How to run the selenium server in the background using robotframework? - selenium

Question

So the concept is like this -
I would like to run the selenium server .jar file on a remote windows machine.
Then connect to it via the default port (:4444), open browser and navigate to a URL of my choosing.
I have everything working except the part of running the selenium server through robot.
This keyword works as far as I can tell (until the open browser keyword) -
Start Selenium Server
&{client} = Return Internal Host
Connect Environment Machine Windows ${client}
start process java -jar ${/}SeleniumServer${/}selenium-server-standalone-3.141.59.jar alias=seleniumserver
process should be running seleniumserver
open browser http://example.com/example.html chrome None http://1.1.1.1:4444/wd/hub
BUT, when I try to connect to the selenium server I get the following error -
"No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it"
It seems like the process either does not run or runs for a short amount of time then closes.
What am I missing here?
If I manually start the server on the client, everything works. It opens the browser and does whatever I need. (manually running the java -jar selenium*.jar on the cmd)
But when I run this Start process keyword, that should keep the process running in the background, I get connection refused. Any Ideas?
Another piece of information that might be useful - The selenium server should throw an error if trying to run it twice on the same machine (because of the used port bind 4444).
When running the keyword shown above, while there is a selenium server up and running on the target machine, the test still passes for some reason. Not sure if it is even running the process as intended but the "process should be running" keyword seems to pass.
Thanks!