Are Valheim Servers Down?

Are Valheim servers down?

Almost always, no. Valheim does not work the way this question assumes, and understanding why will get you back in the game faster than refreshing an outage tracker.

Last verified: August 2, 2026.

The thing nobody tells you first

Valheim has no central game servers. There is no Iron Gate datacentre running everyone's worlds. Your world runs either inside somebody's game client (a listen server, which is what the Start Server checkbox creates) or on a dedicated machine that you or your host operates. Nothing about your Viking, your base, or your save lives on a company server.

So when Valheim will not connect, "the servers" being down is rarely the explanation. Four separate things can actually break, and they have completely different fixes.

The 60 second decision tree

Cause 1: Steam itself

If you play on PC through Steam, Steam has to be working for authentication and the friends list to function. A Steam platform incident can stop you launching or joining even though Valheim is fine.

How to check: try launching any other Steam game, and see whether the Steam friends list and store load. If Steam is broken across the board, you wait. Nothing on your end fixes it.

Cause 2: the crossplay relay (the one real central dependency)

This is the closest Valheim has to a "server that can go down," and it is the one people are usually actually hitting.

Crossplay does not connect players directly. It routes traffic through Microsoft's PlayFab relay infrastructure, which is how a PS5 or Xbox player reaches a server without anyone configuring port forwarding. That relay is a real third-party service with real outages and real congestion.

Tell-tale signs it is the relay:

• Steam players connect normally, crossplay players cannot.
• A dedicated server running with the crossplay option repeatedly fails to register, and that failure can block Steam clients from connecting too.
• Connections succeed but with far worse latency and more random timeouts than usual, because the relay adds a network hop.
• Server logs contain PlayFab error codes.

What to do: check the PlayFab status page at status.playfab.com. If it is congestion rather than a full outage, waiting or trying a different server region often works. And if everyone in your group is on Steam anyway, turn crossplay off entirely. You lose nothing and remove the whole failure mode.

Cause 3: the specific server, or whoever runs it

If one server is unreachable but you can join others, the problem is that server. Which of these it is depends on how it is hosted:

• A friend is hosting from their PC. Then "the server" is their game session. If they closed Valheim, went to sleep, or lost their connection, it is gone until they come back. This is the built-in limitation of Start Server and Community Server.
• It is a dedicated server. Then it is down, restarting, or updating. On a managed host, check the control panel for the process state before assuming anything worse.
• It is in the community browser but will not appear. A freshly started server takes roughly 10 to 15 minutes to show up in the list. See server not showing.

Cause 4: your own client, which is the most common answer of all

If everyone else is playing and you are not, it is you. Ranked by how often it turns out to be the culprit:

1. Version mismatch after an update. This is the single biggest cause of a sudden "server is down" panic. Steam updated your client, the server has not been updated yet, and the two now refuse to talk. Nothing is broken. Somebody just needs to update the server. Full detail in incompatible version after update.
2. Mods. If you run BepInEx, a mod that has not caught up with the current game build will block the connection or crash on load. Test with mods disabled before blaming the network. See finding which mod broke.
3. The password prompt accepts your password and then bounces you to the main menu. That specific symptom has its own causes, covered in password accepted then kicked.
4. Your own network. Restart the router, and if you are hosting rather than joining, confirm ports 2456 and 2457 are actually open. Valheim uses the port you specify and the one immediately above it.

Patch day is not an outage

Every Valheim update produces a wave of "servers are down" reports that are really the version mismatch in Cause 4. The pattern is always the same: Steam auto-updates clients within minutes, servers update whenever their operator or host gets to it, and in the gap nothing connects.

Mark September 9, 2026. That is when Valheim 1.0 launches with the Deep North biome and simultaneous debuts on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 with full crossplay. It will be the largest single update in the game's history and the busiest day the crossplay relay has ever had. Expect version mismatches, expect the community browser to be slow, and expect relay congestion. Almost none of it will be an outage.

If you administer a server, the useful preparation is to take a backup beforehand and plan to update promptly rather than assuming it will happen automatically.

What to check, in order

1. Can other people play right now? If yes, skip to your own client.
2. Does another Steam game launch? If no, it is Steam.
3. Is it only crossplay players failing? If yes, check status.playfab.com and consider turning crossplay off.
4. Did the game update today? If yes, the server needs updating too.
5. Are you running mods? Disable them and retry.
6. Only then start looking at your router.

Related articles

• General troubleshooting guide
• Incompatible version after update
• Server not showing in the community list
• Dedicated server desync fixes
• Start Server vs Community Server
• Creating backups before an update

If your current answer to "is the server up" depends on whether one friend left their PC on, a managed Valheim server stays up on its own and updates without waiting on anyone.