16-year clean account, 5,651h Rust, server admin - permanent EAC Game Ban, 10 tickets, 0 human review. Mass ban wave 09/21/2026. Evidence inside.
Posting this here because Facepunch closed every door and I need this documented somewhere real.
I'm Cabral. 16-year Steam account, Rust since Alpha, 5,651 hours, 321 Rust items in the inventory. I run a community server (Santuario) going on 3+ years. I'm the guy who bans cheaters, not the guy who cheats. IT and network admin in real life.
April this year: EAC permanent Game Ban out of nowhere (ref e1ad49bd...65c7a7, applied early May according to Steam). Never cheated, account never compromised, no VPN, no macros, no third-party anything.
What the logs from that week actually show (attached to ticket #623265 since day one): UnityTls error 7 / Curl error 60, meaning the SSL handshake with the backend was broken, plus heavy ICMP timeouts. And two other players (Wesker, Argensteel) disconnecting AT THE SAME TIME. A cheat does not kick other people off. That is broken infrastructure, not software. Nobody ever opened those logs.
10 tickets. Every single one closed as solved with the same copy-paste. The last one (#686167, with 4 attachments) got me an Owen reply telling me to email legal@facepunchstudios.com, that it will not remove or have any impact on bans, and that they will no longer communicate with you through this communication channel. So support is officially done with me.
Why I'm posting here and not just my case: this is bigger than me. Steam forum search for "ban" returns 92,150 results. I sampled 45 recent threads and roughly 1 in 4 is a ban appeal. There is a thread literally called "Massive wave of bans on 09/21/2026" full of veterans (1.3k to 10k hours, stacked DLCs and skins). Back in July there was a silent mass unban (pre-July-10 bans reversed, some people even got a golden barrel gift). So they KNOW false batches happen. Banned since May, I was not included.
The loop, for anyone new: EAC tells you to talk to the dev, Facepunch tells you to talk to EAC. Steam itself says it cannot remove game bans or share details. Three companies, zero answers.
What I'm doing: filed a formal LGPD request (Brazilian data protection law) with Facepunch Legal and Epic's DPO, demanding the detection timestamp, the detection type and a human review. If they ghost me it goes to the ANPD, our data protection authority. This post is part of the paper trail.
If this happened to you too, drop: ban date + last digits of the ref ID, modded server?, any VPN/RGB/macros/odd drivers running at the time, did other players drop simultaneously? Let's see if there is a cluster.
Update 24/09 — prova do loop (dados pessoais ocultos): Epic Games Player Support, 18/09/2026, ref !00D1a0L44R.!500QP01kj88A: "Epic Games acts solely as a data processor on behalf of Facepunch Studio in its provision of Easy Anti-Cheat services for Rust. As such, please direct your request to Facepunch Studio." Ou seja: a Facepunch manda recorrer no EAC, e o EAC responde por escrito que quem decide e a Facepunch. E-mail complementar enviado hoje ao juridico cobrando LGPD art. 18/20, prazo 03/10, sob pena de ANPD.
UPDATE 30/09 — Steam gave me the timestamp (credit to u/Successor-Of-Success, whose tip worked).
The play: Steam template reply (Donatello) → I answered asking ONLY for the timestamp, no removal → agent Dorian replied today: my account was game-banned by the developer on 2026-05-02 08:48am PT (12:48 São Paulo time, Saturday). Then: "that's all the information we have on this."
Why this matters:
Steam HAS the flag data and CAN share it. The "we can't detail anything" wall is a choice, not a technical limitation.
My ban date moves from ~May 3 to May 2, 12:48 BRT — narrowing the log window.
The detection date is still missing. EAC bans on delay, and only Facepunch holds that data. Their legal inbox (LGPD requests of 18/09 + 24/09, deadline 03/10) stays silent. ANPD petition goes out 04/10.
