Failure to connect to game lobbies | Rivals of Aether | Page 1

elfin hill Sep 8, 2024, 5:10 AM

#

In the last week connection links sometimes do not function between players across steamjoin, lobby link, in game steam invite, etc. The links are just clicked on and nothing happens for either party. Personally seen 6+ instances about it on discord, plus happened to myself a few days ago and we just had a monthly tournament with money on the line end in a draw because the players could not enter the lobby in grands. Unsure if it's connection related because we can't even get far enough to see the ping. Issue is probably known but just wanted to be certain since haven't seen any posts or messaging in here about it. Some people claim adding then unadding on steam helps but it's inconsistent and we have no clue. Thanks!

#

sorry if this isn't super helpful but it's hard to capture nothing happening on both players' ends, so any source of the issue client end is almost impossible to diagnose, not a crash and no error message

merry ivy Sep 8, 2024, 8:17 AM

#

yeahh

#

this has been a huge issue the last few days

#

it's just stuck on "inviting" whenever you try to join the other player and then after a little while the text changes from "inviting..." to "inviting.." and the spinning 🔁 icon goes away

#

sometimes restarting steam fixes it, sometimes it doesn't. a lot of the time you just have to wait, and if you're unlucky enough to get pegged by it in a tournament or sth then it's just over

#

likely a steam issue since rivals hasn't updated or anything and it's to do with connecting to lobbies but yeah

#

oh also while this issue is happening you can still connect to casual/ranked queues

#

and it only affects certain people. so two people can have this bug with each other and then they both each go invite a different person and each of them can join their new opponents

vestal apex Sep 8, 2024, 4:24 PM

#

Just want to second this as an issue for the devs to look at ASAP. I know at least 6 players this is affecting right now, and it seems to be spreading for whatever reason.

elfin hill Sep 9, 2024, 6:03 AM

#

update changing to the old netcode/mystic branch did allow me to connect with someone I couldn't connect with on both current and 2 patches ago builds

#

update to update couldn't get in the actual game but the lobby is further

#

connected to someone double the distance away with no problem, just feels random

#

update an intermediary player can make the game work

#

okay we played a game together, then when non-issue player left, leaving only me and issue player, game failed

alpine yacht Sep 9, 2024, 8:49 AM

#

how can you guys even launch the game? I have the game on steam and I don't even see game listed. I would be happy to just practice offline

merry ivy Sep 9, 2024, 4:55 PM

#

this is for rivals 1

shell tartan Sep 10, 2024, 1:02 AM

#

I really hope this gets fixed I had to dq from a workshop tournament because of this

#

Like dude I restarted my computer, I validated files, I restarted rivals with the task manager, I did everything and it still didn't work

#

Unless there's a specific way to restart it besides just closing and reopening

azure iron Sep 10, 2024, 2:00 PM

#

This happened to me last week and it was fixed once my opponent fully restarted their computer. This is not a consistent fix as I haven't seen it work for anyone else with this issue

azure iron Sep 10, 2024, 2:01 PM

#

elfin hill okay we played a game together, then when non-issue player left, leaving only me...

Yeah Seth and I tried this during the monthly and it just didn't let them play once the third person with no connection issues left

#

I will also say that this doesn't change affected users' ability to connect online with people in other games

elfin hill Sep 10, 2024, 4:01 PM

#

Yeah it seems like I don’t even know if it’s “affected users” so much as “affected connections”, it randomly affect different 1v1 connections without pattern it feels like

#

I think if anyone ran enough friendlies it would hit some amount of people and idk how you would tell who’s the issue when it’s so patchwork

#

Like A and B can’t connect, both connect fine to C, both connect fine to D, then D and C don’t connect

#

I think the middleman route is sadly the best workaround we have for now besides restarts and waiting ~1 hour which each have like a 30% success rate

stiff sleet Sep 11, 2024, 3:01 AM

#

i joined this server just to see if other people were having this problem too

fossil sonnet Sep 11, 2024, 7:14 AM

#

I've had this issue happen when people repeatedly match into me after a decline

#

to where they eventually just can't match against me ever again

fossil grove Sep 11, 2024, 1:24 PM

#

Speculation but bc the game hasn’t been patched I wonder if something happened with steam that is causing this? Has anyone affected uninstalled and reinstalled steam? If that doesn’t work then maybe an update to steam broke something

median path Sep 11, 2024, 5:25 PM

#

It's def something with steam.
A hit-or-miss fix we've relied on for our brackets is force closing steam with task manager and rebooting it.
But unfortunately this would not always resolve the problem

azure iron Sep 12, 2024, 3:08 AM

#

Update: I wasn't able to match with someone and then I uninstalled/reinstalled Steam

