This is a recurring problem, happening several times a day while I’m playing Overwatch. It happens randomly in the span of several hours. For instance, I could play 4 hours and have it not happen, or I could play 2 hours and have it happen twice. I kept a semi-reliable log for a couple of weeks. I didn’t manage to record every instance, as sometimes I’d be too busy trying to reconnect to finish my game. Gaps in days are days I wasn’t playing Overwatch. The DC problem has happened every single time I play for several months.
What I call “The Red Triangle Of Bullsh@t” appears either on the left side in game or across my screen in menus. Despite there being no actual lag or latency, I get booted from the game, usually back to the login screen.
Nearly every time this happens, I get replaced instantly via matchmaker. I get punted to the menu while my friends continue playing, and in the 5 seconds it takes me to click “Join Game,” someone else has already filled the spot. This has even happened during games where the enemy team was left with 5v6 due to someone leaving and the matchmaker NOT filling their spot - but my spot gets filled instantly. That’s honestly the most annoying part to me.
The second being the fact that I am BOOTED from the entire game despite having NO LATENCY. I’ve been lagged out before, I’ve had crap internet before that disconnected frequently, and I know what it looks like. THIS. ISN’T. IT.
My best guess here is that there’s a small glitch somewhere, a split second of packet loss, and Overwatch sees that and reads it as a full disconnect and boots me (and other people with this problem) from the game several seconds later despite still being actually connected.
Here’s the log of instances I recorded, in PDT:
DC to Desktop = completely logged out, closed to desktop to login faster rather than enter my info.
DC to login = booted to login screen but didn’t need to re-enter info
DC to menu = returned to the main menu screen.
Assume my spot was instantly filled unless specified.
8/31/20 4:59pm DC to desktop
9/4/20 4:15am DC to menu
9/6/20 2:07am Lag Freeze but no DC
9/6/20 2:09am DC with no triangle, booted back to login
9/8/20 1:17am DC but still in game (not replaced)
9/11/20 7:41pm DC and then put into a whole new game wtf
9/13/20 9:07pm DC to menu
9/16/20 ~10:30pm DC but still in game (not replaced)
9/17/20 12:15am DC but still in game (not replaced)
9/17/20 2:20am DC to menu
9/17/20 12:30pm DC but still in game (not replaced)
9/17/20 2:18pm DC to menu
9/20/20 ~7:00pm DC to login then back into game (not replaced)
9/20/20 9:41pm DC to login
9/21/20 11:58pm DC to menu still in queue
10/2/20 6:53pm DC to menu
10/3/20 1:00am DC to menu
I sat in a custom game for hours waiting for it to happen so I could catch it using WinMTR. Someone told me I have to restart it every 10 to 15 minutes instead. Wonderful that I have to go through all this effort just for anyone to believe me at all that THIS ISN’T A PROBLEM ON MY END.
Here’s the initial log from last night, IP address exed out and links broken with spaces so I can even post it:
|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| WinMTR statistics |
| Host - % | Sent | Recv | Best | Avrg | Wrst | Last |
|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|
| xxx.xxx.x.x - 0 | 6778 | 6778 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - 1 | 6773 | 6772 | 6 | 11 | 101 | 14 |
| agg63.cnpkca2601h.socal.rr .com - 0 | 6777 | 6777 | 8 | 14 | 101 | 11 |
| agg21.chwocadq01r.socal.rr .com - 0 | 6777 | 6777 | 7 | 15 | 109 | 12 |
| agg24.lsancarc01r.socal.rr .com - 0 | 6777 | 6777 | 7 | 18 | 395 | 13 |
|bu-ether16.atlngamq46w-bcr00.tbone.rr .com - 0 | 6777 | 6777 | 8 | 15 | 102 | 17 |
| 66.109.5.135 - 1 | 6773 | 6772 | 9 | 18 | 105 | 15 |
| 66.109.9.161 - 0 | 6777 | 6777 | 8 | 16 | 139 | 9 |
| ae1-br02-eqla1.as57976 .net - 0 | 6770 | 6770 | 7 | 33 | 3288 | 9 |
| 137.221.68.91 - 1 | 6773 | 6772 | 9 | 15 | 141 | 12 |
It remained fairly steady most of the time, until the disconnect happened. Notice that the “Worst” ping on the 2nd to last hop reached 3288. That’s what happened approximately 10 seconds before I was booted from the server. The ping jump happened instantaneously, with no noticeable lag or other repercussions, but I was still of course booted from the game several seconds later, despite still playing with no latency or problems.
Apologies if I sound short in this message, but this is a recurring problem that everyone seems intent to purposely ignore, misinterpret, or say is my fault, for the last several months that I’ve been complaining about it and troubleshooting. Here’s my responses to the common deflections I always get:
-
It’s not my machine. I have an expensive PC with fantastic parts. I do not experience DC’s on ANY other game, interruptions with streaming, or anything vaguely similar to what I do with Overwatch.
-
Overwatch is the only Blizzard game I play, so I can’t say if this is a problem with other Blizzard games as well. I can say that this is ONLY a problem I experience with Overwatch. No other online game I play has any sort of interruptions.
-
It’s not my internet. I have a top of the line router that RARELY drops (and my PC is connected via Ethernet, not WiFi). Not to mention, if it were an internet DC problem, everything else would also suffer at the same time from the internet going out (Spoiler: it doesn’t). I’ve had trash internet before, and this isn’t that.
-
Again, it’s not my internet. I contacted my provider first and foremost when it started happening to complain to them about it. After they ran diagnostics, there was 0 downtime during the times that I was getting disconnected. Not so much as a single glitch.
This is 100% a problem on Blizzard’s end. I’ve seen several other posts complaining about the exact same problem and getting brushed off because they understandably don’t want to take HOURS out of their day to sit and wait for it to happen and catch it on a program that you have to micro manage every few minutes.
But sure, I’ll do it later, even though I’ll probably get brushed off anyway since Blizzard is a flawless infallible company that can’t possibly be having a server glitch somewhere that’s affecting a specific group of people.