Can't connect to another Switch multiplayer world.

I already added a few people in different forums and we tested different combinations - I couldn't connect to a single one of them with my Switch to their Switch. 

I have been having the same issue described here.
I cannot join users who are hosting from the Switch and vice-versa.

However cross-platform seems to work completely fine.
The issue, as described in this report, is that Switch to Switch communication is not working in this game and this game only.

Switch to Switch online multiplayer cannot function at all, with or without a Microsoft Account. It doesn't seem to matter if the users are friends via Switch and Xbox either, as long as both devices are a Switch they cannot connect to each other. Do keep in mind that a Microsoft Account is not required for Switch to Switch play, and even when one or both players have it it is still impossible to join.

For those with this issue, have you confirmed that both devices have the correct NAT type set up?

@Mega_Spud yes, look at the sentence above "NOTES" on my post. My NAT is type A (or 1). All router settings on both ends were good. I tried it with different people online and friends I know in person. That is why EVERY OTHER game is working without problems, it is just Minecraft bedrock on Switch. 

Ok thanks, it's just the one time we had an issue with this is because the other Switch had an incorrect NAT setting.

This issue is also a problem for me. When trying to connect multiplayer, my game won’t show up in her list for games to join. Doesn’t matter if I host local, or online. Oddly enough, when I make a new game, it will show up in her list. This odd situation happens regardless of who hosts.

Been having this problem since 8 months ago. Bought 3 copies to play Minecraft Switch Edition with my niece and GF at Thanksgiving last year. Sadly the problem existed then too
https://bugs.mojang.com/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/MCCE-6473

Also started a new thread mentioning the same problem exists on Bedrock Edition
https://bugs.mojang.com/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/MCCE-7549

Mojang Support hasn’t been helpful AT ALL sadly...

To clarify, the images attached to this report do not match the original issue described.
The biggest difference being that we are able to see other players in the join tab but attempting to join always provides the same error.

The issue was intended for Online play, rather than local. So something like half of the previous comment applies here.
The issue described here also does not affect Legacy Console (MCCE).

Take this with a grain of salt:
My best guess is that the original report has something to do with the regions players are playing in.
I have been unable to connect to any players outside of the U.S. with only Switch consoles present in the game, though I have also had problems with connecting to U.S. players but they happen less often. Again, this issue only happens in this version of Minecraft. Bedrock / BTU / (just) Minecraft.

I understand my issue isn’t exactly the same as OP’s, but @MojangSupport on Twitter directed me to this topic saying:
“Your issue seems to be the same as this one: bugs.mojang.com/browse/MCPE-34…. Please refer to the bug tracker for help & info. ^DS”

I’m just hoping for a solution to what seems to be a gross overlook.

Unable to reproduce. Tested UK user (me) joining a user in the USA (host)

It is happening the same issue in Japan.

Happened to my sister I after the 1.7.0 update. Still going on. Super frustrating. 

Sorry if im off topic. Was redirected here and have no idea how to create a new topic. Nice complex site you have here.

Anyway. Switch to Switch local network does nothing. Two switches, two games, no wifi, games won't find each other. No errors, no messages, or anyway to indicate why they won't connect. All other games work fine doing this so it's not the hardware. 

1.8.0, unable to connect. Tried to connect Minecraft Switch to game running on iOS - invitation successfully sent, but invited player unable to join. Same router, same room. Reversing things didn't help - Switch player could open world and search for friend, but could not send invite; no option to add friend to invite list after finding gamertag. When trying to connect directly, iOS Minecraft could not join - same error message.

We were BOTH able to join one of the default multiplayer servers - however we could not see or interact with each other. iOS player invisible to Switch player, Switch player invisible to iOS player, other 3rd party players (random people who had also signed on to server, not friends) were visible to both of us.

We're still trying to look into why some players are facing the issue - if you could add any more information about this using the latest version it would be helpful:

How are you trying to join other multiplayer games? Via Microsoft Account/XBL invites? Or through Nintendo local connection?

