It is clear to me that if people like Chris Pritchard observed this issue it is not user issue. I am going to retry at the 8pm EST. Like I have stated before, I have been doing this for many years and this setup for at least 3 years without this “feature”.
I enjoy you banging along. That said for me I am using an Apple TV with the Zwift companion and have been doing so for a few years with this setup. Never an issue, many races, group rides, solos of varying sizes including >10000 for one of them (yes I know this one was not >10000). So something changed or went wrong. I will retry at 8pm EST and suspect it will be kittens and rainbows.
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Same issue on the 7pm UK time ride today. 6300 riders and a complete washout. I’ve been told previously something similar to what Gerrie says above - it’s about the program calculating the whereabouts of large numbers of riders, so a local issue for riders (rather than a server problem as such), but likely to affect many of us because the number of riders is the same for everyone, obviously. I’ve seen it before on an event with 5000+ riders so, after trying dropping to the back (which made no difference at all), and with Zwift time running at 25% of real time, I force quit after a mile or so.
To make it worse, I tried again two hours later, with more like 2500 riders, and had a brilliant ride but, wilth about a mile to go and averaging around 25mph (by sitting in groups, I’m not that fit), my battery went flat and threw me out. My fault, but pity it’s not a bit more resilient about letting you rejoin (like a puncture!)
So looks like I’ll need a third try, as I quite fancy the jersey!
For those interested, I’m on a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2, so low end.
It’s a real disincentive to getting involved in these sportives/fondos, which otherwise are really good events. You’d have thought there should be options around only calculating the locations of the nearest 100 riders or something, fltering the rest at the server. I mean, how much effect on my ride were 6200 of those 6300 riders having at any one moment?
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TDF Stage 1 1900hrs What a Joke cycled an hr credited with 15 km and no route completion. No riders just bikes If the platform can,t handle the numbers control them or Don,t put the event on. You like to take the money but continually fail to deliver a decent service.
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I don’t know for sure and definitely cannot prove the problem was on Zwift’s end.
That said, I would bet that many who had issues were not running the latest version of Zwift. The recent updates specifically mentioned including assets for the Tour of Zwift. Even w/out the TdZ, it is not uncommon to have issues when not running the latest version.
Another probable source of issues would be network connectivity w/the Zwift servers. This could be an issue w/an ISP or with the Zwift servers themselves handling load. Hard to say w/out knowing or looking into how Zwift is layed out network wise.
But I do know people who have more than adequate hardware, have never had an issue w/Zwift over the years, but suddenly were hosed w/the latest TdZ Stage 1. So, I tend to expect that some of the blame lays w/Zwift. Something was not right on their side. Yes, it worked fine for many. Yes, typically many also have problems. But this time, the number of people w/problems appears to have been out of the norm. 
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Dave, I’m not familiar with his laptop specs. Responding generally, though: for a very large event like this one, are there some hardware types we should not expect to be able to run the game? E.g. most tablets older than 3 years, most laptops with integrated graphics cards, etc? In my view, the hardware requirements I gave are pretty strict, and I suspect they will exclude most Zwifters. In that case, is Zwift better off limiting the field size?
I was running a 2017 13” MacBook Pro with integrated graphics for the second stage of the Focus Pari event. I’m pretty sure my game looked a lot like Pritchard’s at the start, only my laptop crashed. I was able to run one of the preceding stages, though. I know it’s a slightly older laptop without a discrete graphics card, but I was never warned that decent frame rates in large Zwift events would need a serious gaming setup.
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How about a statement from Zwift regarding the problems?? If there is no statement - people will just continue to write s–t about this…
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We didn’t anticipate the overwhelming interest in today’s events. Starting immediately, we have made adjustments to future Tour de Zwift events to ensure stability for all joining.
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You’re absolutely right that they should be limiting the field size in some way. When the Haute Route events were this busy and saving rides were failing etc (and that was an issue at Zwift’s end, they admitted it), they spread out the start times. That should have been done here, it was blatantly obvious when you saw the numbers signed up. It’s their flagship event, I’m not sure why they didn’t know it would be massively popular.
All I’m getting at with the specs is that this is the double-edged sword of having the game run on all sorts of low end hardware and hiding almost all the graphics options from the users. People are tricked into thinking it’ll run just as reliably under extreme circumstances like these events today. Even Zwift’s own required specs table is laughably outdated and lacking in important information, as though it was written by someone who hasn’t actually tested the game. It just isn’t all that well optimised, and decent hardware is a must if you want it to perform in all circumstances.
