[2020] Conan Exiles Dedicated Server Launcher (Official Version: 1.3.5 / Beta: -----)

Today is my last day at work before the Chrismas vacation, so let get a breakdown of what happened during this interesting year 2020.

We left 2019 with version 1.0.44 and we are now at version 1.3.5, so that’s another 17 releases this year.

On this screenshot you can see the difference between the two versions

1.0.44 to 1.3.5 update1301×1552 376 KB

Here are the details of what changed

• UI changes:

  • The output is now a tabbed view, allowing to select between the original game server logs, steam cmd output, some filtered views showing player and mod related information, plus also the content of the various ini files (which can be directly edited - still experimental)
  • Added support for CTRL-A and CTRL-C to the log output
  • Added the server PID in the title bar
  • Added plenty of tooltips
  • Extended the CPU/Core list from 32 to 64 entries
  • Reordered the UI element for a more logical and nice to use tab order

• Maps

  • Support for selecting maps (Siptah or from mods) - also shown in the title bar of the launcher

• Steam

  • Support for arbitrary steam branches and users
  • The log output of the SteamCMD operation is now added to the Dedicated Server Launcher log files in a section starting by STEAMCMD OUTPUT

• Moding:

  • Fixed a problem involving mod ids larger than 2147483648 (2^31)
  • The modlist edit field now also accept a copy-pasted list of mods, or a drag and dropped modlist.txt file so you can import or tweak mod lists

• Backup:

  • The backup code now also handles the “blacklist.txt” and “whitelist.txt” files, as well as any additional game db file

• Messages:

  • Added a combo box to select between “server” and “broadcast” when sending RCon messages (Maldred)
  • Added many magic tokens to the Discord and RCon messages.

• Quality of Life changes:

  • The dedicated server launcher log files (in the /Logs subfolder) will now clearly indicate which ini file failed saving when it happens.
  • All restrictions on the maximum number of players have been removed
  • Modified the “Test Port Accessibility” to give some proper diagnostic on what did go wrong: TimedOut, could not bind the port, …
  • The tool is now able to run internally for the new projects, so it will be ready when the new games launch.
  • Clicking on the game server path on the top now opens an explorer window to the location of the executable
  • Removed the “Documentation” link in the Help menu, and fixed the “Forum thread” to actually point to the correct support thread
  • Added a new “DedicatedServerLauncher.ini” file to limit conflicts with the server rewriting ini files

• Fixes:

  • Fixed a crash happening when trying to load older .ini files that did not have a “DedicatedServerLauncherServerAffinityMask” entry set
  • Fixed an issue with the ini file parser which would not properly remove duplicate entries in the ini files
  • Fixed some problem involving the internal crash reporter not managing to send reports
  • Added some proper quoting to allow SteamCMD to run if the Dedicated Server Launcher was installed in a folder containing spaces in the name
  • Moved the “Additional Command line parameters” before all the other parameters
  • Updated the magic tokens so they are also applied to RCon messages
  • Fixed a bug in the UI framework which would truncate the values to 2048 characters (problematic for the list of mods when using full paths) (veekay)
  • Fixed a bug where the affinity mask would not be reapplied after the server was restarted
  • Fixed a bug where the Run Script option used the wrong variable (Server Priority) to select the behavior.

Since there was no major issues reported for version 1.3.5, it’s now the new official version (+).

See you all next year

+ Remember that ALL the previous versions are still available in the Release History section on the top post.

You can store the mod on another location on your disk (not in the launcher folder) and add the full path in the mod input field, it will be added to the modlist.txt but the launcher will not try to update it.

That’s unfortunately the same issue that @domyz has, and that some other people had, I never had the problem so it’s hard for me to reproduce, and when I asked people if they could try something they did not do it.

So what I would be interested in, is to know if calling SteamCMD again, when there’s a TimeOut, will eventually work after a while, of if it will fail forever.

So to anyone who has the problem, I need to know two things:

• How did you proceed to actually fetch the mod
• Can you try to call the SteamCMD command the Dedicated Server Launcher is using, multiple time, and tell me if it keeps with time out or if it sometimes work

Thanks for testing!

So the question remains: Why do some of you manage to download the mod (from the Workshop page?) while SteamCMD fails, if anyone can come up with a solution, feel free to share!

EDIT: Could you try what is suggested on this post: https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/215439774859993377/

Actually I think I figured it out… I was able to add “validate” to the end of the mod update and it seems to have resumed the mod download. Just have to repeat that process in my script a few times, like so;

workshop_download_item 346110 572277026
workshop_download_item 346110 572277026 validate
workshop_download_item 346110 572277026 validate

It’s a messy way to do it, as you might end up validating the mod a few times after it’s fully downloaded, but it’s better than NOT having the full mod downloaded.

If other people can join the server, it means the configuration is 100% fine.
Most probably what happens is that you are one the same local network as the server, and because of an issue that the team is still trying to fix, trying to join a machine on the same network using the external IP (the one everybody else has to use) will fail.

Try to use direct connect with the local network ip of the server instead

And happy new year to you too

That’s actually a very good suggestion, I’m kicking myself for not having thought about that.

Question: What happens when your ISP changes the IP and the server is running and people are currently connected, does the game suddenly stop working and you need to restart the server, what exactly happens?

Is you idea that I should, for example, check every 10 minutes, that the external IP has not changed, and if it has, post a message and force restart, or…?

I’ll see what I can do.

If you click on one of the two blue icons on the bottom left, a explorer window will open, pointing on the location of the ini or log files.

From there you can move up and you will see your Game.db files.

Restoring a backup is basically overwriting these ini files or game database files with the ones from the backups (same thing with the white list, black list, etc…

Here is where the backed up files are selected from by the launcher:

• “*.db”
• “blacklist.txt”
• “whitelist.txt”
• “Logs\” SERVER_LOG_NAME
• “Config\WindowsServer\Game.ini”
• “Config\WindowsServer\Engine.ini”
• “Config\WindowsServer\ServerSettings.ini”
• “Config\WindowsServer\DedicatedServerLauncher.ini”

Could be many things, but the first one is: Does the “Test Port Accessibility” shows green lights?
Second, who are “they”, are we talking people on the internet, other people on the same home local network, etc… ?

Well, as long as the test is red, you will not be able to get anyone to connect to your server, so you need to solve that.

Common issues are:

• ISP that does not support port forwarding (often because the put multiple customers on the same external IP)
• The port forwarding is on the wrong local IP (often happens when you use DHCP, because the router gives different ips to the various machines, you can fix that by associating a fixed IP to the specific MAC/hardware address on the server)
• Port forwarding only done on TCP or UDP instead of both (in your case you would have at least some green there)
• ISP that have both a modem AND a router, on which both need to be setup for the routing to work
• Firewall or anti-virus, either on the router, or the server, that blocks the packages so they never reach the server launcher or game server

I sent you a private message.

That’s a question for the dev/support team, all I do is to maintain the tool that launches the server, but it get the server from Steam like everybody else.

The question would be relevant for me here, if for example you figured out that since version 2.2 there is some ini file, or command line parameter that has changed, and that the server launcher was not updated and writes some data or command line parameter that impacts the performance of the server… in which case I would make a change for that to not happen, and publish a new version.

Not really, it would be the place to put this here if the issue was caused by something the launcher did, like for example if the game allowed you to now have up to 700 players at the same time, but the launcher would limit to 100, then yes that would be something to fix in my tool

For questions related to which setting impacts what, how to manage your dedicated server, diagnosing issues in general, I suggest you join the Admins United Discord.

Good luck