Most time I do group rides or races, at some point in the event, all other riders disappear. Sometimes this is brief, maybe for <30s, other times it’s for >15 minutes. Regardless, if its a race or a fast group ride I get dropped so the event is ruined. Almost always, riders will come back and things get back to normal.
My partner uses the same set up as me, with the only difference being that she doesn’t use an hrm ever. I also run a powrr2max power meter alongside the Zwift set-up, but this isn’t connected to Zwift (ant+ connection to a Garmin Edge). She NEVER has the problem with disappearing riders.
So I’m wondering what’s going on here and why this only happens to me. I know Zwift will say its a WiFi or internet problem, but I find that hard to believe given I’m the only one having the issue in the household. Unless of course ant+ signals are somehow interfering with the WiFi, but I’ve never heard of that happening.
This never happens while free-riding, only in events.
My Zwift set up is:
Apple tv 4k
Elite Direto OTS
Garmin ant+ hrm bridged through NPE cable
Does anyway else have a similar issue and/or have a solution?
Have you tried without the HRM ? If you say that’s the key difference between your use and your partner’s, why not try to eliminate the HRM as the issue?
I don’t think it’s ever happened when I’ve not been using the hrm, but then it doesn’t happen every time with the hrm. I guess I need to ditch the hrm for a bit and forget about results in Zwiftpower. That wouldn’t explain why I never have issues in free rides with the hrm and I still haven’t found any reports of ant+ interfering with WiFi (only the other way round).
You might also try changing your WiFi router setup so that it uses a specific channel (like 1 or 11) instead of the ‘best’ channel. Sometimes if the router changes channel in the middle of a ride it will cause a disconnect between the ATV and the wireless network which Zwift then has to try to reconnect, but you’ve lost the other riders (and your ride) in the meantime.
If your partner also does NOT tend to do large group events, that might possibly maybe just maybe explain a situation in which your router is momentarily searching for an optimal channel to transmit what would be slightly more streaming data for you and your group events (i.e. more stuff going on on the screen).
The only group rides she does do are the big ones so it’s not that. The issues I’ve had have been on rides with as few as ~100 riders.
I did discover today something that definitely does interfere with the WiFi - a baby monitor. I had it nearby during today’s ride and had the worst drops yet - constant riders disappearing and then reappearing, then eventually the complete loss of all riders for a few minutes. When the monitor was switched off, instantly everything was fine. But the way riders were dropping, while worse, was the same as I regularly experience so there is something interfering with the WiFi I think.
I didn’t use my hrm today and was on a fixed WiFi channel and other than the issues due to the baby monitor, things seemed to be okay. Too early to say all is well, but I’ll keep going without the hrm on the fixed channel for a bit before trying the hrm again.
If all else fails, I’ll run a network cable to the apple tv instead.
I never had dropouts before (and our basement bike room ATV is about 4 feet directly below the 1st-floor router), but FWIW I also at some point decided to run a short cat-6 line from the router to the ATV and have had it hooked up like that ever since.
I have been the only person in the rider list for my last 3 races. As soon as the event ends (or I quit) it goes back to normal. What’s more annoying is that I can see all riders on the route during the event, not just those involved in the race. So it’s easy to get dropped by getting caught in the draft of a large non-racing group. I love Zwift, and racing on Zwift, but this is a pretty large step back.
Hi Mike, did you resolve this. I’m experiencing the exact same issue despite upgrading broadband speed and even running an ethernet cable between router and laptop.?
Thanks
There is clearly a Zwift bug unrelated to network connection issues that results in riders seemingly randomly disappearing and reappearing in events, but I’m not sure this has been acknowledged by Zwift anywhere yet.
An example I posted into the January update thread earlier: in Tuesday’s ZRL TTT, one of my teammates couldn’t see anybody else for maybe 15–20 seconds but the rest of us could fortunately still see her pulling the group (and hear her on Discord as well).
The one where - “riders disappear, but rider list stays and gets updated, and occurs for a few riders in same event but not all, and others can see the people that have disappeared” i.e. what you just described - was acknowledged by Zwift maybe 12-18months ago (I’ll try and dig out a reference to it later). It seems it comes and goes suggesting that either Zwift do fix it when it pops up, or it pops up and disappears when they make other tweaks and they have no idea. Or its constant but periodic post visibility of the issue brings out others that jump onboard with “awareness spikes”.
Hi Paul - Didi you get anywhere with this??
I have just started to experience this issue in the last week - 10 days. I’m not sure if I am being paranoid but it coincides with the latest big software update. It happened 30 mins ago where I was sat on the start line and 15 secs or so before the start everyone disappeared. I stuck with it for a couple of minutes and nothing happened, but the moment I exited the race it went back to normal, so I can’t believe that its to do with the WIFI
I had this issue last night. All riders avatars (including mine)flash on and off intermittently, then in the race everyone else disappears and I’m left alone so can’t see what’s happening. By the time they re-appear, they’ve gone up the road by whatever time they were missing for.
Then last night it got worse. Everyone else disappeared and I was alone, then the whole screen froze and I could even get the zwift menu button up. Still had the crowd noises in the background, but no movement at all on the screen. I forced it to stop using controls on the tablet and re-started and it just came back frozen again. Second time it came back OK, but the race was 3 minutes up the road! After this happened twice, I gave up trying to catch up and ended the ride (after having to re-start as above again the get the menu button up) and did an interval on the same course. Hey presto! No problems! So it obviously just happens in races and usually with large numbers.
I NEED THIS FIXING BEFORE I RIDE THE WTRL NEXT WEEK!
I have the latest up date, I’ve tried uninstalling and re-installing, I have full fibre to the door, am using an Android tablet, which is 4 feet from the router.
Sounds like the tablet isn’t powerful enough and can’t handle the large events, does the same thing happen when/if you join a very popular pace partner?
It’s only just started happening this month and I have ridden both of the last 2 WTRL series with no issues.
Happened again this evening on a race with only 30 riders, plus it showed signs of happening on a “just ride” event
The table is only 12 months old and has plenty of memory.
I suspect the same CPU load and memory issues mentioned elsewhere. On a device that’s already borderline struggling (like any tablet), it’s now unable to do the basics.
It has 4 Gb RAM, that’s 4 times what you specify in the requirements.
It has 64.0 Gb ROM
It is running Android 10 and Bluetooth 5
There is nothing else running in the background. Are you saying that the specification requirements have increased. I purchased it specifically to run Zwift.
It will run RGT, so perhaps I should ditch my Zwift subscription and go back to Wahoo/RGT?