Nintendo Switch Microsoft account requires new remote sign-in each time you load the game

My Nintendo switch keeps freezing and crashing when opening/closing the app. If I walk away from my game and the system sleeps or if I attempt to close the software to play a different game.

The switch will either freeze on Minecraft or it will freeze on the main switch screen after selecting close application. I am then forced to hard reset my switch. It’s a painful experience because you can clearly hear the switch shutting off like an old TV would. I can’t imagine that this is good for my switch.

Furthermore, I don’t understand why the app doesn’t keep my Microsoft login information. I have to log in each time I want to play by using my phone and going to aka.ms/remoteconnect and even sometimes that will freeze Minecraft and the switch. I don’t get it. It all began with 16.2, I believe. It’s frustrating to see that these issues are resolved when they clearly aren’t. 

We have two switches, Android, iPhone, and iPad that all have this same issue. Open Minecraft app, it doesn't connect to Microsoft account, and they have to re-login.

We have rules on our Wi-Fi network, so children's screens are network disabled during certain hours. (But they are able to connect to the network, just no internet). What seems like it's happening is that the device is logged in as user: user123. Then connect to WiFi without internet, open Minecraft app, then it starts the Microsoft aka.ms/remote connect login. A better solution would be for the device to check that it can't reach Microsoft servers, and not lose the user session, and just say not connected to internet.

So that when we restore internet, they will stay logged in. Because we have to re-login to 3 devices a day sometimes.

@Peter Dietz If you are not connected to internet on any device, regardless of whether you are connected to WiFi or not, it will automatically sign you out. This seems to be a programmed part of the game.

@Josiah Hungerford: that’s not quite true. You won’t be able to access some account-linked features while offline, but you should not have to re-enter login credentials just because you used the app without internet access. It was not like this before 1.16.20, and it is not like this on other devices.

I cannot for the love of god sign into my account. Ever since they say I have no space for some reason, I cannot sign back into my account. I have 51.4 gb of data left on my nintendo but for some reason it keeps telling me i cant make a new world and i cant download the rest of my templates so it is money wasted. Please fix my login and my data space error. Thank you.

This is the message I sent Microsoft and they told me to let you guys know of this issue. If you could maybe please update how much space players can have because 2gb is absolutely no space for anyone to download tge templates you guys have us buy in your store. So if you dont mind. Also i bought a realms for 30 days and now thats money wasted because I again couldnt log on to my ****ING ACCOUNT. FIX IT AND REFUND ME.

@ordel that language is uncalled for. I'm quite sure Microsoft/Mojang is setting up a Realms compensation scheme for the outages over the last few weeks MCPE-95621

Back to the issue at hand. I noticed not being able to play with my daughter (she on Switch, me on Win10) due to the Microsoft account not connecting - as we only play Realms, we didn't play at all and kinda missed the entire Minecraft-on-Switch v.1.16.20 breakage (I do have an opinion on it though 😛). I thought it was connected with all that mess, so we waited until that was sorted. But anyway, the Switch now is on v1.16.21, yet the Microsoft account login failure lingers.

From the laptop, there is no issue signing in, but using the same account on the Switch fails autologin and manually starting login fails as well. No prompt to connect the account or anything. The "logging in" modal just disappears after a while. Erasing account data, closing the app, don't seem to make any difference. I've tried with either account - logging in from PC works, but fails on the Switch.

I'm not blocking anything related to Xbox live on my network. I tried to grab what the Switch was doing by running a tcpdump on outgoing connections from the Switch on the access point it connects to, and found that it seems to be firing requests at minecraftprod.maelstrom.gameservices.xboxlive.com, which resolves to something in Azure's{{ cloudapp.net}}, which seems to make sense. From what I can gather from the traffic, this login seems to fail, as requests are repeated. Obviously these requests are over https, so I can't see the actual payload or response, but the behaviour seems to suggest this is the login that fails.

I am aware this still doesn't pinpoint the cause, as this could be both client-side (Minecraft on the Switch) or server-side (the login-endpoint in Azure), but perhaps it might be worthwhile to peek at the logs for this minecraftprod app.

