Disconnecting from game server

mushroom-12441 · January 14, 2019, 1:23pm

I’ve had this problem for maybe a week or two now, but I’ve had it every once in a while for a few months. It is the issue of disconnecting from the game servers often and seemingly at random.

I have seen a lot of forum threads about this and have seen no help from support other than, “have you tried the basic fixes like resetting your router or reinstalling the game” or linking to the basic page for connection issues.

I have tried:
-Reinstalling my game
-Redownloading only the latest patch
-Disabling firewall
-updating drivers/windows 10 up to date
-anything else I could think of or find from people putting forward potential solutions

My internet is fine overall, I have no issues for any other online service, just Overwatch. When I get disconnected from the game servers wifi is completely fine; for example I can be in a discord call and no problems there, so it’s just overwatch.

It’s gotten to the point where I boot up overwatch and wait maximum 3 minutes before getting disconnected; sometimes I don’t even connect to begin with. I am completely unable to play the game. It happens both in the menu screen and in game.

Based off of the replies of past support and Blizz representatives, there is nothing you can apparently do. From what I’ve read it’s a problem somewhere between Blizzard servers and my ISP (spectrum/twc) and that neither you nor the ISP can do anything. Now, to me this honestly sounds like both sides pushing the issue to someone else, but if nothing can truly be done then I’d like some confirmation of this.

I want to play your game, but I literally am unable, and if there’s anything you can do to help I’d appreciate it. The issue has been around for at least 1.5 years based on forum posts, so I can hope a solution has been found in the meantime.

truebronze-1349 · January 14, 2019, 4:12pm

I have tried using DNS which solved the problem temporarily before it randomly came back. Everyday I can play 1-2 hours before I get randomly disconnected and “lost connection to server” would be there to when I try to log in again. The next day it then fixed itself and I can log in again, play for 1-2 hours, dc again, rinse and repeat.

It only happened recently for like a week or so. Before this the game completely fine.

mushroom-12441 · January 14, 2019, 6:27pm

@truebronze it seems super arbitrary and random to me. What is your ISP if you dont mind? Mine is spectrum

truebronze-1349 · January 14, 2019, 6:36pm

I’m actually not from US, however connect to US region. Sometimes it only happens to US servers and I can still connect to Asia servers, sometimes it happens to both US and Asia servers. It’s pretty random.

It only happens with Overwatch. I played TF2 for 3 years and never have I had this problem.

Seems like other people having same problem as well, but I don’t think Blizzard will do anything, especially when this problem have persisted for years.

Nicole-1893 · January 15, 2019, 3:48am

If you have data loss on a specific hop between you and Blizzard (the reason MVPs and the staff keep asking people for WinMTR tests), that helps point out whose network is having issues. In most cases I’ve seen while haunting these forums, it is a routing partner that your ISP leases to connect you to Blizzard, and sometimes they also own that routing partner.

I completely sympathize with this issue, as I am also on Spectrum, connecting from Florida to California for my WoW server. The routing network that Spectrum owns in Texas has issues on the regular, and the only way to get around them is to play on another server or use a VPN, neither of which is an ideal solution.

mushroom-12441 · January 24, 2019, 6:03am

Thank you for the reply. I am not going to bother you with WinMTR stuff, as it will end up being the same or similar to others. I accept that not much can be done about it, but my one question is why is it only Overwatch that has this problems. There must be something Blizz does with contracting or stuff i dont know about or this would happen for some other online games. Even if neither side can do much, it is still an overwatch-specific problem, which says to me that there is something blizz is doing wrong/inefficiently compared to other games.

Nicole-1893 · January 24, 2019, 3:09pm

It’s really no bother.

This is why the WinMTR is useful, because it helps pinpoint the specific hubs with issues. Since the Blizzard servers are up and running, and have been for some time (last few weeks at least), I feel confident saying it is not a server issue. Yes, they do help ISPs and routing partners get alerts about possible issues, but they are not their customer, so it’s better if it comes from someone giving them money.

TheNatural-11525 · March 16, 2019, 5:31am

I’ve been having the same issues. It’s almost like overwatch’s way of balancing out my +20 win rate and still not being any higher we. Seems like I’m being forced into lower elo and my endorsement has gone from 3 to 1.

