My server is not showing in the ARK: Survival Evolved server list
This issue does not prevent you from joining the game server, you will always be able to join via the Steam Server favourites. See here on how to do this.
If you do not see your server in Steam Server favourites, please contact us and we will be happy to investigate. Make sure you give the server enough time to start up fully before proceeding.
Watch the "Memory" amount in the control panel, make sure Auto Refresh is ticked, the ram level will have usually stopped moving when its online, if its still increasing then its likely still starting up.
Check in Steam Favourites following this article, see if it shows up with the name displayed. If the slots are 0/0 or it shows as not responding, its likely still starting up.
Startup can take a varying amount of time depending on how many mods you have, if the game server is on HDD, SSD or NVME disk, if other game servers are starting up at the same time, or if its starting up for the first time or just after an update.
There are many reasons for this, you should first check the following:
The server is fully online, please see above for how to check. Give it 15 mins after its fully started up for it to register with the ARK listing servers too.
The server is fully up-to-date. You can update the server by stopping it, then clicking the Steam update button in your TCAdmin Control Panel.
All mods are updated. If using the Auto Managed Mods System it will check and update the mods on startup.
No mods that have not been updated to the latest version are on the server.
Although many times its perfectly fine to have mods that are older and not updated for the most recent version on the server, without them causing problems. It increases the chance of an incompatible or broken mod from preventing your server showing up. We have noticed a few very outdated mods preventing clients servers showing up. You should remove any for testing purposes.
Try changing the server name to something more simple and without special characters.
We have noticed before certain names to effect a servers viability in the server list.
If you do not have a password set on the server, make sure the "Show Password Protected" option is disabled when searching in-game.
The in-game server list only shows around 5000 servers at any one time.
There are typically over 25,000 ARK servers online at any given time. The servers shown in-game are chosen randomly and based on other unknown factors. Your server may show up sometimes, and not others.
If the your connection to the game server has a high ping.
We have noticed that the servers listed in-game that you have a lower ping to, are favoured at showing up for you.
For example, when testing for ourselves, 95% of the servers we saw were under 100 ping. Most of these based in the EU or East Coast USA. But there are many servers located in Central USA and further afield that simply did not show up for us at all. Only about 5% of the servers we saw out of the 5000 listed were over 100 ping.
We noticed that some of us were able to see the server when others were not, when testing at the same time.
Keep your server online, "aged" servers, or servers with a higher up-time, seem to have a higher chance of showing up in the list.
Increase your regular player count by advertising on forums, social media, etc.
Sign up to server listing websites such as Server Ranks or ArkServers.net
If you do not see your server in Steam Server favourites, please contact us and we will be happy to investigate. Make sure you give the server enough time to start up fully before proceeding.
When do i know when the server has started fully?
Watch the "Memory" amount in the control panel, make sure Auto Refresh is ticked, the ram level will have usually stopped moving when its online, if its still increasing then its likely still starting up.
Check in Steam Favourites following this article, see if it shows up with the name displayed. If the slots are 0/0 or it shows as not responding, its likely still starting up.
Startup can take a varying amount of time depending on how many mods you have, if the game server is on HDD, SSD or NVME disk, if other game servers are starting up at the same time, or if its starting up for the first time or just after an update.
So, why isn't my ARK: Survival Evolved game server showing up in the in-game list?
There are many reasons for this, you should first check the following:
The server is fully online, please see above for how to check. Give it 15 mins after its fully started up for it to register with the ARK listing servers too.
The server is fully up-to-date. You can update the server by stopping it, then clicking the Steam update button in your TCAdmin Control Panel.
All mods are updated. If using the Auto Managed Mods System it will check and update the mods on startup.
No mods that have not been updated to the latest version are on the server.
Although many times its perfectly fine to have mods that are older and not updated for the most recent version on the server, without them causing problems. It increases the chance of an incompatible or broken mod from preventing your server showing up. We have noticed a few very outdated mods preventing clients servers showing up. You should remove any for testing purposes.
Try changing the server name to something more simple and without special characters.
We have noticed before certain names to effect a servers viability in the server list.
If you do not have a password set on the server, make sure the "Show Password Protected" option is disabled when searching in-game.
Checked the above without luck? Please note:
The in-game server list only shows around 5000 servers at any one time.
There are typically over 25,000 ARK servers online at any given time. The servers shown in-game are chosen randomly and based on other unknown factors. Your server may show up sometimes, and not others.
If the your connection to the game server has a high ping.
We have noticed that the servers listed in-game that you have a lower ping to, are favoured at showing up for you.
For example, when testing for ourselves, 95% of the servers we saw were under 100 ping. Most of these based in the EU or East Coast USA. But there are many servers located in Central USA and further afield that simply did not show up for us at all. Only about 5% of the servers we saw out of the 5000 listed were over 100 ping.
We noticed that some of us were able to see the server when others were not, when testing at the same time.
Here are a couple of tips to improve the chance of it showing in-game:
Keep your server online, "aged" servers, or servers with a higher up-time, seem to have a higher chance of showing up in the list.
Increase your regular player count by advertising on forums, social media, etc.
Sign up to server listing websites such as Server Ranks or ArkServers.net
Updated on: 22/12/2018
Thank you!