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DatGuyDoe1's avatar
DatGuyDoe1
7 years ago
Solved

Apex Legends - unable to connect to EA servers (check ea.com/unable-to-connect)

Hello everyone,

I'm having a pretty annoying issue with this game. I'm going to try to describe this as accurately as possible.

I've only been able to play one match to the end (my very first one!) and that was around a couple of weeks after the game's release.

Since then i've tried to play but these were the results:

  • freezing then disconnecting while in the main menu
  • freezing then disconnecting while in a match  (within a couple of minutes of dropping)
  • crashing to desktop without any error message while in a match  (immediately after loading)

Yesterday after updating the game, i tried again by just browsing the main menu for around a minute to replicate the first problem i described and sure enough i got the ea.com/unable-to-connect error. At this point i'd rather not try to go into a match only to disconnect as soon as the match starts.

Here are something i've tried in the past:

  1. Updating drivers (at the moment i'm on 19.2.1 so not the latest)
  2. Clearing Origin Cache: https://help.ea.com/en/help/faq/clear-cache-to-fix-problems-with-your-games/
  3. Repairing the game through Origin
  4. Following this advice: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/Connection-to-server-timed-out/m-p/7503913/highlight/true#M2440
  5. Changing my DNS server from automatic to 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 (Cloud Flare DNS)

I vaguely remember uninstalling and reinstalling the game, but i could be wrong so if necessary i'll do it.

I'm also providing my UOTrace Results and my DxDiag so hopefully those can be useful.

Any ideas or experiences are appreciated xD

Thanks in advance.

TL:DR: When i log into the game and go to the main menu i crash with the ea.com/unable-to-connect error.

  • DatGuyDoe1's avatar
    DatGuyDoe1
    7 years ago

    OK so i'm happy to report that my game is playable at this point in time:

    the freezing still happens however the game recovers after 6-7 seconds and rarely disconnects.

    I only disconnected once yesterday and i was able to play at least 5 matches, wow!

    Yesterday I was looking for a solution and i stumbled across a video.

    I didn't follow all of the instructions since some of the steps sounded quite pointless to be honest (the video looks really awkward but hey it worked for me).

    I will link the video anyway just as reference for anyone who's curious to see what it's all about.

    I'm giving this advice as is, i don't fully understand what these commands do exactly, however i've used them in the past and they seem to be safe.

    So here is what worked in my case, please let others know if it works for you, especially since i wasn't taking notes of all the steps i took prior to trying this out:

    1. Right click your Apex Legends desktop icon, go to proprieties and under compatibility check disable fullscreen optimizations and run as administrator.
    2. Go to the start menu and search for "cmd". Run the command prompt as administrator.
    3. Copy and paste this command into the command prompt : ipconfig /flushdns
    4. Press enter.
    5. Copy and paste this command into the command prompt : netsh int ip reset
    6. Press enter.
    7. Reboot your computer.
    8. Open Apex Legends using the desktop icon.
    9. See if the freezing and disconnecting still occurs.

    As i said before i didn't take notes of everything i did before taking these steps, but i only did a couple of things that i think are noteworthy.

    You might want to replicate these two steps in case they apply to your PC and the steps above didn't work for you.

    1. Updated my GPU drivers from 19.2.1 to 19.4.2 (AMD), and this didn't solve the issue on its own in my case when i tested.
    2. I set the "Adaptive Resolution FPS Target" to 30 and set everything to the lowest setting except for resolution (mine was 1080p), model detail (mine was medium) while keeping Texture streaming budget to the default value (mine was 2GB).

    I'm accepting this post as my solution but please let others know if this helped, so others won't waste time.

    Happy holidays! 🙂

    Video that gave some of these instructions:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtlHNsbiS8U

    A video i made to showcase the problem:

    https://streamable.com/ydxdo

25 Replies

  • DatGuyDoe1's avatar
    DatGuyDoe1
    7 years ago
    By the way, i have the game set to Italian so error messages will look different, the link in the error is accurate however.
  • Konform103's avatar
    Konform103
    7 years ago
    Great job on providing the info.. I'm not a pro but i can see at first glance 100% packet loss on some ip connection and a dual core cpu (not enough for the game to run smoothly)..

    For connection i dont know if there is much u can do.. In apex there is a button "data center" find out how to change the server to a server with no packet loss (if the latency is worse so be it for now).. Worst ping latency of over 100ms will interfere with a smooth play..