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I can confirm I have auto update on for my apple tv 4th gen. Today was the first none ant+ issue I have had with Zwift. Getting back on to try the 8pm EST A ride.
My experience was similar to many of those above – Latest Apple TV, KICKR 18 – all with current firmware. Immediately encountered extreme lag, glitches and an unusable product.
Was unable to leave event, had to perform a forced app shutdown. After reloading app was able to rejoin for last 18ish km without further issue.
Not sure it’s helpful or fair to blame the end user (or their use of approved hardware) for deficiencies which seemingly arise on the platforms most advertised and I’d think prestigious events. Only other time I’ve experienced anything similar was back in April with Haute Route Stage 1 (after which Zwift swore up and down that changes would be made to ensure the issue did not reoccur).
I’d encourage everybody who experienced an interruption to send a support ticket….unless you happen to have a widely viewed media platform from which to raise the issue.
I’ve read numerous complaints & discussions about Zwift’s lack of bug fixes and perceived dearth of content improvement over the last twelve months, but never felt the need to pipe up. Today I absolutely understand the feeling – welcome to team underwhelmed .
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Auto update is great and all, but it’s not immediate. If you hear or read about a new update, you should manually check for an update. I typically get the update manually before auto-update has done its thing.
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Yes there appear to be issues w/the 2021 TdZ, but
These complaints surface every year. I once posted a listing of improvements and additions over the years, but here is a great post for 2020 from @Eric_Schlange_ZwftIn at ZwiftInsider:
So the 5th ride of the day (8PM EST) was nothing like the 1st glitchy ride (Noon EST). So I do not know what to tell you all. I have the proper requirements, the app and software is up to date.
Hence “perceived” 
Again, I’m not taking issue with anything but the problems encountered today. This was experienced in April 2020 during Haute Route. Zwift at that time indicated that changes would be implemented to prevent any future recurrence. Fair play – This statement assuaged my (and likely most users) concerns.
Here we are Jan 2021 – Surprise, same issue! Nine months (and billing cycles) later.
Vocalizing one’s displeasure and frustration with a specific VEREFIED issue is far from the whinging which fills forums. This was/is a recurring blunder on a highly promoted event, the exasperation is legitimate.
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I, also, like the data/spec driven response to this, and would love to hear more details about what might have been happening.
I’m running off a gaming laptop with a Core i7-7700HQ @ 2.80GHz and a GTX 1050 GPU, paired with the companion app on an android phone.
While I’ve had some stability problems in the past, I’ve been running the last 6 months-ish with no issues until recently. I only mention that because it might be relevant, as you’ll see below.
As of a couple of days ago, I starting having an issue where I would get going on a ride like normal, then about 4 minutes in I would lose all pairing (HRM and controllable trainer). I could re-pair in game but that connection would only last 1-2 seconds. I could repeat the steps several times with the same result. However, shutting down and restarting the ride worked, and the subsequent ride would be stable.
This morning, I was in the 11k group ride. I experienced what many others did initial just after the start (frame rate dropped to 0, game froze and required a hard reset to get out). I quickly jumped back in and was able to rejoin the event.
It was smooth and functioned well for about 40 minutes, then lost all pairing. Frame rate was good (according to zwiftalizer), but I could not re-pair from within the game.
I suspect that the lose of pairing is a separate issue, but frustrating none-the-less.
It sounds like from your line of questioning than there is more load on the users’ side than I would have guessed, so maybe turning down graphics settings would have helped for some of us. Perhaps there was also an issue on the Zwift side, either with capacity or trying to deal with the many lagging connections that were all hitting the server at the same time. Not sure.
Regardless, it is frustrating. I, as everyone does, pay a fair amount for this service each month, and would feel a lot better about it if issues were easier to figure out. Maybe Zwift should be funneling some of the money to a more automated issue response process that could read log files, check configurations and give recommendations or possible solutions to issues. What I’ve gotten in the past when I ask are canned procedures that have not, to date, resolved any of my issues.
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Same thing happened to me I was riding 14.9kms in and there were no riders around me anymore another few kms later everything went back to normal, but then I finished the ride and it wouldn’t save or upload my ride. So it’s like it didn’t happen (but it sure did).
I see on ZwiftPower that these rides are listed as “all riders visible”. Is that really necessary? Each category is riding on different worlds and I assume that the “all riders visible” setting is the cause of the riders positions being so out of whack. It certainly can’t be helping with the network traffic load. Perhaps these rides should be set to “only riders in your group visible”?
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Zwift only renders the closest 100 riders to you. Furthermore, if I remember correctly that is done on the client side (i.e., your computer).
Good to know, let see how it goes tonight