Hell Let Loose Server Troubleshooting — Common Issues and Solutions

Hell Let Loose is a big game – 50-a-side WWII infantry combat with armour, arty and a commander layer – and dedicated servers can hit the usual crop of WWII-scale problems. Most of what we see on LOW.MS support tickets falls into a handful of buckets, and the fix is usually a five-minute job once you know which bucket you're in. This guide collects the common ones.

If you're still on first-boot issues (service won't start, can't get into the panel, players can't even find the IP), the Hell Let Loose getting started guide is the better starting point. For "the server runs but admin or rotation isn't behaving", pair this page with the Hell Let Loose server configuration guide.

Your panel is TCAdmin at control.low.ms. Most of the diagnostics below come out of Log Viewer, Current Activity & Stats and Configuration Files in the sidebar of your HLL service.

"The server isn't showing up in the browser"

Easily the most common ticket. Before assuming anything is broken:

Fast checklist:

1. Is the service actually Running in the control panel? Green status under Service Settings, not stopped or restarting. HLL takes a minute or two to fully come up on first start after an update – give it 2–3 minutes before you start poking.
2. Open Log Viewer and watch the startup log. If it's still loading the map you won't be listed yet.
3. Is the query port reachable? HLL uses a query port one above the game port (so if your game port is 7777, query is 7778). On LOW.MS the ports are allocated for you and already open on the firewall – you don't need to touch this unless you've been editing things by hand. If you have, put it back.
4. Did you rename the server to something exotic? Stick to normal characters in the server name for the first boot, then get fancy once you've confirmed it shows up.
5. Players can always Direct Connect from the in-game server browser while you wait – IP plus the game port. If direct connect works and the browser listing doesn't, it's a listing delay, not a broken server.

If Log Viewer shows the server fully started and it still isn't listed after ~5 minutes, open a support ticket from control.low.ms and we'll take a look.

"Players can't connect"

Server is up, listed, but someone's bouncing off it.

Fast checklist:

1. Is it actually full? A queue can look joinable from one angle and rejecting from another – check Current Activity & Stats for the live player count.
2. Password set? HLL passwords are case-sensitive and copy-paste from Discord sometimes picks up a trailing space. Re-enter it by hand once to rule that out.
3. Did the server just restart or change map? Give it 30–60 seconds between "map ended" and "accepting players again" – connections during that window will just fail.
4. Version mismatch. If Steam pushed an HLL update, the server needs to update too before clients on the new version can connect. Hit Steam Update in the sidebar, or just restart the service (we auto-update on start). Players also need to make sure Steam has actually pulled the client update – "Update Queued" is not the same as updated.

RCON won't connect

RCON on HLL is TCP and sits two above the game port – game 7777, query 7778, RCON 7779. That offset is fixed by the game itself, we don't move it around.

Fast checklist:

1. Is the server fully started? RCON doesn't open until after the map has loaded. If you're trying to connect during boot it will just refuse. Watch Log Viewer, wait for the map-loaded lines, then try again.
2. Right port? Game port + 2. Check the service page in the control panel for the allocated ports if you're not sure.
3. Right password? It's in your server config files – open Configuration Files from the sidebar and copy it straight out rather than retyping. Some of the characters the installer generates look alike in certain fonts.
4. Using CRCON? That's the Community RCON tool most HLL ops end up on. If CRCON specifically can't connect while a basic rcon client can, it's almost always a CRCON-side config issue – double-check the host/port/password in its .env and that its own containers are all healthy.

If none of that moves it, restart the service from the panel and try once more before opening a ticket. A clean restart fixes a surprising amount of RCON weirdness.

RCON connects but commands don't do anything

Usually an admin/permissions problem, not an RCON problem.

• Is the SteamID64 you're running commands as actually listed as an admin, with a rank that has the permission you're trying to use? Admin setup lives in the server config files under Configuration Files – see the server configuration guide for the walkthrough.
• Did you edit the admin file and not restart? Changes to admin membership don't always pick up live. Restart the service after edits.
• Typo in the command. HLL's RCON command names are picky about case and spacing.

Server feels laggy / rubber-banding / hit reg is off

Before blaming the server, check the obvious:

Fast checklist:

1. Open Current Activity & Stats in the control panel. What's RAM and CPU actually doing during the laggy match? If RAM is pinned near the top of your allocation or CPU is sitting very high across a full match, that's your answer and you probably want a bigger plan – the Hell Let Loose hosting page has the current options.
2. Is it one specific map? Big urban maps and maps with a lot of long sight lines are heavier than the tighter ones. If the lag only ever shows up on one map, drop it from rotation for a night and see if the complaints stop.
3. Is it tied to a specific time of day? If your lag lines up with peak player count every evening, that's load, not a bug.
4. Is a third-party tool (CRCON, stats bots, Discord integrations) hammering the RCON port? Excessive polling can genuinely make the server feel worse. Back off the polling interval and retest.
5. Check Log Viewer for anything screaming about hitches or timeouts around the times players complained.

If resources look fine, the map isn't the culprit, nothing loud in the logs and it still feels bad – open a ticket with the approximate times and we'll pull the host-side metrics.

Server crashes

Right after a game update: restart the service so it pulls the latest binaries, then watch the first match in Log Viewer. Most post-update crashes are the server still running old code against a new client.

Always on the same map: pull that map from rotation, report it, move on. That's almost always a content bug upstream, not a host problem.

Under heavy load, near full server: check Current Activity & Stats for RAM right before the crash. Out-of-memory is the usual culprit at full capacity. If you see RAM climbing toward the ceiling as the match fills, that's the answer.

In all three cases, grab the crash time out of Log Viewer before opening a ticket – it saves us a round-trip.

Map rotation misbehaving

The map rotation file lives in Configuration Files in the sidebar. If entries are being skipped or the server keeps replaying the same map:

• Case matters. Carentan_Warfare_Day is not the same string as carentan_warfare_day.
• Make sure each line is an entry the server actually recognises – typos get silently skipped.
• Save as UTF-8 without a BOM. A BOM at the top of the file will eat the first entry.
• Watch for trailing whitespace or invisible characters pasted from Discord / Notion.
• Restart the service after editing, not just a map change – some changes don't re-read until the process restarts.

For the full "which strings are valid" conversation, see the server configuration guide.

Admins can't admin in-game

• SteamID64 in the admin config, not SteamID32, not profile URL. One wrong digit and the server ignores them.
• The rank assigned to them has to exist in the permissions config and has to have the permission they're trying to use.
• Restart the service after editing admin files.
• In-game, they still need to open the admin console the normal way before anything they type matters.

VIP slots work the same – right ID, right file, restart after changes.

When it's still broken

If you've walked the checklist for your problem and the server is still misbehaving:

1. Note the approximate time(s) it happened.
2. Grab any lines from Log Viewer around that time that look relevant.
3. Open a support ticket from control.low.ms with the service name, the time, and what you've already tried. We can see host-side metrics and server logs you can't, and giving us the time window cuts the back-and-forth in half.

We run HLL on our own hardware and see a lot of these in a week – most of them have quick answers once we know which bucket you're in.