There isn't much more anyone can say about this issue. From what I've read from others they are giving as much info as possible.

So we got ours working (switch to switch) by always closing the game after playing (save and quit, exit to home screen, and closing the game before putting it to sleep). Then, when starting the game: Have second player already on the multiplayer screen, already set to local network waiting for the host to start the game. Doing it this way works every time. (Lag is still unbearable though) But allows two switches to play local wireless mode. Hope this helps someone! One more note: This is for the bedrock edition on switch. 

No this did not help. We are still having the issue. Also we're not paying local we're paying online. across the state from each other.

I have the same issue as well and it's so disappointing.

This is still happening in the 1.9.0 update that just came out for the Switch. I have the issue with switch to switch when online, but it’s only with my sister’s switch and game. I can connect to my other friends just fine.

Please fix this! Playing on Local is messing up our world.

Thanks~

@Mega_Spud My son is experiencing this too - he has one friend he would like to play with online - Switch. They both have latest (1.9) and have not been able to connect at all still. Any news on what's going on with this? It's getting a bit silly at this point. We only got the switch version so that he could easily play with friends (already have on pc, ios, 360) - what other info we can provide? 

I have been sending all of the new information through to the relevant teams, and so far they have been unable to reproduce the issue. We will keep investigating the problem though - thanks for any new information that might help to diagnose the problem.

The connection takes longer than this (one minute or so) before the error message pops up, but for the sake of file restrictions, I made the video shorter.

 The version in the video is 1.9.0 

By the way, I’m only experiencing this issues between mine and my sister’s switches. I can connect to my other friends multiplayer worlds just fine and they are also on bedrock Minecraft Switch as well. 

This is the description of my original report: 

When I try to load into my sister’s world and vis-versa, we can't connect online. It will show connecting to server and then show and unable to connect message. The problem is, it's only happening between my sister and I's switches. We were able to connect to her friends world without any problems.

We've troubleshooted in every way we know and what has been suggested. We've contacted our internet provider, checked our NAT types, reset and hard reset our Switches. Archived the game and redownloaded it, and contacted Nintendo and Mojang customer service. We are able to play other multiplayer games together like Splatoon 2, but not Minecraft. We noticed the problem after the version 1.7.0 update.

Please help. This has become extremely frustrating. 

My brother, my friend and I were having the same problem. We just made Microsoft accounts and added each other as friends through that. We were able to play switch to switch with cross platform play and it worked.

I'm having the same problem. Realms work fine and local Switch to Switch works too for me. But whenever I try to join a Switch world on my Switch it doesn't work and they can't join mine either. However, if I use Windows 10 edition I can join Switch worlds just fine. 

I made an account especially because of this issue. It has been months since I had this issue and weeks since I tried to get in touch with Mojang to have it resolved but so far it's brought nothing but exhaustion. I'd love to play with my little brother who still lives at my parents but so far all Minecraft bedrock does is just collecting digital dust and it is frustrating.

This is still happening in 1.10.0. 

Still cannot connect on 1.11.1 with Nintendo Online network.

Need use cross platform multiplay.

My brother seems to be able to join games hosted by me.

However, I need to use cross platform friends to join him, which only works SOMEtimes.

I am trying to host game on windows 10 but switch is unable to connect. Both devices are on a same network. I tried to use wifi and direct connection. However If other device is on different network then switch can connect to the game. Also hosting game on switch causes no problems, pc can connect to that. I hope you can fix this problem.

Same.

Me and my friend managed to find a way past the bug. When connecting to each other, we rapidly pressed A. Even a double tap worked. Not sure if this will work for everyone but it worked for us. Hope this helped

I am having the exact same problem, especially when I have a YouTube channel and I'm currently trying to record Minecraft Bedrock on Nintendo Switch with some friends and they cannot join me at all. My internet as well is perfectly fine and I have no problem with it when I'm playing on my Switch. I hope they fix this frustrating bugs soon enough.