#

We were able to match after that

#

Not sure if it's consistent yet

placid jungle Sep 12, 2024, 1:12 PM

#

#

I have not done this but it seems like a cache issue

#

And I wouldn’t trust myself to delete a bunch of files from my computer buuuuut I’ll report back tonight if I can get either of them in vc to guide me

wind sorrel Sep 13, 2024, 3:06 AM

#

i told someone else to uninstall reinstall steam and it worked for em i think

merry ivy Sep 13, 2024, 3:07 AM

#

yes

#

it works sometimes™️

#

so does restarting steam

#

or verifying file integrity

#

or restarting the game

fossil sonnet Sep 13, 2024, 6:52 AM

#

I've had connection issues with very particular random people for months on end b4

#

(particular as in a few of the same people, nothing indentifiable other than i might've declined their match in casual matchmaking and re-ran into them multiple times)

placid jungle Sep 13, 2024, 5:25 PM

#

merry ivy it works sometimes™️

Yes I will also confirm that I’ve reinstalled steam with a friend and it did not work permanently

elfin hill Sep 14, 2024, 12:33 AM

#

I'll also add that playing with steamdeck users seems to make the bug happen more often anecdotally? I was connecting fine, failed to connect with an affected steamdeck user, then couldn't connect to almost anyone until I deleted all my steam files

#

I don't think file integrity does anything

#

and yeah I haven't seen anything in any other game

rocky mason Sep 14, 2024, 11:51 PM

#

elfin hill I'll also add that playing with steamdeck users seems to make the bug happen mor...

I initially thought this was happening with linux because I was having issues with other people that are on windows
And then it starts happening to other people

turbid galleon Sep 15, 2024, 5:35 PM

#

this is possibly the most miserable bug to deal with in this game ever. hope it gets fixed soon or at least the cause identified

elfin hill Sep 15, 2024, 11:36 PM

#

had a case where deleting steam didn't fix it today :/

#

at least on one end

gritty marlin Sep 15, 2024, 11:59 PM

#

just had this issue with me and friend tried multiple things still no results

elfin hill Sep 16, 2024, 7:16 AM

#

yeah deleting all steam files except steamapps and the executable (it will reinstall) is the highest success rate I've seen

split tulip Sep 18, 2024, 7:14 PM

#

I was able to play last night with my friend without doing anything, just had him invite me and it worked

#

Previously it wasn’t working no matter who invited who so (maybe it’d also work if I invited him, I didn’t try yet)

merry ivy Sep 18, 2024, 7:33 PM

#

it isn't consistent yes

#

sometimes it will work, sometimes it will not work

#

there is seemingly no rhyme or reason to this

merry ivy Oct 20, 2024, 8:47 PM

#

this bug still exists btw

#

just got it again today

merry ivy Nov 28, 2024, 10:11 PM

#

had this happen again yesterday

merry ivy Dec 3, 2024, 6:08 PM

#

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3377322754

Steam Community :: Guide :: HOW TO FIX MATCHMAKING BEING BLOCKED

ALL PLAYERS ARE AFFECTED BY THIS. There's a bug right now that prevents you from matching against certain other players, as a result of recent changes to the way Steam handles lobbies.

This guide p

#

gas this shit up so that people unfuck their games and can get matches pls

median path Jan 16, 2025, 6:34 AM

#

happened again

median path Jan 16, 2025, 6:38 AM

#

merry ivy https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3377322754

this fix worked

merry ivy Jul 31, 2025, 1:32 AM

#

yeah okay so not only is this still a thing afaik (without each player individually doing the above fix) but as of yesterday there is now a NEW issue that is similar but not identical

#

this one does not have the same fix, but also seems to affect random people for random durations

#

when the issue occurs, the affected player is not even detected as being in a lobby by steam

#

steamjoin links don't work, the join game button on your profile doesn't show up, and you don't get the option to invite people

#

people who have you added as a friend can sometimes (?) see the "join game" option if they right click on you on their friends list, even though you don't get the option to invite them, which sometimes lets them join and sometimes just causes them to get stuck on the "inviting..." screen

#

casual and ranked queues are also affected. people who can't join each other's lobby through a direct invite also can't find each other on casual or ranked, even if no one else is online.

merry ivy Jul 31, 2025, 11:10 PM

#

alr I might've been overreacting, this issue hasn't come up since yesterday as far as I've seen

#Failure to connect to game lobbies