AoE2 DE multiplayer keeps breaking Sever errors. (Help pls)

Hi everyone,

I’m having a really annoying multiplayer problem with AoE2 DE and I’m hoping someone has seen this before.

It started a few yesterday with my Steam friend not showing up properly in AoE2.

After that I started getting different multiplayer errors.

The first one was:

Source: Automatch2PollingEvent
Error Code: 0xffffffff
Extended Code: 0xffffffff

Later I got:

Source: AdvertisementJoinEvent
Error Code: 0x00000001

And more recently:

Could not create game. Request was invalid
Source: AdvertisementJoinEvent
Error code: 0xfffffff7

When I click OK on that last error, AoE2 sometimes freezes.

The strange thing is that Ranked Multiplayer was working normally at one point. I could play ranked games, but I couldn’t create a Party/custom game with my friends.

Now it has gotten worse again and Multiplayer is completely greyed out.

I’ve already tried pretty much all the usual things:

  • Restarting AoE2
  • Completely restarting Steam
  • Restarting my PC
  • Restarting my modem/router
  • Verifying the game files
  • Checking the multiplayer settings
  • Checking the Game Details / Friends Only settings
  • Making sure the relevant multiplayer settings are enabled

Nothing has fixed it.

So I’m wondering if this is an AoE2 server/account/connectivity issue rather than something wrong with my PC or internet.

Has anyone had these errors before, especially the combination of:

Automatch2PollingEvent → 0xffffffff
AdvertisementJoinEvent → 0x00000001
AdvertisementJoinEvent → 0xfffffff7

and eventually having Multiplayer completely greyed out?

Any ideas or known workarounds would be really appreciated.

Thanks!