I Can’t Connect to My Server

Work through these roughly in order — most connection issues are one of the first three.

Is the Server Actually Running?

Check the Terminal tab — if it’s stopped or still starting up, that’s it. A server mid-startup will refuse connections for a few seconds to a minute or more, depending on world size.

Wrong Edition or Address

Double-check you’re joining with the edition the server was set up for (Java can’t join Bedrock and vice versa — see Choosing Java or Bedrock), and that the address matches exactly what’s in the panel’s Network tab. A typo’d IP or the wrong port are the two most common causes of “can’t connect” reports that turn out not to be server problems at all.

Allow-List / Whitelist

If you’ve turned on an allow-list (Bedrock) or whitelist (Java) and a player isn’t on it, they’ll be rejected with a message that’s easy to misread as a general connection failure. Check allow-list/white-list in server.properties, and the corresponding allowlist.json/whitelist.json file for who’s actually on it.

Version Mismatch

Both editions generally require the client version to match (or be close to) the server version. If someone’s on an older or much newer game version than the server, they may be blocked or see a compatibility warning.

The Player, Not the Server

If only one specific person can’t connect while everyone else joins fine, it’s usually on their end — a typo in the address they saved, a restrictive network (school/work Wi-Fi blocking the port), or in rare cases their ISP. Have them try a different network (mobile data) to rule that out.

Tip

“Can everyone else join fine?” is the single most useful question for narrowing this down — if yes, the server’s fine and the problem is that one player’s setup.