Persistent 'The connection is unstable' Errors

[Photon Jet]

Hi squids,

I feel like I want to discuss about the problem I'm having right now which is driving me crazy. I've never had this kind of persistent trouble when on my Switch. You see, during the time I play Splatoon 2 or Mario Kart 8, I tend to get a few successful matches in. But after that, I kept getting these communication cutouts with this silly message that forces me out of the game and doesn't give me the error code sometimes. Now before you ask, my mobile phone and my computer work fine online but I am having this trouble more frequently on my Switch for about a week so the condition is worse than I thought...

I've tried playing online while really close to the router. Doesn't work. I tried changing the MTU of my routers to 1500. Doesn't work. I have done power cycles but they don't work either. This is a real brainstorm for me as I had to find the cause of the problem. For me...I think it's the Nintendo Switch itself I obtained when it was first launched. There were reports of people getting a weak Wi-Fi signal the day it was launched. I think after a certain amount of time playing online, it causes the console to overheat so it would get a bad signal no matter what router I chose. But if I can't seem to find the core of the problem on time, I will have a lot of trouble in the next Splatfest or worse, can't play Splatoon 2 entirely.

For information about this. Here's how it plays out:

At around 1-1 and a half minutes. The battle works fine.

Beyond that time, the connection cuts out, leaving me on the field for 30 seconds.

After that, it kicks me out.

Do any of you know what the core of the problem is? Could it really be my Nintendo Switch or something else entirely? Sorry for asking you this but I'm just having trouble solving this ongoing problem.

 

[Dessgeega]

The nintendo switch hardware is crap. Get a LAN adapter for a wired connection. That's the only way to make the system's online functionality work properly.

 

[Photon Jet]

I'm afraid I can't due to reasons. So my best bet is to maybe get a new Nintendo Switch as they may have better Wi-Fi sturdiness or find another way.

 

[morrta]

I had similar problems before. For me it was the ISP that had problems in their network, making packets sometimes (during like 10s periods now and then) buffer up and/or be thrown away. Splatoon2 is very sensitive to having perfect network conditions.
I managed to prove to my ISP that the problem was in their network and eventually they fixed it. But that is not easy.

What you can do as a first test is to have a computer attached though wired connection directly to your router and have 'ping' towards google running while you are playing Splatoon2. If you see that the pings start to take longer time or not work at all, roughly at the same time as you experience the problems with Splatoon2, then you can start to suspect the ISPs network. If the pings works fine then I guess the problem is more likely to be in your WiFi or in the Switch.

Note that your phone etc are not as sensitive to these kind of sporadic problems since browsing a web page etc is not "real time" in the same sense as Splatoon2 is. They just wait till packets arrive or re-send missing packets. Internet is designed to handle this. But in Splatoon2 things get weird quite quickly if not all players constantly get the same information about where things are. So if packets to/from you starts to take too long time or disappear you will be disconnected from the match.


I'm not using Windows, so I don't know, but I guess ping is available on Windows too. Open a terminal window and type:
ping google.com

This is what it looks like for me (my network works fine now):
morrta@hs1:~$ ping google.com
PING google.com (216.58.211.14) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=14.2 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=13.0 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=9.29 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=9.11 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=5 ttl=56 time=9.89 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=6 ttl=56 time=11.4 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=7 ttl=56 time=12.1 ms
....
Press Ctrl+C to exit (in Linux maybe different in Windows)

 

[Photon Jet]

I had similar problems before. For me it was the ISP that had problems in their network, making packets sometimes (during like 10s periods now and then) buffer up and/or be thrown away. Splatoon2 is very sensitive to having perfect network conditions.
I managed to prove to my ISP that the problem was in their network and eventually they fixed it. But that is not easy.

What you can do as a first test is to have a computer attached though wired connection directly to your router and have 'ping' towards google running while you are playing Splatoon2. If you see that the pings start to take longer time or not work at all, roughly at the same time as you experience the problems with Splatoon2, then you can start to suspect the ISPs network. If the pings works fine then I guess the problem is more likely to be in your WiFi or in the Switch.

Note that your phone etc are not as sensitive to these kind of sporadic problems since browsing a web page etc is not "real time" in the same sense as Splatoon2 is. They just wait till packets arrive or re-send missing packets. Internet is designed to handle this. But in Splatoon2 things get weird quite quickly if not all players constantly get the same information about where things are. So if packets to/from you starts to take too long time or disappear you will be disconnected from the match.


I'm not using Windows, so I don't know, but I guess ping is available on Windows too. Open a terminal window and type:
ping google.com

This is what it looks like for me (my network works fine now):
morrta@hs1:~$ ping google.com
PING google.com (216.58.211.14) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=14.2 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=13.0 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=9.29 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=9.11 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=5 ttl=56 time=9.89 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=6 ttl=56 time=11.4 ms
64 bytes from muc03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.211.14): icmp_seq=7 ttl=56 time=12.1 ms
....
Press Ctrl+C to exit (in Linux maybe different in Windows)

Oh, my Wi-Fi does work fine at the moment, but I think I've found somewhat of a solution. I think certain technology such as mobile phones can interfere with the connectivity when active because my theory suggests they tend to cause disruptions to packet deliveries.

Still, this is very interesting information to look at and I'll give it a go sometime soon. Thanks.

EDIT: Okay, it happened again. So, my mobile phone was not the cause of the problem. A few minutes after that error happened, I couldn't connect online for about a few minutes before I changed networks. Still can't get round to what's the cause of the problem.