I have been experiencing this same issue for at least the past few weeks on 2 Switches with two different accounts. Prior to that, the username/login button would not appear on the left side of the main menu. I could go back to the home screen, close the app, and reopen it to force the game to automatically log itself back in. That no longer works. For weeks now, the accounts are disconnected EVERY TIME my two young kids want to play Minecraft. I have to use the MS remoteconnect link to log them in with the code. It's very exhausting doing this multiple times a day, especially with this game being something I have relied on to keep them occupied during the day so that I can work from home.

I do not know if this is related, but they have also been unable to play via the "Nintendo Friends" option for multiplayer worlds. The other account shows up under Nintendo Friends, but it never connects (gets stuck at the first step). We have to do the "Cross-platform" option every time, which means they cannot use the Nintendo exclusive content together.

@Martjin thanks for providing so much detail and inspecting the network traffic so that I don't feel tempted to do the same to provide that information!

My son has had on going issues ever since the so called "upgrade" for the Switch. He continues to get booted off the system and we have to jump on my laptop and reestablish the code etc. He'll be in the middle of playing and it still does it. When is this gettig fixed?  Sounds like a major bug and its been weeks now.

I am having the exact same issue. My daughter keeps getting signed out, sometimes even while in the middle of playing. This is becoming a major issue since i am not always able to get her signed back into her Microsoft account. This started with .20 and has been just as much an issue with .21. Please FIX ASAP!

Is there a way to back rev to 1.16.19? If i could back rev then at least i won't be bothered with this bug until it is fixed.

Plus this has 28 votes. That is not alot. Man people don't even know they have the issue. And with only 28 people complaining i am guessing there is no rush on the dev side.

Every time my microsoft account disconnect I usually remote reconnect every time but with this bug in the game I'd better off just wait until the bug get's fixed otherwise I'd be getting a million account verify emails which I don't want.

It is a little bit of a nice break from the hive, I’ve made some huge progress on my survivals and creatives. It’s just a little bothersome that I don’t have access to things I bought.  

Okay, it is very bothersome. After dealing with this issue for 3 months, it’s rather tiring to load Minecraft (which already took ten minutes to load) ten times and signing in 1/2 those times. It’s a never-ending loop. Hit sign in, says it’s signing in, continues to say that, and it freezes like that. All I want is to play Minecraft with friends. Not play around with the Microsoft account for thirty minutes, just trying to see my in-app purchases for two seconds. 😔 If it does ask for my account and actually accepts it, it will tell me my profile with my name and G, then when I hit let’s play, it just shows me the background  and doesn’t load anything else (When I’m lucky it shows the loading bar).If I reload the game after that there’s a 20% chance it’ll actually work.

This issue has been around for AT LEAST four months now. And it has over 80 votes.

I'm having the same issue as well, whenever I try to log in after I have to restart my Switch, I have to re-enter the code again, and again, and again, and it won't keep me logged in after I restart.

"DAD!  DAD!  DAD!  MINECRAFT'S NOT SIGNED IN AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Please address this issue, as a dad, I can't be signing my son in 4+ times a day, he loves to play Purchased content.

Super frustrating coupled with the 15 minute load time. I wonder where it is in priority as the status hasn't moved to in progress. Well I've added my vote and encourage others to do the same, signup literally took seconds! 

edit 84 duplicates, that must be causing some noise for sure. 

Apparently this is fixed - Is this a public bug database which isn't synchronised with their internal one. Well go grab the update...somehow.

https://feedback.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/360048253952-Minecraft-1-16-40-Bedrock-

edit found this - https://www.perfectly-nintendo.com/minecraft-nintendo-switch-edition-software-updates/

Minecraft – Ver. 1.16.40

• Release date: September 8th 2020 (North America) / September 9th 2020 (Europe, Japan)

Looks like we'll have to wait a few more days then 😞

@Adam: you've inferred correctly that the Bedrock developers have their own internal tracker. This tracker is maintained by community management and volunteers. We do not use the "in progress" status and we do not have access to Mojang's internal priorities. This report will be resolved as "fixed" when we've confirmed that the fix is effective.

