Server lobby doesn't populate - can't see friends servers

[Flashheart602]

Hi all,

 

This is a bit of a mystery, My DCS MP server has always been slow to refresh and often-time taking a few 'exit to main menu, come back in, refresh' to get the full list.

 

However recently its been getting worse so that I never see the full number of servers and I can't even see my friends servers when they are hosting. I'm patched and up to date and the only way is via Direct IP - but even that is hit and miss and sometimes comes back 'Server Offline' when it clearly isn't.

 

However - I CAN host DCS missions myself - and people can see my server and connect without any issues.

 

I spent 2 hours last night with a squadmate trying to see if it was port forwarding, firewalls etc - but no joy. I'm no PC newb but hesistant to go poking around and break something else so rest of the games/software doesn't work.

It used to work fine and I could see servers/connect no problem.

 

Only 2 things have changed:

We now use Discord in our squad for comms which weirdly enough trips out and restarts itself when I'm refreshing the server list. Could Discord be using the same ports or something?

I share this main PC with my wife - and her work put a VPN on it when the lockdown and working from home began last year. Possible that this is a security setting here blocking some inbound traffic? (other games on Steam or Il2 standalone work fine in seeing MP lobbies - its just DCS).

 

Anyone have any ideas?