I now don't even see my friend on the list anymore. This has became such a chore now when will this finally be over?

When I search for his gamertag under find cross platform friends then I can see he is playing but under the tab friends there's no one there.

His name finally popped up and as described by A.J. Cortez earlier I managed to join him through switch friends for the first time in forever by repeadetly pressing A quickly? Strange but it worked x3

And it seems to depend on which world my friend has loaded whether or not I can join him? Though it was possible for me to join the now unjoinable world before

Is this issue going to be able resolved? It’s still affecting me and my sister in 1.11.4. I’m waisting money because I can’t play online with Minecraft because the bedrock team at Mojang hasn’t done anything to fix the issue.

Is this still an issue in the latest version 1.12.0?

Yes. At least for me and my sister.

so when is Mojang gonna fix this?????

Sorry for not responding for a long time:

Yes it is still a problem in 1.12, I still can not connect to other Switch worlds with my own Switch.
But I have additional informations that might be helpful: 
When I'm playing in my multiplayer Switch world and a person tries to join, they get the error "can't connect to World", however, on my screen in the game there is one single yellow message that says "XY hat left the game" (German: "XY hat das Spiel verlassen.")

So... it seems they somehow connect but something is going on that throws them out? As I said there was nothing wrong with "Switch Edition" multiplayer, only the current Minecraft on Switch. Did something change in the network? 

Me and my little brother now seem to have less troubles connecting to eachothers worlds. We sometimes don't even need to rapidly press A anymore like before.

Im also having this issue in the exact same way

Should we expect a fix or should I start asking for a refund? I’m still not able to play with my sister online and my Nintendo subscription has mostly went to waste. 

@MEGA_SPUD THIS IS STILL HAPPENING IN 2020 SPENT £270  ON A  SWITCH £25 ON MINECRAFT £18 ON NINETNDO ONLINE MEMBERSHIP FOR MY DAUGHTER AND HER COUSIN, AND NOBODY HAS A SOLUTION I HAVE CONTACTED  NINETNDO SUPPORT THEY SAY CONTACT MICROSOFT, MICROSOFT SAY CONTACT MOJANG AND MOJANG DON'T REPLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I FEEL TOTALLY RIPPED OFF AND FRUSTRATED AS THIS LOOKS LIKE IT HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR AGES WHY WHEN YOU BUY THIS GAME ARE YOU NOT ADVISED OF THE ISSUES AND WHY IS IN NOT ON MINECRAFT/MOJANGS WEBSITE WARNING PEOPLE?

I can confirm this is still an issue in 1.14.60

We have found a reliable workaround. While the menu says, “connecting”, you click cancel, then you immediately click to rejoin the network. Do this until it logs into the world. Sometimes it works on the first try and other times it works after doing it a few times. This has saved us hours of trying to join. Before this trick, it would sometimes take us 45 minutes of restarting the switch, restarting the internet, closing Minecraft, logging into Microsoft, logging out of Microsoft and so on and so forth. It now takes less than 10 minutes to join. It would be nice if we could join immediately though.

This has been happening since I bought Minecraft for the Switch a week ago (purely because i thought I was getting a working game) Please can we have an estimated time on a fix, and assurances that this is being looked into? I have tried almost everything in attempts to try and get it to connect even the workaround above but that also did not work. I have checked NAT Types etc etc, but every other game on Switch works. This HAS to be an issue with MC.

Like the post above I am having the same issue, this a known bug so why are you not acting on it or giving an update? Support seems to be ignoring this thread? Will be requesting a refund if this issue persists. Disappointed as I enjoy mine craft on PS4 and was looking forward to playing with friends on switch.

Any Update?

This has been a problem for 2 years and still no resolution? This is very frustrating.

Switch to Switch online multiplayer has major issues. My daughter and her friends have issues joining each others games. They get the following messages A) 'You must be friends with someone in this world in order to join", or B) "connection timed out"

 After searching many forums, Reddit, Nintendo I have come to the conclusion that this is indeed a major issue which has not been resolved. I have noticed that this topic has never been resolved.  I believe that you guys are aware of this but have chosen to ignore. 