This is partly Mojang's fault and partly Microsoft's fault as me and my family have been noticing similar issues with other Microsoft apps like Microsoft Word. I would also like to note that half the time, the sign in button doesn't even work.

While typing this, I had to sign in using a code twice before I could even change my character back to normal.

Has anyone else started getting kicked out of their Microsoft account mid game?

I can agree with this. Its happening for me to. 

Signing in in the switch is so user-unfriendly, can we have at least a message box prompt on the switch after we login on the MS remote connect site if it successful or not, instead of just going back to main menu and pray that we got signed in?

1.16.40 patch installed, which lists as fixing this issue.  I am still seeing the same issue on the Switch though with multiple sign-ins required, it is reporting something went wrong quicker though maybe?

I have the same issue happening. I don’t get an error message saying something failed. What I have is the main screen with sign in with a Microsoft account. Since I am always logged out when opening Minecraft I have to link my switch to my Microsoft account via aka.ms/remoteconnect every time I get onto my switch and play. This was never an issue until the recent update. It’s quite annoying as my kid has to call me and have me do it for him since he is 6 and doesn’t understand it. Is there a solution to this issue?

Thanks for your patience while we try and get this issue resolved. Let's try and keep the ticket narrowed down to a single issue where possible. Please add a vote to this ticket if you are having the issue where you have to log in with your account each time you restart.

It would be helpful if you could also send a message to Mojang Support with your Gamertag and a screenshot of your profile screen, by going to Minecraft>Settings>Profile, scroll to the bottom and take a screenshot of the IDs shown there. (Please do not share those here at the bug tracker.)

If you are seeing the related issue where you see an error message after you attempt to sign in, please see MCPE-34662.

Quick Links:
📓 Issue Guidelines – 💬 Mojang Support – 📧 Suggestions – 📖 Minecraft Wiki

HI i noticed the with 1.16.40 the login work only if you launch the game. So if your switch goes to sleep mode it will not auto-login. Completely cloae Minecraft by launching another game. Then reopen Minecraft and the login work.

Although this is much better and is better then registering under aka.ms/remote... each time i really think Minecraft developers need to splurge, buy a Switch and TEST!!! 

this device is for children, It should just work....

Hello, with this update it keeps crashing and now it takes like 20 minutes to load the menu, in my case. I had to save the data on the cloud and delete it on switch to play properly (without my worlds).

Same issue on 3 different switches in my house. Seems to work until the switch goes to sleep or is shut off and then its logged out.  Quickest workaround I have found is to manually close the software (home button and press x) on the switch then then relaunch it then try to login to the Microsoft account, then have to go login on the computer.  Otherwise it either gets stuck in a loop of asking me to login to the account over and over or it just hangs and never finishes loading the game.  The main screen background loads without the actual UI loading.  Really annoying when both kids are trying to play together on their switches and I have to repeatedly login to both switches and pull out a computer to login to both Microsoft accounts about 10 times a day.

@Thomas Crivello: your comments have been removed because they are not relevant to this ticket. This ticket is for a login issue on the Nintendo Switch that has nothing to do with crashing. Please search for a ticket for your issue and platform or multiple platforms.

Same. 3 Switches. All require reconnecting via aka.ms every time Minecraft is starting in order to sign into microsoft account. Roll it back.

Hi, since months this bug is still present,despite the many updates we had, I am sick of logging 2 Nintendo switch so often in a day.

Still the same, Microsoft account logged out for whatever reason, I must go to this damn aka ms remote connections and have to type this code for each account... .

It is just crazy that in 2020, after 3years of development, no one has managed how to leave a cookie on the switch to keep the kids logged in.

The switch version is the most expensive of all Minecraft, and the one that lacks the most optimization.

Since this bug has been with us for a while I figured a way to avoid logging in every session. And it's fairly simple: you just have to load minecraft and wait for 1-2 minutes on the main screen. Issues still happen when I try to log in to an online friend's server sometimes, but much much less. Meanwhile, waiting for a fix like everybody.

I cross play PC with nintendo switch with my daughter. We often have this issue, have to restart the switch, start minecraft and grab a new token each time we want to play together. 

The same thing happens with my Nintendo Switch.

