A café Wi-Fi login page or a corporate firewall blocks the game’s connection.
Why The login page hasn’t been completed yet, or a firewall blocks the game’s ports or UDP → Effect Connection attempts are blocked outright, or only some traffic gets through → On screen Can’t connect, or login works but entering the game fails
Primary owner External (External) · Also Game team (Client development), Game team (Server development)
Game team action items
Client: tell players why the connection is blocked (login page not completed, UDP blocked, and so on), switch to a fallback path automatically when UDP is blocked. Server: provide a fallback path such as TCP 443.
External action items
Tell players to complete the login page first on public Wi-Fi and to use a different network where traffic is restricted, such as a corporate network.
On the graph
Outliers only · Connection failures (by network)
Where to look
Have the failing player try connecting from another network such as mobile data, and check the server connection log for whether the first UDP packet arrived and whether the TCP 443 fallback path connects
Confirmed if
Fails only on specific Wi-Fi (café, office) and connects right away on other networks. The login page hasn’t been completed, or only UDP fails to reach the server
Ruled out if
Fails on every network: the account, the server, or “DNS failures and delays.” Fails across an entire country or ISP: “Country- or ISP-level UDP restrictions and packet inspection”
Check with
The player’s own environment
Sources
RFC 8952: Captive Portal ArchitectureIETF Captive portal: a network that restricts access until requirements such as accepting terms or authenticating are met