the official support channels for Rare and wait for a new patch.
Sea of Thieves is out now on PC, Xbox, and Xbox Game Pass Cloud Streaming (xCloud). You can check it out right here.