What is it about Viking culture that sparks so much interest in anything remotely related to it? Take almost any major media effort in the past few years as an example. Whether it comes in the form of Netflix’s Vikings series, the successful Marvel’s Thor character or last year’s acclaimed Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, people just really love Norse mythology. This year, however, marks the addition of a Viking-themed entry that created a huge ripple in the gaming world. Developers Iron Gate Studios caused quite a stir with their Early Access title, Valheim, reaching the number one spot on Steam.
The fact that the open-world survival game is still in Early Access is rather astonishing. After all, in its state of incompleteness, content is missing, bugs abound and there is a lack of polish. Furthermore, the niche that Valheim tries to occupy is already saturated with so many others. Between Ark: Survival Evolved and Rust, survival games rarely stand out.
So, it stands as a testament to Valheim’s balance of exploration, crafting, combat, and multiplayer features that it has garnered so much attention. While not slated to formally release until next year, the game is already shaping up to become one of 2021’s best. The meteoric rise to success aside, it also serves as an example of how important it is to ensure fans know exactly what they’re getting. Looking at you, CD Projekt Red.
However, let’s not gloss over Valheim’s flaws. When you cast aside the rose-tinted glasses, you see a game that experiences numerous technical issues. Players complain of game-breaking errors and bugs, as well as generally poor performance even on high-end hardware. In fact, we even wrote a guide to increase your framerates on Valheim. Check it out here.
Many players currently report experiencing an issue with Valheim servers not appearing
The latest gripe players report across social media and online forums are the game’s seeming issues with private, dedicated servers. According to many sources, setting up a dedicated server for custom gameplay is no longer easy. Players attempting to do so cannot view their server lists, meaning they don’t have a server to log into. This Valheim server error is therefore quite frustrating for the countless affected players. What’s more, the issue typically persists even after a simple retry and goes on indefinitely on most occasions.
However, the Valheim server not showing up error is not a death sentence for your game. Several fixes, from credible sources, as well as general advice pieces from regular PC gamer, show us a clear shot at resolving the error. And, in case these cases still don’t work for some reason, you can count on Iron Gate Studios to issue a patch or update in the coming weeks. Till then, we give you the best ways to fix the Valheim server not found error.
1) Restart your PC, then run Valheim again
The main draw of using a computer is the endless ways it can glitch out on you. Even if you have no viruses, hardware failures or software bugs, the internal systems occasionally trip up. When running your computer, the countless, intricate processes within can launch improperly. This, coupled with corrupted data caches, can lead to serious performance issues and odd game errors. Therefore, the smart thing to do is to turn it off and on again, just like the olden days of tech.
By restarting your PC, you ensure that malfunctioning processes get killed off. Then, they start up again normally, after the reboot, and free up bad data cache information. Once this done, you can run Valheim again and see the difference.
2) Restart your router, then tweak advanced network settings
It is rather likely that the Valheim server error stems from an issue in your network. Anything from traffic bottlenecks to packet loss can lead to an unstable or weak connection. In such a case, your PC may face difficulty communicating its data over the internet, to the game’s developers. Therefore, a quick and easy restart of your WiFi router is just what the doctor ordered.
Simply power it off for 30 seconds, then back on. Furthermore, try connecting your PC with a wired Ethernet cable rather than wireless. This leads to a smoother experience for online server connections.
The other major fix is to tweak some network connectivity settings. To do this, contact your ISP (internet service provider) and request login credentials for the network portal. From here, you can enable Quality of Service (QoS) and change your NAT type where necessary. The former will help prioritze your bandwidth when gaming online. And changing NAT from Moderate to Strict helps by bolstering network connection speeds without compromising on security.
3) Configure your dedicated server options
First thing’s first – make sure your chosen server lineup is working to begin with. To do this, look for the start_headless_server.bat line in your server folder. Change the name to start.bat and copy this to the Notepad. Here is where it gets a little tricky. Change the file’s text body to valheim_server -nographics -batchmode -name “SERVERNAME”, then -port 2456 -world “WORLDNAME” and -password “PASSWORD” where you can input the appropriate names in the quotation marks.
The final step is to ensure that your server is synced up to Valheim’s application. To do this, head to the Steam Launcher. In the Library tab, look at the Valheim section. In the options, head to View, then Servers, then Favorites. When given the option to Add Server, open the prompt and input your IP address (including the -port 2457 line).
4) Make sure your game drivers are up-to-date
When it comes to AAA gaming on PC, the most essential component of the Master Race is the GPU. This graphics card, however, needs regular support from its manufacturers to run smoothly and stay optmized for newer titles. Thus, they release routine updates and patches to the GPU’s software, in the form of driver updates. These drivers prove important: they can boost game performance, enhance gameplay and quash bugs and glitches. That may even include Valheim server errors. Hence, it is important to regularly check your GeForce Experience app or AMD site for new driver updates.