Connecting to your Aternos Minecraft server is a simple process: just start your server and enter the server address in your Minecraft client. However, you may occasionally run into connection issues. In this article, we'll explain how to connect and provide solutions for any problems you might encounter while connecting.
How to connect to your server:
To connect to your server, copy the server address and enter it in your Minecraft client, as a new server or with "Direct Connect". You can find the server address on the server page.
This address includes your server port if "Cracked" is enabled in the options. Read more details about cracked launchers, especially TLauncher, here.
Connection issues? Here's how to fix them:
Sometimes, connecting may fail on the first attempt due to various reasons.
Most of time you will get a error message like:
Internal Exception java.net.SocketException: Connection reset Let’s take it step by step to resolve the issue and ensure you can successfully connect to the server.
Is your server online?
Please make sure that your server is online if you have problems connecting to your server. The status on the server page should be green and be labelled with "Online". Also, try to refresh the page, and verify again that your server is online.
Try connecting again
Sometimes, after the first connecting attempt, your Minecraft installation might show a lengthy error message. Often, just trying to connect to the server again will resolve the issue.
Use the DynIP
The DynIP is an alternative IP address for your server that helps you to directly connect to your server. Unlike the regular IP, the DynIP changes every time you start your server. To view the DynIP, click on the "Connect" button (i icon when using bedrock or pocketmine) on the server page while your server is online. Copy it and use enter it as the ip to connect to your server.
Why do I need the DynIP?
To understand this, you need to know about the Domain Name System (DNS). Every device on the internet has an IP address made of numbers. Since it's hard for humans to remember these numbers, the DNS was created to assign names to them. When you enter a domain like example.aternos.me in your browser or Minecraft client, your computer looks up the name to find the corresponding IP address. It queries a DNS server, such as Google's. If that server doesn't have the address, it asks another DNS server, like ours, which does. DNS servers and your computer temporarily store these IP addresses to minimize unnecessary requests, a process called "caching." Some servers may have caching times that are too long.
DNS & Aternos
Aternos uses a dynamic system to optimize our limited resources, meaning your server starts on a different server machine with a unique IP address each time. To make connecting easier, we automatically create a domain name for your server (e.g., example.aternos.me), which updates with each start to point to the new IP and port.
For Minecraft: Java Edition, your computer looks up this domain for the IP and port. However, Bedrock Edition requires you to manually enter the server port when adding it to your list.
If a DNS server has a long caching time, it may not update the IP and port, leading to connection issues. The DynIP allows direct connection to the correct IP and port, but its frequent changes can be inconvenient.
How to resolve DNS issues with Aternos:
Flush your DNS cache
A temporary fix would be to temporary flush your DNS cache, so your computer forgets about all cached IP addresses behind the domain names. This doesn't help if a DNS server has a long caching time and it also only helps once.
Click here to learn how to flush your DNS cache.
Change your DNS server
To permanently fix this problem, you can change your DNS server, which is the first DNS server that your computer uses to look up domain names. You can use any public DNS server that you want, we recommend to use the Google Public DNS because it's reliable and fast.
Click here to learn how to change your DNS server. (PC)
If you are having connection problems on your phone, you can use the Cloudflare DNS app to easily change the DNS server, which is also more secure and faster.