Sudden Network Issue with Conan Exiles – Client/Server Sync Stops After Joining

Hello,

About three months ago, an issue with Conan Exiles suddenly appeared, and I’ve been unable to resolve it since. I want to clarify that this problem also occurs on a different PC connected to my home network, but it does not happen when I connect to a different network using my own PC. My current setup worked perfectly for years until this issue began. No hardware changes were made to my PC during that time.

The issue:

I can join any server without a problem, and I connect as quickly as always since I have a high-performance PC. Once in-game, however, nothing loads properly, or it takes 5-30 minutes. My character, buildings, and placeables take a long time to load, but they do eventually appear. Once everything loads, no updates occur. If I try to level up an attribute, it doesn’t update on my screen. Other players can see me moving, but I can’t see them move. For me, they stay in the position they were in when I first loaded in. It feels like there’s a single burst of network traffic when I first load in, and then again when I exit, but no data exchange in between. For example, if I upgrade an attribute, nothing happens immediately, but after relogging, I see that the upgrade took effect.

This issue arose without warning, as mentioned earlier.

Troubleshooting steps taken:

  • Network reset
  • Router reset (including factory reset)
  • Complete Windows reinstallation from USB
  • Driver updates
  • Removed all Conan mods
  • Tested on official servers
  • Contacted my ISP to check for blocked ports
  • Tried three different VPNs (two paid)
  • Tested the game on a different PC

The only thing that works is changing my network to mobile data or using a different WiFi/LAN connection. It used to work fine on the same network and PC, but then it stopped out of nowhere. I haven’t been able to pinpoint this issue to any particular patch or update. No changes were made to my home network, and I’ve even bypassed the router and connected directly via LAN to the main line.

Clearly, something did change, but I’m at a loss for what that could be. Could this issue really be with Conan Exiles itself? I’m certain it’s not related to mods or my PC, and my network works perfectly with everything else, except Conan.

At this point, I’m stuck between thinking it’s either a network issue or something on Conan’s end, but I’m completely out of ideas. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Sorry to hear that you are having connectivity trouble. It does seem that you’ve been pretty thorough with your troubleshooting.

What server are you connecting to? Is this an official g-portal server? Or, a private server? Any detail that you could add about that may be helpful.

Who is your internet service provider? Have you adjusted or changed your ISP services recently? Have you added any devices or services that consume your internet bandwidth recently?

Based on what you are describing, it does sound like a bottleneck of sorts. I don’t know the workings of the game client, and the server to client packet makeup - but it very much sounds to me like you’re doing fine loaded up the game as all of the initial loading is likely more deliberate, and handled with TCP packets. After that - due to the size, and speed of many online games… I believe that the packet load changes to UDP (broadcast packets). That would explain other players seeing you in the world (the server HAS to verify your position), but then you don’t get updates from the other players.

I would revisit your blocked ports conversations with your ISP. I don’t know what all of the ports are that Conan Exiles uses - but you could use a tool like PortQuery to check to make sure you’re able to reach the server you intend on all of the required ports.

I would also recommend evaluating any sort of anti-spam or anti-virus software that you may be running. Uninstalling these or disabling these for the short term may help you evaluate your issue. If you haven’t done this yet (it sounds likely that you already have) - you may want to run Steam’s validate files process to make sure all of your installed Conan Exiles files are whole.

The only other thing that I can think of is to try to take your gaming rig to a friend’s house, and try connecting via their ISP. Ideally, you would want to pick a friend who has a different provider than the one you use. Just for the sake of removing that service as a whole from the troubleshooting stream.

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I could likely have been more clear, but yes, I have tried bringing my PC to another connection, it also mentions that when I swap to hotspot from my phone it works, I have verified countless times and done a clean install of windows. I have checked antivirus/firewall and I am absolutely certain it is not a bandwidth issue.

As you mention, it might be the swap from TCP to UDP packages, I also haven’t swapped ISP and they assured me no changes were made there. I will revisit the conversation with them, as it has to be my conneciton that has had changes made to it. I just find it very interesting it is only this one specific game, Conan Exiles, and not even 3 different high-end VPNs made a difference, nor is my connection’s hardware in any way damaged or altered, at least on my end.

Every other potential problem has been ruled out at this point, so it has to be the ISP. As soon as I change my network it works again, so it has to be there the problem lies.

Thank you for the thorough answer, I will continue my crusade to get it fixed, I wish you a nice day!

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Good luck, and keep us posted!

Not sure if there’s any Funcom support for this stuff. But if there is - it would likely need to start with a Zendesk ticket. So - may be a parallel path you can pursue.

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