Troubleshooting
Six people, five consoles and one server: things occasionally go sideways. Here’s what usually went wrong, and what to do about it before anyone starts blaming the Wi-Fi.
Joining the game
Empty Epsilon can’t connect to the server
Three things, in this order. One: copy the address from the room card again, right now — the port at the end changes from game to game, so an address that worked last week is probably wrong tonight. Two: the password is case sensitive and always uppercase. Three: check that the mission has actually launched — the server doesn’t exist until the room owner launches it.
Ships vanish off my screen, or the game rejects me at the door
Almost always a version mismatch: your copy of Empty Epsilon isn’t the same build as the server. When your client doesn’t have a ship on disk, it removes it rather than showing you something wrong. Update through Steam and you’ll be back in step — see Install Empty Epsilon. If Steam has already moved you to a version we haven’t caught up with yet, tell us; that one’s on our side.
I’m in, but I don’t know which console to take
Whatever you claimed in the room. The game itself won’t hold the seat for you — it trusts the crew to have sorted that out. If you’re new to the station, the station pages take five minutes each.
Rooms and missions
No missions are showing up
The list only appears once the owner has closed the room — that’s the signal that the crew is final. After that, you’ll only see missions your crew qualifies for: some need a minimum number of people in the room, and some need somebody aboard who earned the right to them in a previous game. A mission that was there last week can genuinely be gone this week.
I don’t have the button to launch
Only the room’s owner can launch. If you created the room and the button has disappeared, you probably left it at some point — leaving hands ownership to somebody else. Ask whoever has it to launch, or start a fresh room.
I can’t get into a room I can see
It’s been closed. Once the owner closes a room the crew is locked in, so latecomers can’t slip aboard. The owner can reopen it — that’s one message away.
It says there’s no server free
We run a handful of games at the same time and they’re all busy. Nothing is broken and nothing was charged — wait for a crew to finish and launch again. If this keeps happening at your usual time, tell us: we can add capacity, and knowing when it hurts is genuinely useful.
The mission cancelled itself before we started
If nobody connects from Empty Epsilon within about twenty minutes of launching, the server assumes the evening fell through, shuts down and refunds everyone’s contribution. Launch again when the crew is actually at their keyboards.
The panel and your account
The panel asks me to reload, or buttons stop responding
Your sign-in expired — usually because the tab sat open for days, or you signed out somewhere else. Reload the page and sign in again. Nothing is lost: rooms and characters live on the server, not in your tab.
I stopped being the owner of my own room
You left it. ◀ Lobby is safe — it’s just navigation and you stay in the room. Abandon the room is the actual exit, and on the way out it hands the room to somebody else who’s still there (or closes it if nobody is).
My credits or reputation look wrong
Have a look at how the campaign keeps score first — contributions, payouts and shares surprise people. If it still doesn’t add up, tell us which mission it was and we’ll go through the log.
Known issues
Things we already know about, so you don’t have to spend an evening proving them to us. Last updated [ DATE — update whenever this list changes ].
Voice chat in Firefox. Firefox connects to the voice server differently from the others and we’ve had one confirmed failure. We’ve since put a relay in place that should fix it, but we haven’t been able to prove it on the machine that failed. Chrome and Safari are unaffected. If you’re on Firefox, tell us how it goes.
Not on this list?
Tell us what you were doing, which browser you were in, and roughly when. That’s usually enough for us to find it in the logs.