Unable to join my friends within the same country

[PanTheLoaf]

As the title says im unable to join my friends within the same country (just people near me, Ireland) but im able to join friends out of the country (USA is the only tested place i checked). I get stuck on a ''found server'' screen while if my friends try to join me they get stuck on a 6%/13% loading screen.
I've gone through the whole general thing everyone says, disable firewall, check connection, run steam as an administer, the whole shabang.
Any idea why this may be the case

 

[FavoritoHJS]

did you check for port fowarding? basically, when you host a server it opens a port, but the router can prevent said port from being accessible to the outside world to prevent attack attempts -- can't hack what isn't accessible.

iirc host & play tells you the used port, and a dedicated server uses port 7777 on TCP, so ensure that's working.

also, do the logs say anything when you try to join to a friends server, or a friend tries to join to your server?