Server code actively refuses to connect with Udacity's Self Driving Car Simulator (Port 4567)

So, I'm currently experimenting with Udacity's self driving car simulator (simulator), but when running the drive.py and simulator files, the connection is never established - it simply says "accepeted", rather than actually connecting. When I looked at the output log for the simulator, here's what I found:

|Fatal|WebSocket.acceptException|System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.
                      
                        at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Connect (System.Net.EndPoint remoteEP, Boolean requireSocketPolicy) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
                        at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Connect (System.Net.EndPoint remoteEP) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
                        at System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient.Connect (System.Net.IPEndPoint remote_end_point) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
                        at System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient.Connect (System.Net.IPAddress[] ipAddresses, Int32 port) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

This error happens every time I try and establish a connection. Here's the code on the server side (drive.py file)

import base64 #for lossless encoding transfer
from datetime import datetime #to set frame timestamp
import os #write + read files
import numpy as np
import shutil
import socketio #server
from flask import Flask #framework for web devices
from io import BytesIO #manipulate string and byte data in memory
import eventlet
import eventlet.wsgi 
import cv2

import tensorflow as tf
import keras
from keras.models import load_model
from PIL import Image



height = 320
width = 160     

def resize(image):
    return cv2.resize(image, (width, height), cv2.INTER_AREA)

#server init
sio = socketio.Server(always_connect = True )
#flask web app
application = Flask(__name__)

#init empty model and image array
net = None
image_array_before = None

#Speed limits
max_speed = 30
min_speed = 10

speed_limit = max_speed

#Server event handler
@sio.on('telemetry')
def telemetry(sid, data):

    if data:
        steering_angle = float(data["steering_angle"])
        throttle = float(data["throttle"])
        speed = float(data["speed"])    
        image = Image.open(BytesIO(base64.b64decode(data["image"])))
        
        #save frame
        timestamp = datetime.utcnow().strftime('%Y_%m_%d_%H_%M_%S_%f')[:-3]
        image_filename = os.path.join(r'path', timestamp)
        image.save('{}.jpg'.format(image_filename))
        
        try:
            image = np.asarray(image)
            image = resize(image)
            image = np.array([image])

            steering_angle = float(net.predict(image))

            global speed_limit
            if speed > speed_limit:   
                speed_limit = min_speed
            else:
                speed_limit = max_speed
            throttle = (1.0 - steering_angle**2 - (speed/speed_limit)**2)

            print ('{} {} {}'.format(steering_angle, throttle, speed))
            send_control(steering_angle, throttle)

        except Exception as e:
            print (e)

    else:
        
        sio.emit('manual', data={}, skip_sid = True)

@sio.on('connect')
def connect(sid, environ):
    print("connect ", sid)
    send_control(0,0) 

def send_control(steering_angle, throttle):
    sio.emit(
        "steer",
        data = {
            "steering_angle": steering_angle.__str__(),
            "throttle": throttle.__str__()
        },
        skip_sid = True)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    net = load_model('path')
    application = socketio.Middleware(sio, application)
    #deploy
    eventlet.wsgi.server(eventlet.listen(('localhost', 4567)), application)

Here's the output log for the drive.py file. As you can see, it says accepted but doesn't print connected or transmit data after that:

enter code here
2021-01-10 15:07:27.659254: W 

tensorflow/stream_executor/platform/default/dso_loader.cc:60] Could not load dynamic library 'cudart64_110.dll'; dlerror: cudart64_110.dll not found
2021-01-10 15:07:27.668272: I tensorflow/stream_executor/cuda/cudart_stub.cc:29] Ignore above cudart dlerror if you do not have a GPU set up on your machine.
2021-01-10 15:07:56.969613: I tensorflow/compiler/jit/xla_cpu_device.cc:41] Not creating XLA devices, tf_xla_enable_xla_devices not set
2021-01-10 15:07:56.998282: W tensorflow/stream_executor/platform/default/dso_loader.cc:60] Could not load dynamic library 'nvcuda.dll'; dlerror: nvcuda.dll not found
2021-01-10 15:07:57.271013: W tensorflow/stream_executor/cuda/cuda_driver.cc:326] failed call to cuInit: UNKNOWN ERROR (303)
2021-01-10 15:07:57.292101: I tensorflow/stream_executor/cuda/cuda_diagnostics.cc:169] retrieving CUDA diagnostic information for host: LAPTOP-D2EPGUQF
2021-01-10 15:07:57.390264: I tensorflow/stream_executor/cuda/cuda_diagnostics.cc:176] hostname: LAPTOP-D2EPGUQF
2021-01-10 15:07:57.548306: I tensorflow/core/platform/cpu_feature_guard.cc:142] This TensorFlow binary is optimized with oneAPI Deep Neural Network Library (oneDNN) to use the following CPU instructions in performance-critical operations:  AVX2
To enable them in other operations, rebuild TensorFlow with the appropriate compiler flags.
2021-01-10 15:07:57.998352: I tensorflow/compiler/jit/xla_gpu_device.cc:99] Not creating XLA devices, tf_xla_enable_xla_devices not set
(2056) wsgi starting up on http://127.0.0.1:4567
(2056) accepted ('127.0.0.1', 52432)

I've tried to fix it via disabling the firewall, but to no avail. Any idea what might be wrong? Thanks!