Full nodes are a bit different than just running Ravencoin Qt. There's just one extra step that makes it a full participant on the Ravencoin network. Open your network port for inbound connections -- see instructions near the bottom.

Every node tries to connect to other nodes. They start with a set of IP addresses that were hard-coded into Ravencoin core. This came from a list where we listened to the network and identified nodes that were open and reliable, and we added the IP addresses into a file, and built it into the binaries. This is how Bitcoin works. It was removed temporarily when Ravencoin launched because there was no network. Now that we have a great network, we added them back. This is the best configuration because we don't even know who owns these nodes, nobody does, which makes for very strong decentralization.

If none of those work, because they could get outdated, and those nodes could disappear, then Ravencoin Core looks at three domains:
These are now the fall-back position and include a large list of IP addresses that are (or were) active and open nodes included in the DNS table. If you run a stable node, then next time we update, your IP can be included.

If those domains and IPs aren't working, there's a way in raven-cli or the Debug console in Ravencoin QT to add nodes and manually connect to get it started.

The recent price increase (1500% or more) drove high demand for syncing Ravencoin nodes. This has led to some sync issues as we need more full nodes.

A full-node has an open port (usually 8767) for others to connect to. A seed node will give out the IP and port for other nodes and we need more nodes that accept inbound connections.

Here are some instructions (for Bitcoin) that show how to open your connection. This will help the network. If you're not a developer, this is a great way to contribute to the network.

The only difference here between a Bitcoin node and a Ravencoin node for networking is that you should use port 8767 instead of 8333.

Thanks for your help.

Update: Some asked about the cost. You can run them on cloud services like AWS, GCP, Digital Ocean. You can also run them from home, just make sure you don't have overage charges on your home internet plan -- most don't.