My family has been playing split-screen multiplayer together on a Realm for many months on the Nintendo Switch. This stopped working after the 1.21.60 update. The 1.21.61 hotfix did not correct the issue. Split-screen works on all local worlds. Single-player mode works on Realms. But when a second player tries to join in the realm, they are immediately kicked out after selecting their profile and the game reverts to single-player mode. A message pops up that says multiplayer is unavailable. When you open the message it says, “Each player requires a Pro Controller or a Joy-Con controller pair. Please turn off any extra Joy-Con controllers that aren't a pair." We do not get this message on local worlds. We have tried using two different joy-con pairs and two different pro controllers, and all get the same message.
Linked issues
is duplicated by 9
MCPE-190789
Split screen on Realms not working
Resolved
MCPE-191279
Split Screen Error when trying to add second player to switch game.
Resolved
REALMS-12462
Multi-Player not working in realms
Resolved
MCPE-191050
Split screen players on Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (BE). Cannot join in split screen when the Switch player is playing on a Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition (BE) is the world host.
Resolved
REALMS-12523
Not allowing split screen
Resolved
Comments 32
I have a similar problem. On the Nintendo Switch, the player joining splitscreen gets kicked with no errors, and when playing a world saved to the switch, it says the second player does not have an Online Membership, even though they have one.
I have this issue on Switch. I receive no error message the split screen just immediately closes. This is causing quite the frustration amounts the kiddos.
Same issue here on Swtich, very frustrating. I don’t see point in continuing Realms subscription of I can’t play it in split screen.
I just got realms and I have been having this issue. I am trying to play with my sister but it isn't working.
The workaround for this still seems to be to restart the Switch. Hold the power button on the Switch and select Restart from the Power Options then you will have success with the second player joining the Realm every time in my experience.
Would love to get this fixed. We are having issues getting a player two added to our realm as a split-screen on the switch.
Also affected by this. We set up a bedrock dedicated server and the boys connect from a single Nintendo Switch using split screen. This was a very cool setup. Symptom is exactly as others have described. The second person, who tries to initiate the split screen view, looks like they’re about to join with the screen splitting and the green loading bar appearing, but the game then reverts to single-player.
In case it’s helpful for finding/fixing the bug, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Minecraft on the Switch, which fixed the issue for a limited time before the issue resurfaced. Before that I had also tried repeatedly reconnecting the second player which also seemed to work randomly a few times with some persistance.
I don’t think I’ve tried resetting the Switch as others have suggested here, but will try that next since it seems a simpler workaround.
Closing this ticket as fixed, as the issue was addressed in an earlier version and there’s been no further activity on this report.
If you still run into the issue and the troubleshooting steps here or on our help pages don’t help, you’re welcome to submit a new report with reproduction steps, or upvote an open one that matches.
I experience the exact same issue, but on PS5 version with local bedrock dedicated server. The split screen player will attempt to load and then the game will revert back to single player, with no messages. On the bedrock server, there is no logs of the second player ever joining the world.