P.S daughter running current version. 1.16.40

me and a friend spent over 30 minutes just trying to connect to each others worlds and nothing worked. I am on pc with bedrock edition and she is on the switch. please fix this as it is super annoying trying to play with friends when nothing is working

I still haven’t been able to play with my sister in almost over a year with this issue. Something needs to be done ASAP. May be a petition, something to get their attention on this matter.

Hey guys. My friend and I were experiencing this issue. When I connected to a different router, he and I were finally able to join each other's worlds. Hope this helps.

I’m having this issue but I’m on the switch and my daughter is on the iPad. We were able to play together maybe a year ago. But something changed and since then we haven’t been able to. I can join bedrock worlds if they’re on a PC but not my daughters on her iPad and she can’t join mine on the switch. I’ve done everything - removed each other as a friend and added each other again - restarted our devices - tried on a different internet - today I went through the trouble creating a whole new Minecraft account and adding it to my switch thinking that would solve it but after an hour of setting everything up - I still can’t connect to her world! What is going on?

I have been having this issue for two days. My friend has a survival world that is hosted on the switch. I play java and bedrock on windows 10, and have been using bedrock to join the world. I decided to play on my switch instead one night (using the same microsoft account) and it worked fine. The next day i logged into my PC to play from there and it still says my friends are not playing minecraft, though its joinable when i do it through my switch. Now, if i want to play on pc, they have to send me an invite every time, and sometimes they have to log out and go back in just for the invite to go through. We tried unadding and readding each other as friends, i uninstalled and reinstalled, checked all of my network settings and privacy settings, etc. 

This is very much still an issue. Sitting here with my kids on their Switch Lites trying to play together, and they can’t. One started a game and the other sees him in his friends list. When he tries to join, it times out after a few minutes, and he has to try again. Sometimes it eventually goes through. More often they get frustrated and give up. They started calling this bug “the thing that makes everyone mad”. Please give this some attention. It’s a really bad experience.

You say you can’t reproduce this? Have you tried joining the same game on two switches, on the same network, where one of the switches is hosting? It doesn’t seem to affect joining a server; only joining a switch-hosted game. 

Having the same issue here - the interesting thing is: my friend can join my server, I can't join his.

When trying to join his server, I get the locating server message. For my friend I appear in the players list of the world and he can even see me on the map. When walking to the location my character should be, there is nothing to see in the world though. Tried many solutions I found in different locations on the web - nothing helps.

Please fix this - not being able to reliably join other peoples worlds should be treated as a blocker and be fixed right away. Seeing this issue has been opened mid 2018 and is still open is unbelievable.

I figured out a resolution to this issue today!!! Switch players use two accounts to play Minecraft: a Microsoft Xbox account and a Nintendo account. Not only do the players need to be friends on their Xbox profiles, THEY NEED TO BE NINTENDO FRIENDS, TOO. You can find their friends list in their Switch profile. Without being friends on the Nintendo account, Minecraft will show the game as joinable, but it will fail to join and timeout 9/10 times. It'd be super helpful if the game made mention of this in the UI. I didn't even know the Switches had their own friends list.

I changed one other thing, and I'll list it here for completeness, but I don't think it's related to the resolution: My kids' Xbox gamertags used to match their Nintendo account sign-in names. I changed the Nintendo account names so that they wouldn't match the gamertags, re-logged in on their Switches, and did a hard reboot on the Switches.

Still an issue. My girlfriend and I are Nintendo and Microsoft friends, and it takes a very agonizingly long time to try and play together on the same network with great internet connection. Don’t know how this is an issue still in 2024. We both have Nintendo online accounts, made Microsoft accounts and again have great internet to no avail. We have to get very lucky to get it to work. 

Please confirm if this still occurs in the latest release and preview