Android players struggling to stay connected to PS4 hosted world

1.17-created world updated to 1.18.  Total storage space used by the world is less than 300MB.  This world has been the main world for our family to play on.  Typically two players split screen on PS4, and two Android tablets connected.

Since the 1.18 update, we are experiencing a few issues that could be related, so for now I'm submitting a single ticket.

• Android clients routinely fail to connect to the server.  Sometimes with a basic failure message, but often with a message about being unable to connect to an "outdated server".  PS4 and tablets have been updated to 1.18 (2.35 on PS4) and I don't understand why we get the outdated server error.

  • When experiencing this issue, we typically have to force close MC on the tablets and try again.  

• When the Android clients can connect, they are often only able to stay connected for a few minutes before dropping from the server, often resulting in a re-hash of the inability to connect issue described above.

  • This issue would very rarely occur prior to 1.18 and would often be resolved by force-close of the app on the tablets and reconnecting

• When connected, often the Android clients experience significant lag to the point of not being able to accurately track other player movement, break blocks or do anything useful.

• PS4 player had an active village raid when a single Android player first attempted to connect to the world.  While the Android client was connected, in different chunks than the PS4 player, the PS4 player experienced significant lag to the point of unplayability.  Bow-shots would be delayed by 2-3 seconds and raid mobs were not where the game was showing them to be.  Lag issues would be completely resolved if the Android client left the game.

When we were first playing the 1.18 update, all devices, PS4 and Android tablets were connected locally via the same Wi-Fi AP.  This is the same connectivity scenario we were using when we played this same world in 1.17 with no issues.  In an attempt to resolve the issue, the PS4 was connected to a wired Ethernet connection but connectivity issues were still experienced.

In an attempt to isolate the issues to the world being played or to the overall set-up, we generated a new flat world and had the Android clients connect.  Connectivity issues were still experienced.  We did not attempt to generate a village and start a raid to reproduce the PS4 player lag issues.

After the 1.18 update, suggestions were followed to reduce render distance on the Android tablets.  The pre-1.18 world mentioned above, simulation distance was originally set to 8 chunks, and has since been dropped to 6 without any resolution to the lag issues experienced by the PS4 players or Android tablet players.  Without noticeable improvement going from 8-6, dropping simulation distance to 4 chunks was not attempted.

The connectivity struggles are significant, to the point where desire to play for short time periods is diminished as most of the time available to play will be spent troubleshooting connection issues.  I have been considering trying to set up BDS as a result of this, but unsure if that will resolve anything or just create more headaches - and doubt I can migrate the world created on PS4 to BDS, so this would only work for newly created worlds which we were not planning on doing at this time.

Edited due to duplicate nature of lag-related issues in this report.