I apologize that there are no field descriptors. When it comes to JSON, it matters. The Verge kinda fishes for these errors, as they develop their blender toolkit. It’s like a jigsaw. There are several instances of JSON, so that must be easy to read (or graphically snap together, like blueprints in visual code). (There must be an easier way.) 
Hi Toolguy, for now I will withdraw my comment. I’ve removed the mods, added them back, and there was also an update to the game in the midst of all this lol. It appears to be holding. I’m going to be testing more over the next 24hrs. Appreciate your willingness to help. Thank You Much🙏
2 Likes
Yeah, the “Critical Error” is basically the server crashing somewhere and then exiting.
The game is very sensitive to things like mods load order, some mods are not compatible with each other, etc… it’s a real science 
1 Like
I posted this message on the two Discord servers a few weeks ago, but it’s now time to post that here.
Tomorrow I’m going to take a long break from work (a six month Sabbatical) so I’ll not be doing any monitoring or new versions of the Dedicated Server Launcher until I’m back in January 2026.
I’ve documented on our internal Confluence the entire process to make new versions in case of emergencies, but reasonably don’t expect new versions of the tool until next year.
The Exiles team has been informed, and they will try to get someone to monitor the thread to see if anything is happening.
If you need urgent help, your best bet is to join the discord servers where quite a few people using the DSL are already present:
I wish everybody a nice summer, see you next year!
6 Likes
Thank you for all that you have done with this tool and the way you have assisted us all, enjoy your time away and look forward to seeing you on your return.
All the best
1 Like
Thanks for the hint. 
Enjoy your sabbatical!
1 Like
guys, me and my friend are trying to host a decicated server, but it got 9999 ping, is that any possible way to fix it ?
No, they don’t mean co-op mode, on account of how they’re posting in a Dedicated Server Launcher thread and how they said they are trying to host a dedicated server.
Try connecting using the “Direct Connect” button, to the IP and the port of the server. If it works for everyone, then the problem is most likely that your server’s “ping” port isn’t reachable. If it works only for those who are on the same subnet as the server, then the problem is most likely that you haven’t opened/forwarded the ports correctly.
I wasn’t asking you to explain anything. Now kindly either stay on topic or at least contribute something.
On the contrary, I specifically said that I would not prove my “narrative” about you, as you called it, in a public post, because there are rules against doxxing.
Really? As far as I understand it, the in-game co-op mode – and the words you used are “co-op mode”, not just co-op – works without a dedicated server. Can you explain how and why you would need the Dedicated Server Launcher for the co-op mode and how that would help with the problem @marelito is asking about?
PS: I tried my best to communicate with you before and you just couldn’t make yourself do so. At this point, I don’t care if you’re trolling or have some kind of a problem: if you can’t stay on topic, stay out.
So I wanted to ask, is there a way for me to get the launcher to link towards the mods I’ve already subscribed to without it redownloading all of them and taking up more file size space?
I just recently got the Dedicated Server working after a lot of trial and error and repeated failures till today, so rather not have 2x the mod space being taken up by both the steam game and the dedicated server launcher.
Also if I can have the server be only accessible to myself for the time being, as most of my friends play on Console and I’ve moved away from Console Conan to PC Conan, and from Dune. Since Conan has no crossplay yet, I think.
Edit: Also it says failed to join requested game when doing it from the steam server launcher, am using mods so is it a mod related issue or something else?
Okay, fine, let’s call your bluff: @Community, can anyone please confirm or deny whether @Dzonatas has actually been told by Funcom not to explain how you would need the Dedicated Server Launcher to play the in-game co-op mode (i.e. not “online play” on a private server) or is he just blatantly lying because he doesn’t want to admit he’s off-topic and/or trolling?
No further detail is needed, really. No one needs to know any technical details of anything. The only thing at stake here is whether someone who has repeatedly and constantly been a nuisance towards players who genuinely need help should be allowed to continue making those players’ experience worse or not.
2 Likes
The only way I can think of doing it is by creating a link with mklink. The problem with that approach is that the modlist.txt file is also inside the Mods directory, so that might be a bit of a hassle.
There are probably several ways, but the two I can think of right away are:
- Set up a password.
- Don’t open the ports to anyone except yourself.
The easiest way to check is by setting it up without mods and trying. Make a backup of your server’s game database and restore it afterwards, when you’ve re-enabled mods.
1 Like
Hmmm I see, so if I manually assign the mods via copy pasting their pak file locations on the local workshop folder for Steam, or copy the Modlist file to the Launchers mod list directory, should it perhaps work?
Since creating a symbolic link, as you stated, would cause some problems with the Launcher, given the presence of the Modlist file and the launchers own modlist file.
Password is done, but I thought one needed port forwarding for self hosting on the same machine? The laptop has 96 GB ram and is a 4090, I do have an old laptop with 16 Gb ram but with a 1060, not sure if that’s enough for the dedicated server. So should I avoid port forwarding?
Regarding the server, I’m not sure as the game does launches fine with the mods in singleplayer.
The main reason I am trying to do the Dedicated Server is due to the ToT! Series of mods not really being supported for singleplayer and coop, with suggestions from some posts stating that one could get around the restriction with a dedicated server, since I’m unable to get a private server for the time being.
I’ll attempt to try one without mods to see if it works, perhaps its some mods not being friendly with dedicated setups, or it just hasn’t loaded all the required information yet.
Sorry if there’s no direct quotations or responses, not exactly sure or know what to use for them in the forums. Mainly created an account for help regarding the Dedicated server
Edit: If needed, should I provide the Launchers log file?
Edit 2: Peak RAM usage is 10.69 GB so far, without the main game itself launched.
