CONNECTING TO FRIENDS

Please note: we strongly recommend using a wired Ethernet connection. A wired connection will allow your system to achieve optimal performance when playing an online game. Wi-Fi connections have a wide variance in reliability and bandwidth, and can dramatically affect the quality of online gameplay.

Are you having problems playing with a friend online?

First, make sure you’re both playing on the same platform. Unfortunately, Trailmakers does not support cross-platform multiplayer (between Playstation and Steam, for example).

STEAM:

For Steam players, these are the steps you need to go through to make sure that you can connect to other players:

Restart Trailmakers. Stopping and restarting an application may free up resources that could otherwise be unavailable to it.
Restart Steam. You’ll need to shut down Trailmakers again to do this, but restarting steam resets your connection tokens and can help establishing new network connections.
Restart Computer. Sorry, I know this is the go-to catch-all answer of every tier 1 support out there, but it actually has some chance of helping as it re-allocates the network resources which may otherwise be blocking your connection.
Verify integrity of game files. In the Steam Library, right-click Trailmakers, choose “properties” and switch to the “Local Files” tab. The bottommost button says “Verify Integrity of Game Files”. This step will check if there’s anything wrong with your installed version of Trailmakers. If it doesn’t check out, try reinstalling Trailmakers entirely.
Make sure you don’t have anything downloading in the background i.e., streaming services (Netflix, HBO, etc.), torrent clients and the like. It’s always a pretty good idea to make sure there’s enough bandwidth available on you local network before trying to play multiplayer games and this especially applies to Trailmakers because we have a lot of physics that needs to be synchronized. Bandwidth intensive services should be closed to prevent bandwidth saturation, loss of connection quality and possibly connection loss.
Make sure your computer is up to date, video card drivers, sound drivers etc

If none of the above steps helped you connect to your friend, it may be necessary to try:

If you have antivirus and/or firewall, make sure they are not blocking the connection – it’s safe to add TrailMakers.exe as an exception. The first time you start Trailmakers Windows firewall will display a pop-up asking for permissions to let it through and if you accidentally denied permissions at this point, the windows firewall will be blocking it. Remember that your router may also have a firewall set up, and in that case check this one as well.

If none of the above helped you connect to other players, please check our Discord server to see if we’re having server issues. If we aren’t having server issues, we need more drastic measures – we’re going to need to see your error logs! Please see this page on how to find your error logs, and send them to us in an email (hello[at]flashbulbgames[dot]com), and our tech team will take a look at the error logs, and see if there’s another reason you’re not able to connect with your friends.

Xbox / Microsoft Store – UNABLE TO REQUEST/JOIN A CLOUD SERVER

If you’re getting a timeout message when trying to request or join a server you can try the following things.

Close Trailmakers completely and sign out and then back in to your Xbox Live profile.
Power cycle your Xbox console. To do this, hold down the power button on your console for 10 seconds until it beeps and turns off completely. Now unplug the power cable and wait another 10 seconds then start it up again.
Reboot your Router.

If you’re only seeing this issue when trying to connect to a friend and you (or they) are able to connect to other servers, be sure that both of you perform the above steps.

THE MORE TECHNICAL THINGS

If the above doesn’t work then the issue will require some more in depth steps.

First of all, run a Network Test on your Xbox Console.
Turn on your Xbox console.
Go to Settings and select Network.
Select Test network connection, and allow the test to run.

If this test finds something wrong, it will notify you. This message identifies where your connection failed in order of priority, and offers troubleshooting steps to help correct the problem. Learn more about Xbox One network connection test error messages.

Make a note of your NAT type here, ideally you want it to be Open. You can read more about NAT type and how to change it here.

You can also run Test multiplayer connection to identify issues leading to lag, disconnects, or other game-related network issues.

The information provided by these tests may also be of use to us if you’re contacting us on Discord, so please make a note of the results and provide them to us! You can also send them to us in an email (hello[at]flashbulbgames[dot]com), and our tech team will take a look at the information , and see if there’s another reason you’re not able to connect with your friends.

Xbox – ACCOUNT FEATURE DENIED ACCESS

If you’re seeing this message when trying to access Multiplayer or the Gallery, it means your Xbox Live profile does not have the required permissions set to use these features. This is something that you need to change yourself on the Microsoft/Xbox Live backend. There’s an official guide on how do this here: Manage Xbox online safety and privacy settings for your family group | Xbox Support

Playstation – UNABLE TO REQUEST / JOIN A CLOUD SERVER

If you’re getting a timeout message when trying to request or join a server you can try the following things.

Close Trailmakers completely and sign out and then back in to your PSN profile.
Power cycle your PlayStation console. To do this, hold down the power button on your controller, go to Power Settings and turn off the console (not rest mode!). Once it’s turned off completely, unplug the power cable and wait 10 seconds then start it up again.
Reboot your Router.

If you’re only seeing this issue when trying to connect to a friend and you (or they) are able to connect to other servers, be sure that both of you perform the above steps.

THE MORE TECHNICAL THINGS
If the above doesn’t work then the issue will require some more in depth steps.

First of all run a network test on your Playstation console.

From the PlayStation home screen, select Settings.
Select Network.
Select Test Internet Connection and allow the test to run.

Find out more about connection tests on PlayStation 4 here.

Make a note of your NAT type here, ideally you want it to be Type 1 or 2.

CHANGING SETTINGS ON YOUR ROUTER

If you suspect that your connection is causing your problems to connect with friends (if you’re having problems playing online in all games, for instance), we’ve got the following tests you can perform to check your connection:

The following tests require you to log in to the router on your home network to troubleshoot your network. You will need your router’s login credentials to proceed. If you do not know your router’s login credentials, you will need to contact your Internet Service Provider.

These tests refer to options that are typically found in a router’s menu. If you cannot find what you’re looking for, please refer to your router’s manual.

You may not need to perform all of these tests, so be sure to test the game after attempting each one.

If you are on a school, college, corporate, or another shared network, please refer to your network administrator for further assistance.

TEST 1: UNIVERSAL PLUG AND PLAY

Turn off Port Forwarding (if it is turned on) and enable Universal Plug and Play (UPnP).
Check your new settings in game. If this doesn’t resolve your issue, proceed to the next test.

TEST 2: PORT FORWARDING

Turn off UPnP.
Turn on Port Forwarding.
Assign a Static IP address to your console.
Check your new settings in game. If this doesn’t resolve your issue, proceed to the next test.

TEST 3: DMZ

Turn off Port Forwarding.
Assign the console’s Static IP address to your router’s DMZ.
Test your new settings in game.

Please note: Once you have tested DMZ, be sure to remove your Static IP address from your router’s DMZ.