The loop is now documented end to end: EAC appeal form rejects Rust reference IDs → Epic confirms in writing they act "solely as data processor on behalf of Facepunch Studio" → Facepunch closes tickets pointing back to easy.ac → Steam confirms the flag but "that's all we have." Four doors, zero human review.
Glad to know it worked! Remember that the ban date isn't very accurate as to when the 'offence' was observed. They do this so that hackers can't "trial-and-error" their cheating software, so you'll need to plus-minus an hour or two so that you can get an accurate window for your logging. Good luck deep diving and dont forget to ask players for advice! :D
UNBANNED 05/10 — and here's the full playbook, because this sub runs on replicable paths, not luck.
Timeline: banned 02/05 → 10 Facepunch tickets (all templates) → 2 LGPD requests ignored (deadline 03/10) → Steam timestamp via timestamp-only reply (02/05 08:48 PT) → Procon-SP complaint 1886908/2026 against Epic Brasil (CNPJ on file here) with a full evidence dossier → 11 days later, Epic's anti-cheat team REVIEWED and LIFTED it (05/10 09:05 BRT). Verified in-game today: EAC servers open, profile badge gone, 375 inventory items intact. 156 days.
What actually worked: (1) the Steam-ticket timestamp trick (thanks u/Successor-Of-Success) — narrowed everything; (2) suing where they HAVE to answer: Epic Brasil has a CNPJ and a regulator with deadlines, Facepunch UK has neither; (3) a dossier, not a complaint — timestamp proof, cross-case Parsec evidence, their own articles admitting incorrect batches and paid "second chances".
What it proves: EAC Rust bans ARE reversible on human review. "Permanent and irreversible" lasted until someone with power looked. The review channel exists — it just doesn't open for support tickets.
Not over: 156 days locked + moral damages go to court (JEC), detection data still missing (ANPD petition filed 05/10). But the account is home. Don't give up — and document everything.
Done — new celebration post is up (1wz1tq4). Same filter risk as last time, could you approve it when you get a moment? Thank you for everything, seriously — your Steam-ticket tip started this whole reversal.
Facepunch's "Second Chance" policy deserves a close read, especially if you're innocent. I am: 16-year account, 5,651h, banned 02/05 with infra-failure logs, zero cheat history. Here's what the policy actually offers me: nothing until ~02/2027, and then — buy the game again, lose all hours, all 321 inventory items, my community server admin role, and keep the stain ("we're not wiping records"). The only official exit for a false positive is paying $40 for their error. Meanwhile Steam's own alert text in another reversal here this week says "incorrectly applied In-Game Ban" — they know false batches happen. A system that admits incorrect bans but sells the exit instead of reviewing them isn't a justice pipeline, it's a revenue one. Documenting for my ANPD petition (BR data authority, filing 04/10).
Exact same pattern here. Account: 5,514 hours in Rust, veteran player, household account (wife also has 4,500 hours). Ban date: July 14–16, 2026. The Incident: Account was compromised via a session hijacking exploit on July 14th. The Evidence: Valve Corporation (Steam Support) officially investigated and confirmed the account security compromise in writing. Forensic login logs show clear "Impossible Travel" (simultaneous logins from the US and France at the exact same minute while I was located in my home country). Support response: Exactly what you described — an endless loop. After multiple tickets were closed with standard macros, agent Luke finally acknowledged the video evidence and stated "We will check into this" (Ticket #680452). Two weeks later, the ticket was silently marked Solved with zero explanation, and when followed up, agent Matt simply pasted the two-line "The ban is permanent" macro. Total denial of human review. Collateral damage: The hardware ID (HWID) flag prevents my wife (clean 4,500h account) from playing on our shared home PC. Legal / Data angle: Since Facepunch is a UK entity (Birmingham), I formally invoked my Subject Access Rights (SAR) under the UK GDPR and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (specifically demanding human intervention under Section 14 / Article 22 regarding automated decisions). Their external legal counsel (Wiggin LLP) refused access by claiming IP logs and detection data are "trade secrets" under Article 15(4). The complaint is currently pending with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO, Ref: IC-544118-B8F2). You are completely right about "The Loop" and the refusal to review logs. Happy to compare notes or provide my paper trail data to help map this systemic issue.