However, this could be a bug in Minecraft, but I think it could also be a bug in your Microsoft account.

But now (albeit a bit annoying) you'll have to log in every time, or play without logging in until it's improved.

It happens to me but i fixed it.

@Andy Podolsky : could you please share your trick ? Waiting for a fix could take another few years... .

I fixed this bug by using another wifi conecction, dunno why, but it worked

@Luis - It must have refreshed the connection. Good idea.

+1 we are constantly having this issue. I sent an email with account info to support.

@Luis Can confirm the WiFi trick. Logins seem back to normal now and can finally play via Microsoft accounts.

@Kyle, @Luis

Could you please share the steps you do to fix it?

Do you minimize the game and select different/same wifi network and come back to the game?

@Andrew, not sure what actually did it but by coincidence I was installing a new access point (same WiFi details as before) and I assume something about re-establishing a connection did the trick? I was hesitant to put exactly what I did on here as I’m sure some people will assume it was something wrong with my previous AP but Minecraft was working perfectly fine with that AP until the MC update. I would guess that connecting to another WiFi (maybe a phone hotspot) or even just forgetting and redoing your network connection might have the same effect?

let say your switch is connected to "x" wifi, so connect to another wifi "y", i'm sorry my english is not good enough

Request progress report.  What has been discovered about this issue and when will it be fixed.  What priority is being given to resolving?

Of all of the issues with this game, this one makes it unplayable.  I spend 20-30 minutes a day trying to log my kid back into her Microsoft account.  I've been on hold with Microsoft support for 30 minutes as I'm typing this.  I tried calling Nintendo and they said it's not their issue to support.  I opened a ticket with Mojang, and was told to go to both Nintendo and Microsoft for support for this issue.  All three entities have a stake in this issue, and not one of you seems willing to "own" it and get it fixed.   I paid for a product and it's not being serviced properly.   Not buying any more of your products if this is what I can expect for both functionality and support.

Daughter's account won't sign in.  Mine oddly does log in ok.  It worked yesterday without any issues 😞

EDIT: Cleared login data from settings and went through the annoying process of associating it with her ms account.  It logged in.  Had to close out and login a few times before friends would show up.  Then she couldn't connect to their worlds.

It's really aggravating how this works...or doesn't.

I recently experienced the related issue MCPE-34662 and I think the way I resolved it might help some users with this issue. My Switch randomly started having the problem one day. When I used the aka.ms/remoteconnect page to sign it in on my phone, it would say "successful" on the phone, but the Switch would revert back to not being signed in. After trying >30 times over two days, I decided to try accessing aka.ms/remoteconnect on my laptop instead. That worked!

I conclude that my problem was actually with the browser caching (or something like that) on my phone, where it was not transmitting the data even though it said that it was. I don't know why the Switch randomly got signed out, but not being able to sign back in was definitely an issue with my phone's browser.

@GoldenHelmet That sounds like it could be it. However, this issue seems to keep changing behaviors. My account has gone from “Something went wrong” to asking me to sign in at remote connect, and now it’s saying it is signing in but never does. It’s gotten to the point where I just have to live with it and hope it is a top priority with Minecraft.

I didn’t get the achievement when I beat the ender dragon (Finally) which is really sad.😞  

My son has been experiencing this issue for a couple of months now. I think I got this working over the summer, but some time since then,it stopped working again. I can start the authentication process in the switch, I authorize the code on the laptop, it says I can close the window. I press B on the switch to close the window telling me to go to the Microsoft page, and nothing happens. I found a user suggestion on another forum to click the ❌  at the top right of the window, and I see "Signing into Microsoft Account..." just spinning forever. The intention was to get cross play to work so my son can play with his cousin on PS4. Whenever it did work though, I, and the other dad would spend many minutes to hours debugging. 

This is VERY frustrating, even when I was able to get it work in the past, I was never able to save my purchases in the Microsoft account. Now, my son has his own PS4, and we seem to be running into the same issue. Can't login to the Microsoft account (Though my son can play with his cousin on the Playstation Network). We were never able to get our purchases shared to the PS4 device.

