Why isn't my Rust server showing in the server list?

Usually your server is fine and it’s the list. Rust builds its server list on each player’s own PC, so no two players see quite the same one. Join by address to check the server’s up, make sure you’re looking in the right tab, and get your tags right.

Why everyone sees a different list

Facepunch explains it like this. Your game asks Steam for every Rust server, then asks each of those servers for its details itself. A server only appears once it has answered.

With thousands of servers answering at once, the answers come in at different speeds. A server a long way from you answers slowly. So does one under a DDoS attack, or any server when your own connection is dropping packets. That’s why your mate can see your server instantly while it never turns up for you. Every HavoNode server has DDoS protection, which keeps the attack part off your list.

Join it directly first

You don’t need the list to get in, and joining tells you straight away whether the server is up.

1. Find your server’s address and port in your Game Panel. Your free subdomain works too.
2. In Rust’s main menu, press F1 and type client.connect followed by the address, such as client.connect 203.0.113.24:28015.
3. Once you’ve played on it, it’s in the browser’s History tab. Add it to your Favourites from there.

If that works, the server’s fine. The rest of this page is about getting it found.

Look in the right tab

• Running Oxide or Carbon? Facepunch says servers using plugins “should be listed under the Modded section”, so look there, not under Community. Plugins that only help you run the server are allowed under Community, as long as they don’t change anyone’s gameplay or show their own on-screen UI. So are custom maps, chat colour plugins and skip-queue plugins, and changes to Rust’s own settings such as team size and decay. Gather rates, kits, loot changes and info panels all count as modded.
• Premium. A server set up as Premium only shows for players whose Rust inventory meets Facepunch’s threshold, which is $15 at the moment.
• Search for its name. A new server with nobody on it sits a long way down the list. Type its exact name in the browser’s search box. A short, distinctive name is easier to find than one long line of tags and emojis.

Get your tags right

Tags put your server under the browser’s filters. Set them with server.tags, separated by commas, in your server’s settings in the Game Panel or as a line in cfg/server.cfg:

server.tags "monthly,vanilla,EU"

Facepunch’s list includes:

• Wipe schedule: monthly, biweekly or weekly
• Difficulty: vanilla, hardcore or softcore
• Region: EU for our servers in London

Use one tag from each group. Facepunch warns that mixing them, such as monthly with weekly, stops your server showing up when players filter by those tags. The browser shows up to four tags on your server’s listing, and server.pve true adds the PvE tag by itself.

If nobody can see it

1. Check it’s finished starting. Watch the live console in your Game Panel for Server startup complete. After a wipe, building the new map takes a few minutes, and the server isn’t listed until it’s done.
2. Leave the ports alone. The list finds your server through its query port, so it has to be the one your server was given. Copied an old server.cfg from another host? Delete any server.port, server.queryport or rcon.port lines in it, because that file overrides your server’s settings. Bringing your world over covers this.
3. Restart from your Game Panel, then give it a few minutes to appear.
4. Ask the assistant in your Game Panel to check the console and logs. It changes nothing until you approve it.

Still invisible to everyone after all that? Open a ticket and we’ll check your server from our side.

If only some players can’t see it

These come from Facepunch’s own advice for players:

• In Steam, open Settings, then In-Game, and set Server browser pings / minute to at least 5000.
• Launch plain Rust, not Rust Staging Branch, which lists fewer servers.
• Turn off any VPN. The list is built around where your connection appears to be.
• Restart the router, and check antivirus or a firewall isn’t blocking Rust.

And if all else fails, they can join by address with client.connect, like you did above.