Stardew Valley multiplayer not working — troubleshooting and fixes (2024)

The first place you should look when encountering a problem with multiplayer mode is your game’s settings. Stardew Valley multiplayer is easy to connect to, but it requires your game to have the right settings.

Here are some common errors and their solutions.

Stardew Valley’s creator regularly releases updates to the game, which also affect multiplayer mode. In most cases, keeping your game fully up to date can be enough to ensure that you’ll always be ready to play multiplayer mode.

Alternatively, you can also tell your co-op host to check if their game is updated. You can find the game version number by clicking the “?” at the very bottom of the screen. The window that pops up indicates the version of your Stardew Valley game, which should match your co-op host’s version.

You’ll need an invite code to enter any console multiplayer game of Stardew Valley — and sometimes it’s easy to fumble the inputs or think that a lowercase “l” is a capitalized “i”. You should always check for the invite code since it changes every time a new multiplayer session is made.

Keep in mind that you’ll have to set your multiplayer game server to “Invite Only” to use invite codes. But if you’re already friends with the other players, you can set it to “Friends Only” to directly invite them from the Multiplayer menu.

Stardew Valley has one restriction that can limit how many people can join your game: the number of cabins built on your farm. Each Stardew Valley multiplayer session can have a player capacity of four in a single game, and each player needs to have their own cabin to join a multiplayer session.

If you’re starting a new game, you can set the number of cabins on the left side of the co-op menu. If you’re already hosting an existing farm, you can build additional cabins by visiting Robin. Robin’s building construction list should contain the blueprints you need to build enough cabins. You can also increase the number of starting cabins (to four and more) by using SMAPI mods.

If Robin doesn’t have cabins on her list, it could be that your game is still locked on to single-player mode. The game requires you to start a co-op session directly from your title screen. You can check if you are in co-op mode by checking “Multiplayer” in the “Options” tab.

If “Multiplayer” doesn’t appear in your “Options” (typically above the “Sound” tab), you can do the following:

1. Navigate to the title screen.
2. Select the “Co-op” option.
3. Select the “Host” option.
4. Make sure that your “Server mode” setting is set to “Online.”
5. Load the save file you want to host with other players.

After this, all the preceding options should be available on your game. Stardew Valley players on the Nintendo Switch don’t have the option to access “Server mode” settings. Stardew Valley also doesn’t support crossplay — so if you’re a Nintendo Switch player, you’ll have to play your game session with people also on the Nintendo Switch.

While this is not officially confirmed (and not applicable to people playing outside of it), your Steam display name can lock you out from joining other people’s games. This error affects a joining or hosting player as long as they’re on the Steam platform.

A potential Steam username issue can be due to the username containing profanity, language not approved by Steam’s guidelines, or other violations of their username policy. Changing your Steam username by editing your profile should be able to fix this error.

If the above fixes still don’t allow you to join multiplayer mode, the problem may be in your actual device or internet connection. Changing your network settings can allow you to join other people’s games and possibly correct other issues like frequently disconnecting from sessions.

Here are some common errors and their solutions.

While LAN options are available for Stardew Valley co-op, it’s far more likely that you’ll be joining other people’s games remotely. In these situations, a fast and stable internet connection helps players easily join other people’s games or communicate online. If you’re constantly getting a “connection failed” error, your internet might be the most likely culprit.

Many issues can affect your internet connection, but one tip that all players can follow is to make sure that the games that they’re hosting (or joining other players’ games) are located within the same continent.

Failing this, you may need a fast and stable internet speed, especially if you’re hosting a session.

When your router is running for a long time (like the time spent playing Stardew Valley), it can sometimes slow down, have intermittent Wi-Fi coverage, or suffer from other performance-reducing situations like overheating. In this case, restarting your router can potentially solve any issues you have with joining multiplayer Stardew Valley games.

To restart your router, follow these steps:

1. Unplug your router and modem, making sure they’re both fully turned off.
2. Wait for at least one minute, then plug them back in.
3. After waiting for around five minutes, turn on your router and modem.
4. Wait for your internet connection to be restored.
5. Try playing multiplayer again.

Most router settings won’t affect your Stardew Valley related data unless you’ve done manual adjustments to your router or internet connection. Router restarts also don’t affect your firewall settings, so you don’t have to worry about your internet security being compromised when you do this.

If you’re playing with other people on a LAN connection, consider creating the private server for Stardew Valley with Meshnet. Using a solution like NordVPN’s Meshnet can help secure your server and possibly stabilize your internet connection. Solutions like these don’t mess with data that’s related to Stardew Valley. Rather, they secure your connection for an easier online experience without needing to manually set up port forwarding.

One of the many benefits of using Meshnet is that you can set up your LAN, allowing you to play games with friends as if you were on the same local network. You may wonder: Does a VPN slow down internet connections? VPN services may slightly affect your speeds, but the overall changes should be minimal — you’ll still have a smooth connection.

If you’re having trouble connecting to other player’s games, doing a quick run-through of the checklist above should be able to fix your connection issues. You can find more help on advanced issues on the official Stardew Valley website.

If that doesn’t help either, Stardew Valley has a forum where players can share specific circumstances as to why their multiplayer isn’t working. The forums may help you address issues not discussed above, especially if you’ve modded your game.