@Harper McGriffins: your experience sounds like mine that I described in more detail in my comment on MCPE-34662. I saw several different behaviors as well.

@John Brandenburg: the fact that you are having a similar issue now on PS4 suggests that it’s a problem with your MS account login in your laptop rather than the Switch or PS4 directly. That is exactly what I experienced with my phone, and I was able to resolve it only by using a new, 3rd device to do the remoteconnect authentication.

To both of you: if you are not able to access remoteconnect on 3rd device, try clearing your browser cache and doing a full power cycle (reboot) on the device that’s accessing the remoteconnect page.

@John Brandenburg: I noticed from your description that you pressed B on the Switch to close the window - I'm 99% confident that cancels the transaction from the Switch side before it can complete the sign-in.  After you verify the sign-in on your phone or laptop or PC, it says "you can close this window" but that's only referring to the browser window on that device, not the Switch window.  I recently had to sign my kid into their Switch yet again and I noticed that there was some delay between authorizing the sign-in on my PC and the Switch getting notified.  When it does get notified, the Switch automatically pops up the account info to confirm that you signed in with the expected account.  And I remember this because, the last time I did it, it took long enough that I was starting to doubt that the authorization had worked by the time it finally kicked in.

For anybody/everybody reading this thread, here's are some tips that work for me:

1) REBOOT YOUR SWITCH.  Any time I start having sign in weirdness, I just hard reboot the whole thing (I hold the power button, fully power off, and then manually turn it back on just to be safe) and every time except for maybe once, it's then let me log in again immediately.  For me, the sign-in will last for a seemingly-random amount of time - it's lasted for weeks and it's lasted for minutes.  It always breaks eventually but then I just do that again and usually we're good to go in minutes.

2) In general, go very slow and have a lot of patience.  It takes a fair amount of time to sign in to the Microsoft account and it takes a fair amount of time for it to search for friends' games.  Every time you take an action, WAIT.  It might look like it's hung for a good 5-10 seconds sometimes.  Give it more time than you think is reasonable and then give it even more time, because it probably needs it.  I've had a lot more luck going very slowly than assuming something broke and starting over - as an engineer, I have a sneaking suspicion there are bugs in the error handling and transaction canceling code here, so I bend over backwards to avoid triggering them.

3) Make sure the Switch is near your WiFi router.  I have noticed my kids getting signed out/dropped more-frequently when moving from room to room.  I don't really know whether to blame the Switch itself or Minecraft (honestly, probably Minecraft for not handling blips gracefully) but, in the same spirit as going slow, keeping it stationary and right next to WiFi seems to help, at least anecdotally.

I get that sometimes, but not all the time - annoying though, when I want to complete all the achievements, and have to keep re-doing them!

Rebooting the Switch does appear to allow me to log in to the Microsoft account, but only works when I use the "Leave on Device" option for my purchases. I'm trying to 1, do cross platform play, AND 2, share my purchases to my other account on PS4. When I try to use the Share purchases option, it does nothing, or times out. Then when I subsequently use the leave on device option, It's impossible to log in again (until I reboot apparently). 

We are having the same issue with constant prompts for logging in.  I noticed today while helping my son that it did not take the first time when I logged into his account with incognito mode, but when I used a regular browser it worked right after (using my laptop).  But, this bug is making this game unplayable on the switch for us.

Update: it seems fixed but sometimes it still logs me out and dont let me relog 

My switch won't let me sign in at all, I've uninstalled and reinstalled, it's constantly crashing with errors anytime I try load anything Microsoft profile related, so angry

I have the same problem, my switch lite started to exit automatically from Microsoft account. Tried to delete cache, archive and reinstall minecraft, but nothing changed. 

Solved on my side reading @Amber S post

Seems to be a kinda UX issue with impatient player not waiting 30sec or 1min While connecting to aka.ms/remoteconnect from another system.

As explained above pressing B will cancel the login transaction but waiting a little will let the switch connect correctly to MS account.

