How exactly do you start the game?
In my experience, the multiplayer and network option work only if the game is started via Galaxy, but not when directly starting NMS.exe (which is the 'NMS' program entry in my screenshot).

If you want Galaxy to autostart No Man's Sky, you can add the launch options:
/command=runGame /gameId=1446213994

I have the same issue that multiplayer only works with the bottles flatpak version but not in the bottles system (AUR) package. The downside of the flatpak version is that each game start is slow, it seems that shader caches (or whatever else is processed there) are not persistent.
I get better performance when running NMS with proton-ge via heroic, but no multiplayer/online service and Galaxy tends to crash a lot. Galaxy is more stable with heroic & wine, but NMS performance is so bad to make it unplayable.

THis is so strange. I've tried all these suggestions and nothing works.

I am running through Bottles then Galaxy. I get discovery services just fine. I can visit other bases, too, but the Anomaly is always empty.

I recvently reinstalled Bottles and MP worked for a few days, then stopped. Am I getting banned or something like that?

-JOhn

You are not alone. The problem is described in this thread:

https://www.gog.com/forum/no_mans_sky/linux_anomaly_is_empty_but_network_is_ok

Although mayuro can get it running again with bottles, it still doesn't work for me. Although I have checked all settings and adapted them exactly to mayuro's last post there, unfortunately no success for me. Likewise with the HeroicGamesLauncher, I don't see any players.

But what works for me without any problems is running Galaxy + NMS in Lutris. In the meantime, the runners don't seem to matter much either. In this combination I have contact with the discoveries service and see other players.

The NoMan'sSky multiplayer is now fully functional for me again with Bottles.

I tried it out today with Bottles and the Proton 10-4 Runner after a longer break. The anomaly was filled with other players as soon as the game started.

GOG
Install Hero Game Launcher
sudo apt install flatpak -y
flatpak install flathub com.heroicgameslauncher.hgl -y

1 - run hgl:
flatpak run com.heroicgameslauncher.hgl

2 - login to GOG store via HGL gate.

I swear it works.

You need to export the ubuntu-libraries from the lutris-runtime found here:
(I haven't found these libraries on the lutris github-site) Copy these libraries into a new directory and set before you start the game.


To connect with the network-service, I use comet.

ALthoughthe online services were connectioned, multiplayer was not working for me in the last months and I has not time to look into it.
But just updated my old NMS installation in Heroic Games Launcher to 6.0, changed the runtime to Proton GE 10_15, enabled the steam runtime option ...and it works now. Anomaly finally feels crowded again.
Now I hope to find some time for the next expeditions

That was the exact same problem I had, since the Utopia-update or earlier.
I was able to play the expeditions but couldn't see other players.
Neither Heroic nor another solution worked for me, till I found my solution posted above.

I'm using my own scripts and stuff, to run games on linux.

I think it's some sort of bug in the game or it has to do with the system-libraries.