TheNatural-11525 · March 16, 2019, 6:05am

And there it goes again, I switched to vpn. I’ve done your tests and even with the vpn it continues to occur. Game is a ducking joke right now. 300 sr in 2 days and still have a positive win rate. About to lose another customer blizzard. Would love to get some sort of solution for this ongoing issue.

mushroom-12441 · March 18, 2019, 1:24am

@Nicole
Here is some stuff from battlenet looking glass–

PING:
PING 47.44.235.254 (47.44.235.254) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=63.9 ms
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=64.3 ms
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=63.7 ms
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=63.8 ms

— 47.44.235.254 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2997ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 63.758/63.982/64.348/0.384 ms

18/03/2019 01:07:01 UTC

PING:
PING 47.44.235.254 (47.44.235.254) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=1 ttl=50 time=63.9 ms
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=2 ttl=50 time=63.8 ms
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=3 ttl=50 time=63.8 ms
64 bytes from 47.44.235.254: icmp_seq=4 ttl=50 time=63.8 ms

— 47.44.235.254 ping statistics —
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 2999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 63.813/63.869/63.958/0.259 ms

18/03/2019 01:07:01 UTC

TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 47.44.235.254 (47.44.235.254), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 4.766 ms 4.759 ms 4.758 ms Blizzard(24.105.18.3) 5.981 ms 5.982 ms 5.982 ms
3 137.221.105.16 (137.221.105.16) 5.839 ms 5.864 ms 5.933 ms
4 137.221.66.22 (137.221.66.22) 5.862 ms 5.879 ms 5.881 ms
5 137.221.83.68 (137.221.83.68) 11.077 ms 11.079 ms 11.082 ms
6 137.221.65.68 (137.221.65.68) 11.050 ms 10.191 ms 10.164 ms
7 137.221.68.32 (137.221.68.32) 10.088 ms 10.113 ms 10.098 ms
8 96-34-156-54.static.unas.mo.charter. com (96.34.156.54) 10.060 ms 10.062 ms 10.078 ms
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *

18/03/2019 01:07:01 UTC

TRACEROUTE:
traceroute to 47.44.235.254 (47.44.235.254), 15 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 Blizzard Blizzard 2.860 ms 2.865 ms 2.872 ms Blizzard(24.105.18.3) 3.842 ms 3.907 ms 4.002 ms
3 137.221.105.16 (137.221.105.16) 3.813 ms 3.945 ms 3.971 ms
4 137.221.66.22 (137.221.66.22) 3.762 ms 3.820 ms 3.842 ms
5 137.221.83.68 (137.221.83.68) 8.581 ms 8.611 ms 8.623 ms
6 137.221.65.68 (137.221.65.68) 8.373 ms 6.778 ms 6.771 ms
7 137.221.68.32 (137.221.68.32) 6.477 ms 6.643 ms 6.686 ms
8 96-34-156-54.static.unas.mo.charter. com (96.34.156.54) 5.788 ms 5.795 ms 5.803 ms
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 * * *
14 * * *
15 * * *

18/03/2019 01:07:01 UTC

MTR:
Start: Mon Mar 18 01:07:01 2019 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.3 0.8 0.2 5.7 1.6 Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.6 1.0 0.5 4.2 0.9
3.|-- 137.221.105.16 0.0% 10 0.6 0.8 0.5 2.9 0.6
4.|-- 137.221.66.22 0.0% 10 7.2 1.8 0.6 7.2 2.0
5.|-- 137.221.83.68 0.0% 10 5.7 6.0 5.7 7.3 0.3
6.|-- 137.221.65.68 0.0% 10 5.9 9.9 5.6 41.0 11.0
7.|-- 137.221.68.32 0.0% 10 5.5 7.4 5.5 17.8 4.0
8.|-- 96-34-156-54.static.unas.mo.charter. com 0.0% 10 5.7 5.6 5.5 5.8 0.0
9.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

18/03/2019 01:07:01 UTC

MTR:
Start: Mon Mar 18 01:07:01 2019 Blizzard 1.|-- Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.5 0.0 Blizzard 0.0% 10 0.6 0.9 0.4 3.1 0.7
3.|-- 137.221.105.16 0.0% 10 0.7 0.8 0.5 1.3 0.0
4.|-- 137.221.66.22 0.0% 10 5.2 1.4 0.5 5.2 1.5
5.|-- 137.221.83.68 0.0% 10 5.9 6.9 5.7 16.7 3.4
6.|-- 137.221.65.68 0.0% 10 5.8 13.1 5.6 45.2 14.0
7.|-- 137.221.68.32 0.0% 10 5.7 7.5 5.4 19.1 4.4
8.|-- 96-34-156-54.static.unas.mo.charter. com 0.0% 10 5.7 5.9 5.5 6.3 0.0
9.|-- ??? 100.0 10 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