IMO the screen aka.ms/remoteconnect on the Switch should explain this behavior to the restless player 🙂

(Running Switch 1.16.210)

Disconnecting and re-connecting to our WiFi solves this issue for us (or switching to our 2nd Wifi, both work). Thanks to @Luis! https://bugs.mojang.com/browse/MCPE-95651?focusedCommentId=836348&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-836348

Otherwise, we would be waiting and waiting and waiting for nothing to happen. No restless players here, only frustrated that this doesn't work as easily as it should. 😉

some reason the remoteconnect panel never shoes up

Wondering why this is still unresolved 7 months after the bug was originally raised.

What is the proposed timeframe for fixing this issue?

I have 2 kids with switches and this happens almost daily. I freaking hate this. Also being an engineer, just using this and seeing the behavior, it’s incredibly frustrating and wreaks of bugs and bad logic. 

STR:
1. Open Minecraft
2. Observe you are logged out
3. Login using msft account (buggy process)
4. Usually login works
5. Play, turn off Nintendo with power switch
6. Come back the next day, you are no longer signed in
7. Ask dad via text to sign back in again, at random times

This has gotten worse and worse and worse for me over time.  It's now to the point where sometimes I have to sign my kids in multiple times in a row before one really sticks.  And I can almost guarantee at least one sign-in per day.  We have two Switches and it does seem to happen more regularly on the older (bought in 2017) one, but the younger (bought in 2020) one is not immune and I had to do 3 sign-ins yesterday on it.  It is getting downright infuriating for me AND my kids.  There is something fundamentally wrong with the way the Switch version is handling MS account auth and it needs to be fixed... PLEASE.

@Amber S & @Brandon Winchester, the sign in process usually is very odd. What it does is it first loads as not signed in, then it tries to sign in, and the account doesn’t show up. I wait a few seconds, and then it logs in. I have to wait for my skin to load before the account will work. 

If it’s not gonna sign in (Wait like 20 seconds) then after re-signing in, when it says you may safely close the browser, you can. But you have to wait for the pop-up on the switch. When the process is complete, the pop-up will go away by itself. Hope that helps!

I too am having this problem with my son on his switch. It will sign out of his Microsoft account every single time he puts his switch to sleep and comes back to it the next day. It’s like the OAuth token is being dropped or has an incredibly short TTL, and they are relying on refreshing that token regularly to keep the session alive. When he leaves his switch on and in Minecraft overnight, he is never logged out (unless we lose Internet or something, and then presumably the token is no longer able to be refreshed).

I think the developers need to provide a long-lived token or at least a long-lived refresh token. It is painful having to help my kid log into Minecraft every single day, at least once a day if not more. 

Reading the recent comments from Brandon Winchester and Jarod Nicholls it occurred to me that something has not been made clear in this report and comments: whether Minecraft is (a) started fresh after other games or no games were loaded, or (b) resumed after putting the Switch in sleep/suspend while Minecraft was loaded.

If everyone reporting this issue after the 1.16.40 patch is doing (b), then it's really just MCPE-109879 being confused with what was originally reported here. That's a very old issue (originally tracked as part of MCPE-19393) and it consists in the simple fact that Minecraft only establishes account connection at startup and is incapable of reconnecting to an account if a connection is interrupted, until the app is fully closed and restarted.

Looking back, some of the comments immediately after the 1.16.40 patch indeed clearly identify (b) as the trigger, e.g. here and here

Please try not to be red herringed by the handfuls of folks in comments who are not actually experiencing this issue.

just take this simple information. 
1. before the patch I had only had to log in my kids via aka.ms one or two times on their Nintendo switch lites.

2. after the patch. I have to log my kids in via aka.ms every single time they want to play. Multiple times a day. It has nothing to do with fully closing the app or not.

3. we have one account on a regular switch, that still post patch has never had to religion vis aka.me. It gets played all day all the time. In the same way as the other 2 and HAS NEVER HAD TO GO BACK TO AKA.MS

4. sometimes I can break my kids account that requires relogging in all of the time out of the cycle by making a bunch of changes to his account profile. But eventually after a couple of days he goes back to the login problems.

this has something to do with accounts or bearer token storage access. Please don’t dismiss it as simply folks confused about sleeping your app doesn’t allow relogin.

this has really ruined mine craft for the kids. It did not used to be this way. It’s a bug. Please don’t dismiss it. 

