Windrose failed to connect to server / server not found (fix)
Entering a friend's invite code or trying to join a dedicated server does nothing, kicks you back to the main menu, hangs on the loading screen for minutes before closing, or shows a black screen and then closes — with no useful error message.
Also appears as: windrose server not found, windrose failed to connect to server, windrose can't connect to server, windrose can't join friend, windrose kicked to menu, windrose crash when joining server, windrose stuck on loading screen joining, windrose black screen joining server, windrose nextdns blocking windrose.support
This isn't one bug, it's a family of connection failures that Kraken Express's own FAQ and a 15-comment Steam Discussions thread both point at the same handful of causes. Windrose routes multiplayer through a connectivity/relay service at windrose.support rather than a single set of Kraken-run game servers, so a failure can come from your router or ISP flagging that traffic, a DNS blocklist rejecting windrose.support outright, Windows prioritizing IPv6 over the IPv4 the game expects, or — during Early Access launch week specifically — certain ISPs blocking the backend entirely. Kraken Express confirmed that last one directly and shipped emergency fixes (manual connectivity-server selection, a Direct IP option) within days. If your friends can all join each other but not you, the problem is almost always local to your connection, not a wider outage.
What to try
- 01Check the Steam news hub for app 3041230 for an active hotfix or downtime window before troubleshooting locally — Kraken Express has posted scheduled connectivity-downtime notices before pushing fixes.Reported
- 02If you use NextDNS, Pi-hole, AdGuard DNS, Quad9's strict filters, or any security suite with domain blocking, allowlist windrose.support. NextDNS specifically has been confirmed to block this domain by default, killing the connection with no error. Kraken Express's own FAQ separately confirms some ISPs block windrose.support at the network level and asks affected players to check their ISP's blocked-domain list for it.Confirmed
- 03Disable IPv6 or set Windows to prefer IPv4 — Kraken Express's FAQ states plainly that "the game is currently designed to use IPv4" and that an IPv6-first network can cause exactly this failure. Run `netsh interface ipv6 show prefixpolicies` in Command Prompt to check your current priority.Confirmed
- 04In-game, try Force Relay Connection (routes through Kraken Express's relay servers instead of direct P2P, at the cost of higher ping) or switch connection region. If neither works, try Direct IP with the host's forwarded port as a last resort.Confirmed
- 05Check your router's security/threat settings and Windows Firewall — multiple players in a corroborated Steam Discussions thread found their router (in one case an Xfinity gateway) had flagged Windrose's traffic as a threat and was silently blocking it.Reported
- 06If you can join solo/offline fine but not multiplayer, load a singleplayer world first, exit to the main menu, then try joining the server again — several players in the same thread reported this sequence fixed the join for them.Reported
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