Cant connect edi to the game.
My situation is the same as yours. Have you solved it yet?
After restarting my computer and reinstalling the game once more, I was able to connect and launch it normally.
I found it needed this exact version.
same problem here 
no connection between edi and the game
Also not working with the ASP.NET Core 8.0 Runtime with x86 and x64 or just one of both.
Edit: ==> Solved!
With the upper configurations I moved the whole folder (game + mod etc.) to a folder where no special character (especially “Umlaute” → ä,ö,ü, etc.) is in the whole folderpath to the games folder → It worked without problems.
I did not tried to run it without the Core 8.0 Runtime and just with the newest.
I found that if I put the folder path on the desktop and then run it as administrator, it can bypass the antivirus software and execute successfully.