Llevo 2 días seguidos intentando acceder al minecraft de Nintendo Switch y no me lo permite, solo da errores y errores... Y para una vez que logré acceder no se cargó nada Online solo ponía "Próximamente" y no cargaba los servidores online, y cada vez esta peor... Y la suscripción a switch online no es gratuita y ya queda poco tiempo

I have the same issue that Cooper describes!

Used to work seamlessly until recently with only needing to login through aka.ms once in a month. Now its every time the game starts...really ruining the experience.

I want to be very clear that this is not ONLY an app focus or restarting issue - my kids can be actively playing online and get logged out of their MS accounts.  I have had this happen 3 times in a 15 minute span.  And sometimes the Switch will get stuck in a state where a cryptic error message pops up every time we try to sign in to the MS account and restarting the app doesn't actually help - in that case, we have to hard reset the Switch itself to sign in again.

I get that that the variety and vagueness of the problem description probably makes this hard to track down to a single problem.  As a software engineer with 15 years of experience, that's probably because it's NOT a single problem.  Something seems fundamentally wrong with the way the Switch implementation handles MS accounts.  We have this problem across two different Switches, bought three years apart, and nothing similar happens with any other applications - for example, Mario Maker 2 works flawlessly online 100% of the time.

After a couple of days of angst I was told about this thread. So this morning.

1. Turned off Switch completely and back on.

2. Opened Minecraft and tried to sign in.

3. Entered aka.ms code on phone.

4. Did nothing on Switch

5. Opened Minecraft on phone.

6. Pressed B on Switch and he was signed in (hurrah)

7. Had to add him as friend again as it said I had no friends online

8. He invited me. 

9. Hope it works again tonight 

I agree that this is a bug and cannot be dismissed as users not sleeping their games properly. Each time after I successfully save/quit and close minecraft and then reopen it (either immediately after closing it or after playing another game on the switch lite and closing that one properly), I am forced to sign into my Microsoft account so that I can use the items I paid creators for on the game I paid mojang for in the world's I have either downloaded or created. This is a huge bug that will literally keep me from picking up the game if I can t be bothered to do a two-step sign-in. Please help us. 

I have the variant of this problem since several update where I need to put several time the code gived by the game on aka.ms/remoteconnect.

At start we need to enter the code gived by the game ONLY at the first connection at the Microsoft account.
But me, I have to enter it (the code) each time (or almost) I want to connect myself at my Microsoft account and I need to do it, several times in a raw so that in the end it doesn't work.
When it work, the porblem come again a few couple of days later.

I'm really surprised an issue with login can be open for over a year!

I am currently experiencing this issue in Jun 2021 (and created a duplicate bug MCPE-131757).

I have 4 Switches in the household that would like to play Minecraft together.  The broken Microsoft sign-in is a deal-breaker. I purchased one Minecraft for one Switch as a test, but I won't be purchasing the others until this is resolved as there is no way I can support repeatedly logging in via other devices across 4 Switches.  

I'd like to know if this is not going to be resolved as I'd rather get a refund on the first instance if it will not be possible to (reasonable) play multiplayer Minecraft on Switch.

Hopeful that this will get some eyes soon.

If it took 1 full release cycle to fix this one issue, I'd be happy. I'd take no features in place of being able to play the game as is without this constant frustration! 

(I realize this won't happen, but as an engineer like others above, just pointing out the value of stability over new shiny features.)

I am having the same issue with my son's Minecraft Game on his Switch. Every single time he plays I have to sign him in.

This i still an issue for both of my switches. Is there any sort of update here? It's just comments of users having this issue.

I'm positing here as I have been instructed to do so from Minecraft support. I have this bug on only one of my switches. Every time I start the game, or resume it from sleep, I have to re-authenticate my Microsoft account via a separate device & browser.

I have Switch with the latest version of Switch OS and latest version of Switch for Minecraft. 

Thanks,

Will

I’m having the same issue as well. I have to authenticate my account each time I start the game. Plus my game always seems to error out with specific texture packs more frequently which causes me to restart the painstaking login process all over again. (PS I know I can change packs to remedy that issue from happening often but I paid for that texture pack and it should work regardless.) Please get this fixed. 

