Firewall will forward RDP but not anything else

[NotJohn]

I am trying to open the port for minecraft which is 25565 and am having some struggles with getting my NAT to forward the port. I have done the exact same process for MS RDP and followed the official pfSense guide to port forwarding and it opens the RDP port but not the minecraft port.

Things I have done to try to help this:
Duplicated the rule and port forward of the working port and changed the numbers
opened my pcs firewall to allow all ports.
Reinstalled pfSense all together and started from a clean build.
recreated a 1-1 rule one step at a time with the working port and the minecraft port after
deleting both, the rdp port still works
Opening other ports to try a different port number
bashed my head into my keyboard (the most effective so far)

I can supply screenshots i just need to know what for and any other info y'all may need to assist. This is frustrating considering I had it working before and suddenly it stopped working at some undetermined time.

[Bob.Dig]

@notjohn Why have you opened the RDP-port? Bad idea to begin with.
Maybe a dedicated firewall isn't the right tool for you anyway.

[NotJohn]

@bob-dig use it for work purposes but understand the implications. Judgement on my decisions unrelated to the post probably isn't what's meant to be here.

[michmoor]

@notjohn Have you allowed RDP through firewall rules?
If so do you see that rule being hit in the system log?
Provide screenshots.

[NotJohn]

@michmoor I dont see the rule being hit on my system log but i can rdp into my public IP so its open and i can scan to see that its open

[michmoor]

@notjohn When you scan for 25565, is it open? If its not then there is a good chance you have no firewall rule for it.

[NotJohn]

@michmoor

But i do

They match perfectly

[NotJohn]

@notjohn
and this shows what im seeing when i check the port

but then 25565

same thing happens when using a 3rd party tester

[michmoor]

@notjohn ahhhhh ok the last screen shot is the one i like
Doesnt seem that port 25565 is open on the server.

On the server run the following
netstat -ano | findstr 25565

If the port is listening my second question is do you have Windows Firewall enabled.

[NotJohn]

@michmoor i turned off my windows firewall to solve this and it has not been turned back on yet

[michmoor]

@notjohn
On the server run the following
netstat -ano | findstr 25565

Is the port listening?

edit: Turning off windows firewall resolved this?

[NotJohn]

@michmoor

[michmoor]

@notjohn you execute the command on your Windows box - the same one you have RDP enabled on.

[NotJohn]

@michmoor so i need to run this directly on the server's shell?

[michmoor]

@notjohn Yes.
For example on my Windows 10 client

netstat -ano | findstr 5353
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*                                    16988
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*                                    16988
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*                                    21312
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*                                    21312
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*                                    3424
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*                                    21312
  UDP    0.0.0.0:5353           *:*                                    16988
  UDP    192.168.40.1:5353      *:*                                    3100
  UDP    192.168.50.241:5353    *:*                                    3100
  UDP    192.168.80.1:5353      *:*                                    3100
  UDP    [::1]:5353             *:*                                    3100

[NotJohn]

@michmoor
the above is my test on 3389 so no its not listening for 25565

[michmoor]

@notjohn hence your problem. Im not a minecraft expert here so dont know why your application isn't listening on the intended port but PFsense is not at fault.

[NotJohn]

@michmoor seems strange though because its just a port to open its not specific to minecraft, just the default port the game uses, so the fact it isnt getting through is fishy

[michmoor]

@notjohn Im not sure you understand whats happening here.
The port is not open on your server. If the port is not open then why expect any outside connections to it to work?
Port 3389 is open on your server. The port is allowed on the firewall. Hence RDP is working.
Port 25565 is not open on your server. The port is allowed on the firewall. How can traffic be redirected to a port thats not open? You need to fix that.
Not a pfsense issue