io.netty connection issue on my hosted server

My friends and I have been playing on my own port forwarded server for the past week, however today when any of us try to join, it gives the error message "io.netty.channel.AbstractChannel$AnnotatedConnectException: Connection refused: no further information:"

I have looked around on reddit and on the bug.mojang forums and the solutions do not affect the issue I have, 

Thank you.