My Microsoft account wont stay logged into my sons Nintendo switch mince craft game. Almost every time he wants to play online with friends I have to re log him in via the remote connect website. VERY annoying. 

        I feel like there are two different parts on this issue. The first is the original, where every time you open the game, you’d have to login again. I’m not seeing this issue anymore for my switch. @Amber S  pointed out earlier that when the sign in process says “You can safely close the browser,” go ahead and close it. But don’t hit B on the switch. It’ll take a minute to process. It’ll close on its own if it worked.

        The second which I’m seeing is every time you turn on your switch from sleep mode, it disconnects your microsoft account and usually will have problems when you hit sign in again. The SOLUTION to the second side is when you see the button after turning on your switch, just close the game and re-load it. (After the painfully long time it takes to load, which is my only complaint,) your microsoft account will sign in without any problems UNLESS you’re still experiencing the first side of the issue. 

Harper McGriffins: we've been through this distinction before. See my last comment and the 6-7 comments following that confirm they still have this issue. I will add a panel to the description to clarify.

Hi Team, it has been over a year and still no fix for this issue. It looks like wifi connection is at least partially responsible for causing the issue. Are you able to cache the creds perminently and only fail if the account password has been changed once logged in. or not try to login until the connection has been verified. ie check that the login site is available before trying to login and try a few times before having to reconnect via aka.ms/remoteconnect. just my 2 cents

Can't believe I've found a ticket for this issue that is so old! We just bought our kid a Switch for her birthday a couple of weeks back. Minecraft is the only game she really plays and this issue is causing absolute chaos. Every single time she starts the game, it signs into the Nintendo a/c fine and then forces us to use the https://aka.ms/remoteconnect link to sign-in again. This can't really be unsolvable, can it, after more than a year?

Crazy, everytime my son tries to connect to crossplatform friends to play during the lockdown I have to spend half an hour to get his microsoft account connected again ! that really drives me nuts. How come ?  Is it because the microsoft login should be set at the nintendo settings level rather then Minecraft ? I always have to sign him out , clear the credentials data and this a few times before being able to sign in correctly again ..

I'v sent the ID details to Mojang support email..

I deal with this super annoying and frustrating issue daily, actually multiple times daily. I just bought the Nintendo Switch online service too. We are typically able to connect to the remote servers without too many issues, but when my kids try to do the multiplayer where one creates a map and wants to invite the other into the same map to play together, that's where the chaos starts. The resolution is usually to perform these steps on both Switches:

• Reboot Minecraft app

  • This usually tries to sign in with the Nintendo/Microsoft account, and it appears to work, but it actually doesn't. It still gives errors like "Can't connect to Realms", etc. and the switches are not communicating very well. After I see it acting like this, I do the next thing...

• Go into settings, log out of the Nintendo/Microsoft account, clear the login info, sign back in, which results in needing to do the whole aka.ms/remoteconnect dance for each of the Switches. They both are using their own separate Nintendo/Microsoft accounts, and connected through a Nintendo Online family plan.

• After all that across both the devices, they can usually create/invite each other to their games.

I've never had luck getting the local network play to work either.

Hello, I must say that this problem got worse with 1.19.20. In my case, it auto logged in in 10-15 secs but now, it doesn't, and apart from that, it doesn't load my avatar and I have to make them from scratch EVERYTIME I log in manually. 

I have been having this problem on one of my 3 different switches.  It is very annoying and haven’t found a workaround.  Seems like it should be a high priority issue to fix.

I had this issue starting with the 1.19.50 update, then after about 2-3 weeks it went away as mysteriously as it started. No change in daily routines or wifi or internet status.

I wonder if a hard reset following the steps on Nintendo support for a console that's stuck sleeping, would resolve this issue for some users? See https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22502/~/the-console-has-no-power%2C-has-a-blank-screen%2C-or-wont-wake-up-from-sleep-mode

Thank you for your report!
However, this issue has been temporarily resolved as Awaiting Response

Is this still an issue in the latest version?

This ticket will automatically reopen when you reply.

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