18/03/2019 01:07:01 UTC

Nicole-1893 · March 18, 2019, 1:55am

Did you have a chance to do a WinMTR? I don’t see any issues in the looking glass test, which is why the WinMTR would be more useful, since you can run it for 10mins and get a better view of the average connection. The looking glass test is just a single moment of your connection being tested.

mushroom-12441 · March 18, 2019, 1:57am

Yes, I was planning on posting this as well, but apparently I’m not allowed to post twice until another user posts in the thread? or something like that haha. I hope I did this right, thanks

|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| WinMTR statistics |

|------------------------------------------------|------|------|------|------|------|------|

|24-158-63-249.static.hckr.nc.charter(.)com - 0 | 306 | 306 | 2 | 5 | 57 | 9 |

|dtr01boonnc-tge-0-1-0-3.boon.nc.charter(.)com - 0 | 306 | 306 | 2 | 5 | 54 | 9 |

| crr01spbgsc-bue-203.spbg.sc.charter(.)com - 1 | 302 | 301 | 5 | 10 | 138 | 10 |

| bbr01spbgsc-bue-3.spbg.sc.charter(.)com - 1 | 302 | 301 | 6 | 13 | 137 | 12 |

|bbr02slidla-tge-0-1-0-4.slid.la.charter(.)com - 0 | 306 | 306 | 9 | 16 | 58 | 20 |

|bbr02atlnga-tge-0-2-0-1.atln.ga.charter(.)com - 0 | 306 | 306 | 9 | 12 | 64 | 17 |

|96-34-150-101.static.unas.mo.charter(.)com - 0 | 306 | 306 | 9 | 13 | 62 | 19 |

| ae1-br01-eqat2.as57976(.)net - 0 | 306 | 306 | 36 | 42 | 142 | 43 |

| et-0-0-4-br02-eqch2.as57976(.)net - 0 | 306 | 306 | 37 | 47 | 155 | 46 |

| No response from host - 100 | 62 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

|________________________________________________|______|______|______|______|______|______|

WinMTR v0.92 GPL V2 by Appnor MSP - Fully Managed Hosting & Cloud Provider

Nicole-1893 · March 18, 2019, 2:00am

These lines are for your ISP as leaves your state, and unfortunately they’re reporting 1% packet loss and a worst ping of 137ms and 138ms. Usually an issue like this gets worked out on its own by your ISP, especially over the course of 2 months (since you first posted). Basically, you’ll need to call them, try asking for a Tier 2 or Tier 3 tech support person, and then forward them these results. The only thing you can do in the meantime to reduce your lag is use a VPN. They aren’t officially supported, but they are allowed.

mushroom-12441 · March 18, 2019, 2:04am

138ms is bad enough to disconnect from overwatch servers? I had thought it might’ve been my ping spiking but 140ms doesn’t seem that bad, it seems laggy but not disconnect from servers laggy.

Thank you for the help as well, I’ll call them at some point in that case. Do you have any specific vpns I should look at in the meantime?

Nicole-1893 · March 18, 2019, 2:26am

I don’t feel comfortable endorsing any specific ones, but there are several out there specifically geared towards gaming, so I’d recommend that you start there.

mushroom-12441 · March 18, 2019, 2:28am

Ok, thank you for all the help!

SniperWolf-11663 · June 3, 2022, 6:20pm

Honestly am having the same problem. My Apex Legends from steam plays perfectly fine with no stutters or timeouts. Also my internet never drops when i’m dealing with Warzone dropping connection randomly with an error from server. It honestly has to do with Blizzard at this point.

Nicole-1893 · June 4, 2022, 1:51am

C’mon, don’t bump a thread from 3 years ago.

Apex and Warzone aren’t even hosted in the same city. They use completely separate connection routes, so it’s possible something is wrong with one route and not the other.

That being said, Blizzard doesn’t offer connection troubleshooting for Warzone since they do not produce that game, Activision does. Reddit is your best bet for that.