I wanted to make a post to clarify the different types of connection errors you may see on your screen. Here are the main four, their causes, and their solutions:
Cause: “Connection Disconnected” appears when your connection to the Zwift server is disconnected for a prolonged period of time.
Cause: “Bluetooth Disconnected” appears when Bluetooth is not enabled on your device (or your Bluetooth antenna is disconnected).
Solution: Make sure Bluetooth is enabled on your device. If you use a Bluteooth antenna, make sure it is properly connected.
Cause: “ANT+ Disconnected” appears when your ANT+ dongle is disconnected, (or your internal ANT+ antenna is disabled).
Solution: Make sure your ANT+ dongle is properly connected and ANT+ is enabled on your device.
Cause: “Connection Failure” appears when your trainer, treadmill, or heart rate monitor is no longer paired to Zwift. It may appear along with either the Bluetooth or ANT+ Disconnected messages
Solution: Confirm your fitness hardware is connected to power and hasn’t gone to sleep; Do your best to minimize BLE and ANT+ interference.
If you run into consistent issues, don’t hesitate to Contact Support for more assistance!
This is the one I get sometimes when nothing at all seems wrong, you can still see everyone’s w/kg updating around me etc. so there’s still a connection, riders aren’t dissapearing etc…
Edit: Actually since the bigger banner was added I’ve never had to modify anything about my connection after a ‘connection disconnected’ banner. I always just close it and keep riding without issues - biggest issue I can remember having was the rider position went to “–” during a TdZ ride (but no riders dissapeard, and w/kg of all riders kept updating etc), but then worked itself out on its own, often it shows up with no discernable actual impact. My theory is it shows up when there’s some drop, but not after a “prolonged-enough” drop in connection for me at least.
I’ve seen “connection disconnected” when everything works right except the chat. And then suddenly a flood of backlogged chats messages come in all at once.
It would be more accurate to say that this error indicates a network problem anywhere between your device running Zwift and the backend service operated by Zwift. Home network and ISP problems will be the most common reason, but in some cases the remedy may be entirely outside the user’s control, and may require intervention by Zwift to resolve it.
What about the ‘Connection Unstable’ message? This one seems to be the most problematic, as it seems to lead to Zwift crashing completely. It also seems to happen (at least for me) only in Makuri (and possibly only during a workout in Makuri), even though I have no issues with the exact same setup at any other time.
@Rowdy – i get the “connection failure” message ONLY when my HRM (on BLE) disconnects – so i think the definition above about it being for your trainer isn’t quite right?
Just finished a TdZ ride. Regular Disconnect and Unstable Connection messages. Other riders disappeared for a few seconds. This has been happening with every ride since the last big Zwift update. Nothing has changed with my setup. Ethernet connection and Ant+ running on a PC. I also loose HRM connection but this could be a local issue.
I’m sure it’s a Zwift issue or something related to the update.
If this instability continues and Zwift increases the cost I’ll be leaving.
The alert will remain around for a short while even after connection to the server is fully restored. It’s not unlikely that some folks will see “Connection Disconnected” on a visibly stable ride, especially if connection is restored automatically right at the point the alert appears.
Agreed. While “Connection Disconnected” can occur within your device (say if you disable wifi), the cause of this alert is usually occurring outside the device along the network. I’ve edited the post to include checking bandwidth and ping, but nobody should have to spend too long troubleshooting before reaching out to Support.
Hi @Nigel_Tufnel , “Connection Unstable” is a less common relative of “Connection Disabled,” which should not be related to game crashes. I’d be happy to look into your experience to investigate the cause of both of these, especially if they share a common root. We would need to do that over DM or in a Support ticket.
Hi @Peter_Wheddon , if other riders are disappearing, it sounds like the alerts are at least working correctly. Feel free to DM me or open up a Support ticket and we can analyze what’s going on.
one other comment on BLE disconnects after the Jan '23 Zwift release:
i started getting lots of BLE disconnects on my HRM immediately after updating. i rode a few rides like this to see if it would get better, and it did not.
i then checked if the firmware on my Tickr HRM was up to date, and it was not – so i updated. since that update, the connection to my HRM is back to being stable with no disconnects again.
in summary, if you get a zwift update that messes up your connections (ie, they were working fine before the update), it might be worth checking if other stuff ALSO needs to get updated:
Can you please give the option to remove the “connection disconnected” banner. It is the only thing that upsets my ride. Nothing in Zwift is affected, just the stupid banner popping up every couple of minutes, which I then have to clear!!
I have a rock solid 300mbps connection that I don’t ever have problems with. Please don’t suggest turning on and off again, it’s insulting.
@Rowdy Still having this issue. Still only in Makuri. Zwift crashed out on my iPad last night, but with NO message beforehand (though there did seem to be a few ‘hiccups’ in the gameplay along the way that gave me some inkling there might be an impending issue.)
This is the first time I have had the issue while not in a workout, so that was new (but I’ve also been generally avoiding Makuri until this is corrected). And I will say, just due to the timing, that I am wondering if this has something to do with the combination of Makuri and receiving a notification on the iPad. (As soon as Zwift crashed I received notification of a text message). But, I also wonder if it has something to do with the video capture, since it happened just before the arch for completing the Makuri 40 route. (And, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that each time I have had this issue I have been riding Makuri 40, so perhaps it has something to do with that specific route, also. Unfortunately, I am not particularly inclined to see if it happens on other routes, also, because I tire of the app crashing.)
Hopefully there are a couple of croutons in that word salad to help diagnose and correct the issue.