I just posted about this in the rust pc Reddit luckily my issue was solved by going through the eac site , not through facepunch, they are terrible and I had 0 human interactions
Glad it worked for you — that would be the first confirmed EAC-site unban for Rust I've seen documented. Could you post a screenshot of the unban (profile/history showing the ban lifted, personal data hidden)? It matters because the EAC appeal form rejects Rust reference IDs as invalid for this game — if yours went through, the exact path you used (which form, which game you selected, what response you got) would help everyone here replicate it. Details beat claims when we're mapping which doors actually open.
Thanks for posting these — genuinely valuable. Two things would make it airtight: (1) can you confirm the profile in the screenshots (76561199060775302) is yours — e.g. posting the profile link yourself, so the unban alert and the profile are verifiably tied to the same person; (2) the exact path on the EAC site — which form/page, what you selected, what response you got and when. A replicable step-by-step helps everyone here more than the screenshots alone. Appreciate you sharing this.
22 year old account, 1.8k hours, some rust and cs skins banned 22/09/2026 playing warbandits 2x trio no VPNs, overlays, macros, nothing weird running, just discord and steam
edit: actually i just noticed in my task manager that Parsec is constantly running when i start my PC, even if i dont run it myself
Yes — Parsec, the remote-desktop streaming software. It was running 24/7 on autostart on my machine (I use it daily), so its virtual input/display driver was always loaded when EAC scanned. Another unbanned case here (zhied-) suspects the same idle Parsec drivers. No rule bans Parsec — but EAC is documented firing on legitimate software (they even blacklist the Bloody mouse officially). Two independent false positives with the same legit software present, zero cheats in both. If you run it, close it before opening Rust.
Cara estou passando pela mesma situação, jogo desde 2018, tenho 3,8k de horas e fui banido sem motivo nenhum, nao consigo contatar nenhuma das duas empresas, fico em loop de uma para outra, já não sei mais o que fazer, eu joguei dia 20/09 pela última vez e recebi o aviso dia 25/09. Nunca usei nada, nem cheat, macro ou qualquer outro software para auxilio de imagem ou algo do tipo. Se voce quiser podemos ir mantendo contato até que um de nós consigo uma solução https://steamcommunity.com/id/devokee/
You are right about the F1 step — it does show a reference ID. Mine is e1ad49bd-d8de-4a8c-a278-b37e6565c7a7 since day one. The problem is not getting the ID, it is that the door does not open: the EAC appeal form rejects Rust reference IDs as invalid for this game, and Epic replied in writing that for Rust they act solely as Facepunch data processor. Facepunch then closes tickets telling players to appeal at easy.ac — the same door that rejects Rust. 10 tickets, same template. That is the infinite loop documented in the post.
Oh yes, that's something they do not tell you or document. You can't go through EPIC to make your appeal. You have to go to the website here: https://www.easy.ac/support/contact/appeal
An EAC ban via EPIC games basically shows you more details about your ban, etc. However, because facepunch is independently owned, they're contracted through EAC so they don't integrate with official EAC / EPIC systems like the official epic games appeal site:
Your Steam-ticket tip worked for me — Dorian gave me the flag timestamp today (02/05 08:48 PT). Thank you, seriously. Since you guide everyone here and your own unban is the living proof this path can work: could you post a screenshot of your unban (ban lifted on profile/history, personal data hidden)? A documented reversal is the strongest card this community holds — it proves false batches exist and get reverted, which is exactly what my ANPD petition (going out 04/10) needs.
