Valheim‘s latest update includes a load of fairly mundane technical changes, but they add up to an exciting thing for dedicated server users – less lag. This patch has made changes to how connections to dedicated servers work, and while that should mean a better experience on those servers, numerous players are now having issues connecting to them at all.
“Today’s patch has some huge changes to dedicated servers,” the devs say in the announcement. “Dedicated servers now always use direct connections instead of using Steam Datagram Relay (SDR). This should result in much lower latency for most players. Private dedicated servers are enabled by adding ‘-public 0’ to the server command line.”
The problem is that players are now suffering a ‘disconnected‘ error when attempting to connect to dedicated servers, and it’s not clear why. Some hosts have had success by uninstalling and reinstalling the server software – or simply rebooting – but not everyone. Others have had success by opening up additional ports – but again, not everyone.
Players have been reporting the problem in Reddit threads, Steam forum topics, and the official Discord. The devs are certainly aware – there’s an open issue in the official bug tracker – but for now, there’s no clear indication as to what’s causing the issue, or when it’s getting fixed.
For now, check out how to set up a server in Valheim, and the best Valheim seeds as we await further Valheim updates. There’s a long roadmap ahead.