Zwift keeps hanging since I got a warranty replacement for my ant+ dongle until I remove and insert the dongle (windows 10 laptop). I already tried uninstalling and reinstalling zwift
Hi @Arhu
Shuji at Zwift here. After you log in - are you reaching the Pairing Screen? Or are you saying that the process freezes before you reach the Pairing Screen?
If you do reach the Pairing Screen and you’re seeing a message pop up about ANT+ this is because you’ve got a Zwift Play controller in your setup.
- You can dismiss this message with the
Don't show this againcheckbox - The ANT message is popping up because it detects the Play controller and suspects you might be interested in using Virtual Shifting, which only works over Bluetooth, not ANT+
- It appears your Elite trainer is a model that does not support virtual shifting, but you know this. Please check that box to make the popup go away.
EDIT: unless you have devices (ex - an old heart rate monitor) that broadcast over ANT only, you can simplify your setup and remove the ANT dongle. You can see DC Rainmaker’s opinion post on why the ANT protocol has been in decline.
My usb port has stopped working altogether 
but I would still prefer to use my ant+ dongle over Bluetooth because ant+ just works and Bluetooth in zwift doesn’t! Every single time I need to pair my trainer as power source first before I can pair it as resistance. Then I have to pair my power meter again for power and cadence, which can also take minutes, especially cadence.
No worries - nobody is taking your ANT dongle away if you’ve had good history with it.
Any chance that computer is still under warranty? USB ports can go bad on a motherboard, it’s happened to me too. If the onboard Bluetooth on that machine has been unreliable - a cheap Bluetooth LE dongle might help improve things.
Nope it really old. I have a Bluetooth dongle. And judging by the reddit I am definitely not the only who first needs to pair his trainer as power before it can be paired as resistance
This is the expected pairing workflow over Bluetooth. It’s how it works.
The trainer’s Resistance signal doesn’t start broadcasting until the Power signal is bonded first. That shows up as a ~15 second lag until Resistance begins to broadcast.
This is a very user-facing difference in how ANT+ vs Bluetooth protocols manifest for the end user. It’s not that one is “better” than the other. They’re different languages with different rules in how they’re implemented.
But really it shouldn’t need user action. Zwift could perfectly pair with trainer power first behind the scenes and my power meter and then with resistance. I shouldn’t need to unpair my pedals, pair trainer power, then manually pair trainer resistance and then pair power meter power and cadence again. It can sometimes take 5 minutes whereas ant "pairing " is almost instantaneous.
I don’t know if it is so easy to change this behaviour, but on my (really old) Win 10 PC it is about 30 seconds. My power meters pairs for power and cadence on the start, I must manually change power to Tacx Neo, pair Neo for resistance and change power back to power meter. Cadence - power meter pairs automatically after this sequence, no action needed.
If you need 5 minutes then there must be some problems with your Bluetooth or PC?
Edit - the lag before pairing the Neo for resistance is not more than 5 seconds. I have an USB extension and dongle is directly under the trainer.
I don’t know if it’s really 5 minutes, it’s just takes annoyingly long time whereas with ant it’s almost instantaneous. Now if the pairing happened in the background I could start picking my workout/ bike/ kit/route already but no I have to wait.