Edit 3: Nevermind, it has shown up in the Main Game server list when it wasn’t before, and is letting me join in fine after removing three VAM mods. Strangely it didn’t join at all from the Steam server list.
Granted, haven’t actually spent some time in the server so not sure if it’ll work fine or just auto kick me out.
The nice thing about the modlist.txt file is that it uses absolute paths to the .pak files, so using the link should theoretically work (although I haven’t tested it) as long as you’re not trying to play on a different server.
I’m not sure how the Dedicated Server Launcher works. From what I remember, there’s a text box in the UI where you can write down the list of mod IDs, but I’m not sure what the Launcher does with it, i.e. whether it somehow translates it into a modlist.txt file for the server. @Xevyr, do you know the details of that?
If you can launch the server without the Launcher overwriting your modlist.txt, then you could simply copy the file from the client to the server and it should use the same .pak files without needing to download them separately.
Again, I’m not sure about the details of setting up a dedicated server, so I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable will fill in those gaps.
Yes, in fact not too long ago I made a feature request to Toolguy specifically for this scenario and he was nice enough to add it, so it is now live in the current version.
This new feature is just an extra checkbox that allows you to use the regular modlist.txt and skips all the mod updates and validation and just starts the server with whatever mods you have in the text file.
Here you can see the mods section of the launcher as well as the tooltip on the new option:
Normally if you have this checked, then the server launcher will try to download / update the listed mod IDs on startup.
If you have it unchecked the textbox will be grayed out and the server will use the modlist.txt from the ConanSandbox\Mods\ folder of the server installation.
(Seeing as the launcher will download the server into its own directory, the path from the launcher’s .exe would be DedicatedServerLauncher\ConanExilesDedicatedServer\ConanSandbox\Mods\modlist.txt)
And sure you can make this modlist.txt point to the exact same .pak files that your client is using so you don’t have to download them separately.
There is one caveat though.. do not startup the client and the server at the exact same time if they’re set to use the exact same mod files as it’s possible they will be temporarily locked in which case the server will just skip over that one and boot without (which can cause issues like buildings losing stability if the skipped one happened to be a building piece mod that was used there), so just wait a few minutes in between starting them.
2 Likes
Here, I just read your post too, so I’ll throw in some replies
You don’t need port forwarding when using it from the same machine and you do not want people from outside of your network to connect. The portforwarding is done for that purpose, so connections initiating from outside your network actually reach the correct machine on the internal network.
Ram usage will highly vary depending on the amount of mods used, the amount of persistent objects in your save (builds / placeables / thralls / etc. so how cluttered is your world save) and the amount of people connected as well as their location (two people far away would have to make the server keep more things active as opposed to them being in the same location). In general it would be like 3-6 GB for vanilla on empty and then 0.5-2 gb per online player, but that’s a very broad estimation since things can be very different based on mods used.
The Steam server list is a bit deprecated as the game has since became cross-storefront on PC (Steam / Epic / Gamepass PC) so it’s not really used anymore.
However the way you connect is as follows:
- If you’re hosting on the same computer, then you use the loopback IP (127.0.0.1) and just direct connect. Whether the server browser will allow you to connect or not will depend on the levels of trickery your router is capable of, but the loopback IP will always work so you should just use that.
- If you’re connecting from another computer within your internal network (so both of them connected to your router, like in the case of your laptop) then you would direct connect to that machines internal IP (ipconfig in the cmd window on that machine will show you the IP, so will the dropdown list on the server launcher where you select the adapter)
- Any other person from outside your network would use your external IP to connect (or the ingame server browser), this will ofc require all the portforwarding setup on your router.
1 Like
Thanks for the replies, I’ve more or less understood how the launcher works, although I’m still having issues of the launcher running the server on default ports or adjusted ports, since it wasn’t able to read the ports without adjusting port forwording settings on the router and firewall.
So far, I’ve kept the manage mods checkbox ticked off, had copied the modlist file from the client while making backups of the modlist file just in case, and the server seems to load them just fine, which includes subscribed mods kept unloaded.
In terms of RAM usage, would server restarts or having it down for periods of time sort of help with it? Granted I did upgrade the ram capacity to 96 for the purposes of a relatively long term session in the game with the dedicated server, main reason the dedicated server is for some of the mods that don’t work properly in singleplayer, hence dedicated.
I’ll take the caveat to heart, so I should let the Launcher start the server first and wait for it to load everything in, then once the launcher is done with the server setup, I should start the client after wards and wait the aforementioned time frame for it to start up as well.
Given the ram requirements and eventual buildup with persistent objects, I don’t think I could use the old laptop, unless if I could get a low budget alternative with just plenty of ram and storage for the purposes of dedicated servers?
Anyway, how would one go about just directly connecting to the local server on the same machine without port forwording? I tried it before but the Launcher threw errors about the ports, with it not being possible to connect to them without setting up the necessary settings in the protocols for Router and Firewall?
Sorry if it is too much to ask.
1 Like
Start the game, select “Play Online” in the main menu, pick any mode to get to the server browser, and then click on the “Direct Connect” button. A little dialog will pop up, asking you for the server address and the password. Supposing you set your game client port to 27101, the “IP and port” field should be 127.0.0.1:27101.
The launcher will warn you if the ports you configured are not accessible from outside your network, but it won’t stop you from launching the server. You can ignore those warnings if you’re going to play on the same machine or the local network.
Hi everyone. I have just gotten into CE and have set up a local dedicated server using this tool. It’s all working fine, but as of now I can’t seem to get the configuration tool/interface when I restart the server launcher. The server runs fine. Is there some setting in config somewhere to make this appear again?