Server shows "???" as ping

Having "???" as my ping means my server is sorted PAST the high-ping servers into the nothingness void of servers no one is going to join
Obviously, this is a problem since I did in fact buy Don't Starve Together after all
Been trying to fix this problem for two days now and it's very frustrating that the biggest part of the game -playing with others- is being completely negated by this problem

The worse part is the fact that I did not have this problem when I played before, so coming back and playing for hours without a single soul joining me -unlike before
Made me think this game was just on it's way to being called a "dead game" and time to shelf it for good
As I browsed the server list that is completely filled w so many more servers then I've ever seen the last time I played, I mean just pages upon pages with no players in any of them

Like I said, two days. So I've looked into and tried many solutions but one that I will get to at the end of listing them
It didnt help that there was no way at all for me to see if the ping number was restored (or that it was even missing, I got lucky) and had to have someone share me it every time I tried a new fix
I tried:

• Restarting Game
• Reinstalling Game (clean install, deleted residual files in directory)
• Resetting Settings
• Resetting Mods
• Disabling ALL Mods
• Set run as admin for both Forest and Caves .exe`s
• Restarting PC
• Allowing through FireWall. Both Public and Private. Aswell as both Forest and Caves .exe`s
• Resetting Firewall and allowing again
• Allowing through Anti-Virus. Both Forest and Caves .exe`s

Exception to VPN:
This worked and my ping finally showed, but only w Forest .exe. Having Caves enabled would cause "could not start server, try again" error
Cave log for that is identical to every other one, except it just tells itself to shutdown at the end:

[00:00:22]: [SyncWorldSettings] applying hunger = default from master shard.    
[00:00:22]: [SyncWorldSettings] applying basicresource_regrowth = none from master shard.    
[00:00:23]: [Shard] secondary shard LUA is now ready!
[00:00:23]: [IPC] Signal 'DST_Secondary_Ready' opened  #00000000000008FC
[00:00:23]: [IPC] Sending signal... #00000000000008FC
[00:00:23]: Sim paused
[00:00:43]: [Shard] We have been disconnected from the master. Waiting to reconnect...
[00:00:44]: [IPC] Received shutdown signal.
[00:00:44]: Available disk space for save files: 572042 MB
[00:00:45]: Serializing world: session/77FD1174973C0B54/0000000009
[00:00:45]: Truncating to snapshot #9...
[00:00:45]:  - session/77FD1174973C0B54/0000000003
[00:00:45]:    1 file(s) removed
[00:00:45]: [Shard] Stopping shard mode
[00:00:45]: [Steam] SendUserDisconnect for ''
[00:00:45]: Collecting garbage...
[00:00:45]: lua_gc took 0.13 seconds
[00:00:45]: ~ShardLuaProxy()
[00:00:45]: ~cEventLeaderboardProxy()
[00:00:45]: ~ItemServerLuaProxy()
[00:00:45]: ~InventoryLuaProxy()
[00:00:45]: ~NetworkLuaProxy()
[00:00:45]: ~SimLuaProxy()
[00:00:45]: lua_close took 0.16 seconds
[00:00:45]: CurlRequestManager::ClientThread::Main() complete
[00:00:45]: HttpClient2 discarded 0 callbacks.
[00:00:45]: Shutting down

If I also made Caves an exception, then it would just endlessly reconnect. In game it would just say "connecting" but never finish/start the server

[00:00:25]: About to start a shard with these settings:
[00:00:25]:   ShardName: Caves
[00:00:25]:   ShardID: 4122410887
[00:00:25]:   ShardRole: SECONDARY
[00:00:25]:   MasterHost: 127.0.0.1
[00:00:25]:   MasterBind: (null)
[00:00:25]:   MasterPort: 10888
[00:00:25]: [Shard] Connecting to master...
[00:00:35]: [Shard] Connection to master failed. Waiting to reconnect...
[00:00:40]: About to start a shard with these settings:
[00:00:40]:   ShardName: Caves
[00:00:40]:   ShardID: 4122410887
[00:00:40]:   ShardRole: SECONDARY
[00:00:40]:   MasterHost: 127.0.0.1
[00:00:40]:   MasterBind: (null)
[00:00:40]:   MasterPort: 10888
[00:00:40]: [Shard] Connecting to master...
[00:00:50]: [Shard] Connection to master failed. Waiting to reconnect...
[00:00:55]: About to start a shard with these settings:
[00:00:55]:   ShardName: Caves
[00:00:55]:   ShardID: 4122410887
[00:00:55]:   ShardRole: SECONDARY
[00:00:55]:   MasterHost: 127.0.0.1
[00:00:55]:   MasterBind: (null)
[00:00:55]:   MasterPort: 10888
[00:00:55]: [Shard] Connecting to master...

Finally, I'm now going to succumb to having to port forward 10999 myself
I both don't like doing so nor think I should have to do this
Not because it's 2023, but because this has been an issue since before 2014:

You probably already know this, but I dont have those log files anymore since I've since then reverted changes and played by manually inviting ppl to join me

I don't think Port Forwarding is the solution since I myself can't seem to connect to my own local server when I have caves enabled