Hi Everyone

I'm having a hard time getting my friends to connect to my server.

I'm hosting a small 5x server on my gaming system from home. I followed a few tutorials and managed to set up the server and got all my mods running.
I also port forwarded ports 28015 and 28016 through my router, and allowed those ports through my firewall for both incomming and outgoing connections. 

I can see the server in the modded server list in the server browser, and I can see the server in the Steam Server list. I can also connect using the client.connect command. It runs well within my network

The problem is, my friends are having issues trying to connect. Friend 1 can connect using the client.connect command, but he cant see the server in the modded server list. Friend 2 can see the server in the modded list, but cannot connect. Gets the "disconnected connection attempt failed". If I tell him to use the client.connect command, he gets the same problem.

I have a feeling it's got something to do with my port forwarding. If I try look for ports 28015 and 28016 on canyouseeme.org, I'm told the ports are closed. I downloaded the port checker program from portforward.com which tells me both ports are open. If the server is running, the program even tells me that something is using port 28015 and that it can't check the port, which confirms that port is running. If I run the "netstat -a" command in CMD, I can see the two ports open and established on my IP address.

I'm at a point where I cant understand why people outside my network can't connect. My girlfriend's computer can see the server in the modded server list and connect just fine. 

Any help will be appreciated

First of all, I hope you'll be more civil here than you were on the FP forum.

If one person is able to connect from outside then it means you have it set up correctly so there's nothing further you need to do. From what you've said, the problem could simply be lack of bandwidth or something like that (connection timeouts etc). As for not appearing on the Modded list for some users, they may just need to refresh their list and/or wait a bit.

If only 2 other people have attempted to connect, I'd say you need a larger test group. Wait and see how many others can/can't connect because it may be just this one person having issues.

"First of all, I hope you'll be more civil here than you were on the FP forum."
Uhm??? What??? I don't post on Facepunch forums.. Just here and Reddit. Sorry for the confusion, but I think you got the wrong person....

I kept the server live for over 70 hours and had no one connect during that time

Sorry my bad, there was a rude guy over there with a similar problem. Anyway...

"Friend 1 can connect using the client.connect command"

If you have one successful connection that proves that your settings are correct. If people are not able to connect since then, maybe you changed something?

If one person can connect but one can't, that's may an indication that the one who can't connect would be the one with the issue else a firewall on your system. There isn't really partially port forwarding in terms of connections, it's all or none.

As far as the server listings go, that is handled by Steam and depends on your server's ports being open that Steam looks for, the server not being blacklisted with Facepunch, the server having EAC enabled/disabled, the Rust client seeing the latest changes from Steam, etc.

That's what I would do. Sometimes new servers just need some time to "settle".

Thanks my dudes. I will def do so