TLDR: I recently recieved a suspension because of a server error on Blizzard’s behalf, despite myself trying to rejoin (yes I checked and my connection was perfectly fine when this server error occurred)
Hello, I have been playing a lot of competitive lately and have realized an extremely prevalent issue, the servers (more particularly in lower ranks) have very noticable issues. I’ve seen entire halves of teams get disconnected at the same time and have little to no chance of reconnecting. This has recently affected me in an unavoidable manner. I was playing a competitive match and got disconnected from the server, so like usual I tried rejoining, but after a while I was brought to the main loading screen before the game completely crashed, I was then given a suspension and lost an unprecedented amount of Sr, all because Blizzard’s servers had a hiccup. At first I was under the impression this may have somehow been the result of an issue with my internet, but I have since checked my ping as well as my router and general connection in this situation and they’re all perfectly fine, this coupled with the fact that this has only ever happened in copa matches has lead me to the conclusion that Bliz may be neglecting the lower SR servers and punishing the players on said server’s for issues that they aren’t at fault for.
Unfortunately all disconnections and game crashes counts as leaving the match and will be penalized appropriately. The game server has no way to discern a legitimate disconnection or game crash from one that is forcefully caused by a dishonest player to bypass leaver penalties. You can learn about this policy here:
Remember if you see the message, “Lost Connection to the Server” in the title screen or the message “Failed to Connect to Server” in yellow text in the text chat box, this means there is something that disrupted your connection to the game server and not a problem with the game server itself. There can be a variety of reasons this happens including those that don’t disconnect your computer from the Internet. If you are disconnecting frequently and you have completed all troubleshooting on your computer, router and modem, the next step is finding the problem between you and the game server by running a WInMTR test.
WinMTR instructions:
Download WinMTR from Download WinMTR-v092.zip (WinMTR) (Console players need a Windows Desktop Computer connected to the same network as their console to do this.)
Unzip the WinMTR.zip file to the Desktop.
Open the WinMTR folder and select the 32 or 64 bit version. Choose whichever one corresponds to your version of Windows.
Run the WinMTR.exe
Type the IP address you want to trace in the “Host” field. To get the correct IP you will actually need to open up the game and go Practice Vs AI or Quick Play and if you are on PC hit Ctrl+Shift+N and it will bring up the ingame network diagnostic graph, or go to Video > Options > Display Network Performance Graph if you are on any platform including Console. In the top left corner is the IP address you want to run WinMTR to. note When looking at the IP it will show up ingame as something like 12.34.56.78:12345. You will want to leave the last 5 digits and the colon at the end off and the IP you want to use is just the 12.34.56.78
Once you notice the connection issue while playing, play for about 6 more minutes, minimize the game and click on “Stop”.
Click on “Copy text to clipboard”, then return to this forum thread.
Type two sets of four squiggly lines and then paste the contents of the WinMTR test between: ~~~~ Paste WinMTR Test Results Here ~~~~
If in the event you can’t even connect to Overwatch and get into any game mode at all, please use one of the following IP addresses based on your geographical region:
