Epic Games Launcher FS19 Dedicated Server Workaround

[dStruct]

Hey all,

I recently got the Epic Games version of FS19 to run as a dedicated server, however as many of you have probably seen there are issues with the dedicated server portion of it.

I followed the DedicatedServer_EN guide on how to setup and start the server, however I could never get the dedicatedserver.exe web admin interface to actually start the server as it should.

However I have managed a temporary work around for the Epic Games Launcher not loading a FS19 dedicated server, and even with a working web admin interface.

What I found was the EG Launcher was treating the dedicatedserver.exe as if the game was running, showing a status of "Running". I believe this is related to possibly why the server might not be loading from the web admin interface.

Next I noticed the web admin interface was complaining about my license being invalid. And when I tried to start the dedicated server from within the web admin interface it would try and then fail to start.

To work around this the first thing I did was launch the FS19 on my server from the Epic Games Launcher, I then created a multiplayer game, set up a farm, set my settings how I wanted, saved it, and quit.

Next I launched the dedicatedserver.exe and accessed the web admin interface to configure my server settings, name, password, etc. This was just to simplify things, it could have also been done from the .xml files directly.

Next I saved my settings and closed the dedicatedserver.exe web admin interface.

Then I opened the Epic Games Launcher and went into Settings, and scrolled all the way down to the bottom and expanded the Farming Simulator 19 section and checked the Additional Command Line Arguments option, and in the box I set the option to -server, which is literally just "-server" without quotes.

Next I went to my Documents folder "C:\Users\Me\Documents\My Games\FarmingSimulator2019\gameSettings.xml and edited the <creategame line and set autoaccept="true" (I'm still not sure why this was overridden, when I set up my farm and game I set auto accept ON)

Code: Select all

<createGame password="*********" name="*********" useUpnp="false" autoAccept="true" autoSave="false" allowOnlyFriends="false" capacity="8" bandwidth="5"/>

Then with the dedicatedserver.exe still not running, I ran FS19 by normally launching it in the Epic Games Launcher (but now with it's -server option set).

It now launched the headless server using my pre-configured settings, and I was able to connect to it remotely with my Steam based Farming Simulator 19 v1.5.1.0 client no problem at all.

After the server started up, I was actually then able to launch the dedicatedserver.exe web admin interface and still monitor and admin the server from it. Just not start/stop the server.

I hope this was helpful to you guys, and if anyone needs help getting this working I will monitor this thread or you can just @dStruct on the Farming Simulator Discord.

[FirstDNS]

Hey !

Thank you tu share this workaround !

I am currenty experiencing the same issue, I will test it as soon as possible !!

[xdNiBoR]

Yep! it worked!
You can start the game first, then the dedicatedserver.exe otherwise the Epic Games launcher will give an error.
if you have anymore questions, DM me! NiBoR#8721

[Jeytav]

I can confirm that following these steps does fix the issues and will allow you to host a dedicated server with the epic version and join with the steam version etc

[frasercow]

What we need to do is find a way to run the dedicatedserver.exe without epic thinking the game is already running and then it'll run normally. or Giants could make an icon in the epic store and steam to launch the dedicated server so that the actual game could be run from the web UI.

[aklein]

I have not tried but I suspect the same holds for the steam version. Both have launchers that run the game. Its a trade off for having the free copy is having to deal with the Epic launcher. The best experience is going to be when you use the Giants download copy or the disk version.

[Stegei]

The thing is, it is sometimes working to directly launch the game through the dedicated server UI. It looks like a bug of the Epic launcher that is sometimes not correctly launching the game when we request it to do so. We're currently working with Epic to figure out what is wrong.

As for the workaround to add -server manually in the launcher, this is simply a missing feature of the Epic launcher that we can't request the game to be launched with a custom parameter (unlike Steam, which has that feature).

[dStruct]

The thing is, it is sometimes working to directly launch the game through the dedicated server UI. It looks like a bug of the Epic launcher that is sometimes not correctly launching the game when we request it to do so. We're currently working with Epic to figure out what is wrong.

As for the workaround to add -server manually in the launcher, this is simply a missing feature of the Epic launcher that we can't request the game to be launched with a custom parameter (unlike Steam, which has that feature).

Thanks for stopping in, I appreciate the brief update. I can also confirm it does appear at least from my end to be an issue with the Epic Launcher, both the server starting issue and the license issue. I’m sure you guys have also already pinpointed where in the Epic debug log the issue is, but if you guys could use any of my log info I would be happy to provide it.

[gordon861]

I wish Giants would just produce a headless server that we could add to our own LAN server and host it rather than requiring a full version of the game.

[blinkt88]

Working 1000% with that steps. I try it today and work fine

Dedi App 19 work too fine

[TouchMe]

Hi, so I tried this but my friend can't connect to the server, idk if this has something to do with the way the server is made, but we never managed to connect to one another, I tired to make severs in many ways, but he can't connect, but I can connect to half of the other random servers and for the rest including ours we get "no connection could be established to the multiplayer game". And we can't narrow the problem to see which one of us is the problem, if anyone want's to try and connect to my server I'd be grateful. Discord (GreenXp#8014)

Ty for your time

[dStruct]

Hi, so I tried this but my friend can't connect to the server, idk if this has something to do with the way the server is made, but we never managed to connect to one another, I tired to make severs in many ways, but he can't connect, but I can connect to half of the other random servers and for the rest including ours we get "no connection could be established to the multiplayer game". And we can't narrow the problem to see which one of us is the problem, if anyone want's to try and connect to my server I'd be grateful. Discord (GreenXp#8014)

Ty for your time

Hi TouchMe,

As long as the server console window loads up and shows what looks like a log of what the server is doing, loading mods and such. Then the server should be up and running. If you’re having an issue connecting in to the server, then you would want to look at the servers firewall such as Windows Firewall, and also look at any router it may be connected through.

The port the FS19 server listens for connections on would need to be forwarded through your internet provider however it is configured to allow access to the server. If your router supports UPNP it can be as simple as enabling that option and letting the FS19 server sort out the port.

Hope that helps.

[Dairydeere]

When you talk about dedicated server, is that talking about all servers in the game, or just the ones that aren't hosted by a player?

[dStruct]

When you talk about dedicated server, is that talking about all servers in the game, or just the ones that aren't hosted by a player?

Dairydeere,

In terms of my reply to TouchMe, that applies to any FS19 server dedicated or not, even other games as well. If you're trying to host a server or service of some kind in most home network configurations you would need to have the port forwarded on your router for the service in question, which can sometimes be multiple ports, and you would also need to make sure no firewalls are blocking the traffic, such as a router firewall or Windows Firewall for example.

I can do a separate thread on some general thoughts on how to setup port forwarding and firewall stuff, if you think that would be useful.

[Dairydeere]

I just didn’t understand what the definition of a dedicated server was.