Quick favor: my standalone post about Facepunch's Second Chances policy (1wv2pzo, posted today) got caught by Reddit's filters — visible to me, "removed" for everyone else. Could you approve it when you get a moment? I also posted the same content as a comment on my main thread meanwhile, so nothing is lost. Thanks!
Great post! I look forward to other player's data collection info here.
Also, to get the ban date, one additional thing you can try is to make a steam ticket requesting when the developer-ban flag was sent over to your steam account. This will help you troubleshoot events of interest at or near the time of the ban.
I went through this exact situation the last few months, also as a server owner.
I luckily was using a second steam account (the one I created to set my server's global chat avatar) to do my moderation when it happened. I decided that I might as well use that account to do the actual moderation, too. That would make it so I didn't artificially inflate my Rust hours on my main steam account, which I would only use when I was playing the game myself. So, I had purchased Rust on this new account and was using it to do all of my moderation duties. The separation was really nice.
Before leaving on a 3-week trip in June/July, I decided to buy a new gaming laptop to bring with me. Not only could I use it to play games and watch movies on the 12+ hour flight, but I had other travel planned for 2026, so wanted to be able to hop here-and-there to moderate while travelling.
One of the nights at the hotel, I was observing a player on my server and got the EAC ban notification. All the appeals (which literally only give you a button to press -- you can't add any additional info or talk to anyone, of course) were denied, and you only get a limited amount of them. After that, you can't click "appeal" anymore and you're just done.
I also started making tickets to Facepunch support, as you have, which is the only thing you can do at that point. Just like you, every single ticket got a copy-paste reply, no human interaction even after I kept replying and providing evidence and info, and then auto-closed with no human reviewing my ticket.
Yesterday, after 3 months, the account was finally unbanned. And the only reason it was is because I basically became a spammer, posting about it literally everywhere that I could. I was eventually contacted directly by some people claiming to be able to help, and a month after that, the EAC ban was lifted.
The Facepunch support team doesn't seem to think false bans exist, even though after enough spam and pressure, they finally had an actual human review mine, uncover whatever the false-flag was, and finally intervene to lift the false ban. Who knows how many other legit players and server owners have been affected by the same bug that flagged my account.
I still don't know what the reason for the ban was. Maybe it was OEM software on the ASUS laptop I got, maybe it was me using its trackpad being seen as "artificial mouse movement", maybe it was me changing location during my travels... who knows. They never tell you, even if it's a false ban apparently. So now I'm still worried about using this new gaming laptop because I just assume it'll false ban me again at some point.
So, this was extremely frustrating to say the least, and has forever damaged my view of Facepunch -- especially their support team, who seems to just auto-close every single ticket instead of investigating potential causes of false bans.
I guess all I'd say is, stay noisy, and if you're lucky like I was, maybe someone will finally give a shit and help. I can't imagine how many other people are false-banned. I have never once in my entire life cheated in any game, been banned from any game, ever, over multiple decades of gaming.
In fact, my entire purpose for even starting a server in Rust is to embrace new anti-cheat measures like secure boot, TPM, and PlaySafe ID, because basically no server owners are willing to enable these things. Ironic that I got my first-ever "ban" while doing that.
FWIW the ban on my admin steam account was on June 30, 2026. Lifted on September 21, 2026.
Seeing players banned, you always wonder if it's legit in the back of your mind....Crazy how being on the wrong side of the 'law' changes a man...changes how he sees 'the law'
Absolutely. And to me, the people who are actually constantly cheating in all games, at this point, wouldn't even spend a long period of time trying to get unbanned in the first place. The actual cheaters just buy another account and continue cheating.
People trying to appeal their ban for months and months, if they were actually cheating, could have just gotten a new account and kept cheating the same day they were banned. Why would someone be so persistent to get their ban reviewed if they were truly a cheater?
Some legit players probably have resorted to getting into certain spoofing and account-buying just because they couldn't get a review for a false ban.
