A little while ago, me and my friend were playing empire together. We tried to join today and for some reason, on his multiplayer list the empire minecraft server says "Cannot connect to server" and when he clicks join, "Connection refused, no further information". I am pretty sure he is not banned, and even if he was, he should be able to see the server. He is in the same room as me, and I can join just fine, and his computer is actually better than mine.
What happens when you click the "refresh" button on the servers page - are you using smp(x).empire.us ?
the refresh makes it show the same thing, we have tried that. We are using smp2.empire.us, both of ours are the same, but mine works and his doesnt. I mean the latest release of minecraft.