Pokémon GO appears to be struggling with connectivity problems once again, with players reporting network errors, login problems and other strange behaviour while playing the game.
The latest complaints arrive less than two weeks after Pokémon GO suffered a much larger outage that prevented tens of thousands of players from accessing the game. While there is currently no evidence of another outage on that scale, recent player reports suggest that connectivity remains a problem for at least some Trainers.
Players report new network problems
Recent reports from the Pokémon GO community describe several different connectivity-related problems. Some players have encountered network errors during gameplay, while others have struggled to log back into their accounts after losing their connection.
One player reported problems whenever their phone switched away from their home Wi-Fi connection. Pokémon GO would lose its connection, force the player to restart the game and then refuse to accept their login.
Other players have reported unusual network errors during Team GO Rocket battles. In several cases, the connection reportedly failed immediately after the battle countdown. When the game recovered, the Rocket Grunt or Leader had already been defeated despite the player never actually completing the battle.
Several players responded to these reports saying they had experienced the same behaviour.
At the moment, however, outage monitoring services are not detecting a widespread Pokémon GO outage. Individual reports involving gameplay, login and launching the game have continued to appear, suggesting the current problems could be intermittent or only affecting part of the player base.
Pokémon GO has already suffered several August outages
What makes the latest reports more concerning is how frequently Pokémon GO has experienced connectivity problems this month.
A major outage hit the game on August 14. More than 53,000 reports were recorded at the peak of the disruption, with players unable to launch Pokémon GO or sign into their accounts. Many were greeted by the infamous “Network Error (2)” message.
Scopely Explore Support acknowledged that outage and confirmed that its team was investigating problems affecting Pokémon GO gameplay. The issue was eventually resolved.
However, that wasn’t the end of the problems.
Another smaller disruption followed on August 15, while outage monitoring detected another Pokémon GO outage on August 19. That incident lasted roughly 51 minutes and once again resulted in players reporting login problems.
Pokémon GO has therefore experienced multiple periods of disruption within a relatively short period.
Not another major outage — at least not yet
The important distinction is that Pokémon GO does not appear to be completely down at the time of writing.
Current outage monitoring does not show the kind of massive spike seen during the August 14 incident. Instead, reports appear scattered between players experiencing login, gameplay and launching problems.
That could indicate an intermittent server-side problem, an issue affecting particular accounts or regions, or problems occurring when devices switch between different network connections.
Without an official explanation, it is difficult to determine exactly what is causing the latest connectivity problems.
For players experiencing issues, repeatedly reinstalling Pokémon GO may therefore not necessarily solve anything. If the problem is being caused by Pokémon GO’s servers or authentication infrastructure, players may simply have to wait until the underlying issue is resolved.
Connectivity is becoming a worrying trend
An occasional outage can happen to virtually any online game. Pokémon GO, however, relies heavily on a constant internet connection for almost everything it does.
Raids, catching Pokémon, PokéStops, Gyms, trading, GO Battle League and limited-time events all depend on players maintaining a stable connection with the game’s servers.
That makes repeated connectivity problems particularly frustrating. Losing access for even a relatively short period can mean missing a Raid, wasting an item or losing valuable time during an event.
The August 14 outage was significant enough on its own. Following that with another detected outage on August 19 and fresh reports of network-related problems only days later makes the situation more noticeable.
For now, Pokémon GO remains operational for most players. However, considering the number of connectivity problems seen throughout August, the latest reports are worth keeping an eye on.
Hopefully, these smaller network problems don’t develop into yet another widespread Pokémon GO outage.