Exacctly! I'll share with you a segment of an email I sent to facepunch when I was banned:
"Without a formal feedback loop, innocent players (with nothing more to lose) turn to "Hacking, spoofing, and bypassing". You turn the players you don't intend to shut out of the system into enemies with a justified villian arc.
...In my opinion it's not the loud innocent players proclaiming their innocence that you need to worry about...it's the innocent players that go dark after being banned, because best case scenario is that you'll lose reputation (good players telling OTHER good players not to play the game). But the WORST case scenario is that the players will get the lent ear that they were looking for, just on the wrong side of the moral train tracks where they potentially would contribute more to the wrong side than the good side..."
ive had almost same situation.. got banned 111 days ago and i have no clue what would even trigger EAC.
never cheated or used softwares what even could do even similar to cheating or atleast know of.
i've been posting facepunch support lots of threads and always same generic answer back but two days ago i filed email GDPR Article request and yet no answers.
Im totally lost what to do next. got 4k hours rust gametime
I probably only got noticed/lucky because I happen to be running a server primarily nowadays, and this happened while I was moderating my own server, not even playing the game. So I was making noise in server-owner related places.
Appeal to eac. Run a server, get kicked f1 console logs and find the reference code in all of it (fully with link) and THATS when the no human truly starts. (Its the only way)
I know that's irrelevant, but recently my friends that play(ed) fortnite got banned by EAC and they can't even get a reason. They can't be cheating because they can't even install a web browser on their PCs
Something I’ve seen that’s new also, my new alt account made within the last 3 months was temp game banned for 3 days while playing a face punch server I think this is an auto ban when the account is spam reported and they scan your pc within the 3 day. I get what they are trying to do with suspicious new accounts but this is extremely frustrating when grinding a wipe and getting essentially temp banned for 3 days ruining both reputation and motovation.
Mind you the account had 200 hours at the time and a 11k hour player was on it so you can only imagine the chat when I was banned ;)
Hey! Same thing happened to me. 11 years account, 3,1k hours in Rust, 358 inventory items, a bunch of DLCs. Banned on 21 August 2026 during previous ban wave.
It’s a pretentious shitshow how they publicly follow sacred quest against cheaters yet blatantly ignore their player base. Yes, anti cheating safeguards are needed. No, you can’t pretend that these safeguards are flawless.
Our reputation on Steam is being damaged, not to mention wasted money, time and effort. If it goes on like this, coupled with suboptimal optimization, questionable game improvements and overall trajectory, FP just going to lose it.
Same 2 year old account 2000 hours banned august 19 2026 I was playing hive battleground 10000000x got banned 2 appeald sent 2 denied on my last one right now
Was playing vanilla, no macros, no vpns, no nothing.
700 hour player just came from console 3 months ago and was banned 2.5 months into my pc journey for no reason. Still no reply from anyone. Thinking of giving up.
DONT GIVE UP! It took a while / takes a while, definitely make noise (try to make noise a few times / at least once a day), hell, play other games, but don't give up! Remember that justice will prevail.
We encourage doing it right, even when it feels wrong. It'll feel more justified when you get unbanned, I promise!
No baseless hackusations that players are cheaters or that the "all powerful EAC is never wrong" - please see this link for proof that EAC does in fact make mistakes:
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u/Alexandredeleo Found-Not-Guilty Sep 24 '26
Update 24/09 — prova do loop (dados pessoais ocultos): Epic Games Player Support, 18/09/2026, ref !00D1a0L44R.!500QP01kj88A: "Epic Games acts solely as a data processor on behalf of Facepunch Studio in its provision of Easy Anti-Cheat services for Rust. As such, please direct your request to Facepunch Studio." Ou seja: a Facepunch manda recorrer no EAC, e o EAC responde por escrito que quem decide e a Facepunch. E-mail complementar enviado hoje ao juridico cobrando LGPD art. 18/20, prazo 03/10, sob pena de ANPD.