Friends Game keeps crashing

[wind wagon]

hello, having a problem with playing with my friend I am self hostingserver, but anytime he joins it his game crashes, this never happened before .

We are not using any mods

[open ermine]

Can they share their logs.zip file found in %UserProfile%\Zomboid?

[wind wagon]

yes, they say they are also getting this

I did go back to the stable version of the game to play with someone else before returning to unstable to play with another friend could that of caused the problem because before I did that my friend could join me without issue

[open ermine]

Are they trying to join by steam invite or right click > join game? See if they can join by searching for the server in the server list

[wind wagon]

by me inviting them through the game pause menu

[open ermine]

Yeah if you're frequently switching between versions it can cause an issue. You can do the steps bellow to make a copy of b41 so you don't have to keep switching.

You can switch the game to version 41 first as an example, then go to the install folder in “Steam\steamapps\common" and make a copy of the Project Zomboid folder, then rename the new folder to Project Zomboid B41.

You can now use that folder to launch the B41 version while switching to B42 again as the Steam version that auto updates.

That port closed message can happen sometimes when trying to join through steam, try through the server browser or by adding the server as a favourite (they'll need your external IP https://www.whatismyip.com/)

[wind wagon]

ok, would it make sense for me to do a fresh install of the game? incase there is some weird stuff from 41 and 42 colliding?

[open ermine]

It certainly wouldn't hurt. Below are the steps for a proper fresh reinstall (just incase you need them)

First, uninstall the game, then go to "Steam\steamapps\common\ProjectZomboid" and make sure there are no leftover files or folders there.

After that, go to “%UserProfile%\Zomboid” and delete everything there except the “Saves” folder.

[wind wagon]

ok I have done this just waiting on the game to Reinstall.

ok its done, but when I boot up the game the server doesnt show? Do I just copy the save file to the server folder?

the server doesnt show up now

[wind wagon]

ok I got the server folder back from the recycle bin, but it still wont allow him to join it, but we started again new game and it he was able to join perfectly

[open ermine]

Sounds like that old save was corrupted, was it from an older version?

[wind wagon]

no it was from unstable, but I am guessing going back to 41 then back to 42 corrupted it?