Dont worry this isn't a waste of time, Im doing this to get better at networking.
I pushed a new build of the game that forces https, if that doesn't work however, we are out of options, you are probably getting blocked on an ISP level.
Friend and I just tested. For friend it's just "ERROR: Can't connect", and for me it's "ERROR: Fetch: SSL error" and "ERROR: Add: SSL error", so yeah. guess it's just on our ends.
Friend is gonna try submitting the link to Spectrum for an unblock request to see if that helps on their part. Hopefully the force HTTPS didn't break it for anyone else
Thanks for willing to try and help though, game is still great despite the issues that came up out of nowhere