    If the game is installed on ur kingston ssd i would make sure you have atleast 30gb of free disk space because windows uses page filing and since u have 8gb of ram this could go up to 8 or more gigabytes of virtual memory...

    If the connection issue doesnt go away contact the isp and write a complaint or change the plan/ provider
  • Konform103's avatar
    Konform103
    7 years ago
    Some more tips:
    -Use windows optimization (not a defrag but trim for ssd)

    If u experience some problem with the game try a clean restart ALT+F4 before gaming

    SSD with low capacity generally have less sustained write speeds, lower cache, lower performance although this is not much related to ur issue
  • DatGuyDoe1's avatar
    DatGuyDoe1
    7 years ago
    Apex legends is currently on my hard drive, anyways, i'm going to try to switch data center and see if that makes any difference at all. btw thanks for your reply 🙂
  • DatGuyDoe1's avatar
    DatGuyDoe1
    7 years ago
    I forgot to mention how the freezing happens exactly:

    basically after spending about 60-90 seconds in the menu the character stops moving and sound stops working all together. Selecting tabs in the menu does nothing.
    Then sound resumes (both music and menu sounds effects) and the menu starts responding again then after a few seconds it disconnects with the first error i mentioned in the original post.

    Also i've seen this other post, that got no replies though:

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Sound-goes-out-Game-lag-spikes-and-then-disconnects/m-p/7434200/highlight/true#M3953
  • Konform103's avatar
    Konform103
    7 years ago
    You can run a hardware monitor like afterburner to monitor each cpu core, ram, vram, virtual memory, gpu core .. Start logging, run apex and watch closely .. When i do that what i see is a cpu spike (i'm on 4 cores) right after the black screen into the main menu causing micro sound stutters, once the cpu load drops the microstutters stop and i have no problems.. I've tried with disabling shader cache but that makes things much worse

    Also minimum specs are:
    AMD FX-4350 (CPU mark:5344) your cpu is 3876
    Doesnt explain the freezing because i've seen some people running this game of integrated graphics

    Come back once u figured out whats happening hardware wise
  • DatGuyDoe1's avatar
    DatGuyDoe1
    7 years ago

    @Konform103 

    Ok i have some important findings to show. EA Support take notes lol.

    I decided to try to monitor my system stats and record everything with OBS.

    Here's the link to it: https://streamable.com/ydxdo

    Freezing starts at 1:19 as soon as i close the settings window.

    You can see the MSI Afterburner overlay (which also freezes) on the top left.

    On the bottom right you can see the MSI Afterburner window (not affected by freeze).

    Apparently as soon as the freezing starts GPU usage drops to 0 instantly and has only a few short peaks afterwards.

    After the sound and menu become functional again, Lifeline stands still and won't move at all, this happens even when other legends are selected before the freeze.

    Well the video is pretty self-explanatory. Later i'm going to update my drivers to the latest version to see if that makes any difference.

    I'll keep this post updated, hopefully the driver update will fix this ☹️

  • Konform103's avatar
    Konform103
    7 years ago
    Maybe there is not enough vram.. I see afterburner going up to complete max any more it's going to go to load up ur ddr3 ram.. I thought there was an option to set vram to 1-2gb but they must have changed that one or more updates ago.. Too bad🙂

    I'll give u some list here:

    1. Like I said above have 30gb of free disk space on your main drive there might be a problem if your disk is running out of space, if shader cache is enabled it needs space on the drive
    2. Go to bios disable intel speedstep (EIST technology)
    3. Your cpu supports DDR3-1333 any speeds above might be unstable, if you have ddr3-1600 turn it down to 1333 and find the right latencies from your memory brand
    4. If you have 2x4gb (i hope not 1x8gb) make sure they are in slots DDR3_1 and DDR3_2 on your motherboard.. If you have 1x8gb i recommend to buy the same type but be careful not recommended different brands and speed/latencies.. you MUST have dual channel in order
    5. Update your motherboard bios from F1 to F3
    6. With kingston ssd manager, make sure your ssd is running the latest firmware.
    7. Defrag your western digital drive with apex installed
    8. Make sure hard drive and ssd are connected to SATA 6Gb/s connectors (because mobo has sata 3gb/s dont use it)
    9. Disable non-microsoft services from starting (msconfig->services->hide microsoft->disable others) also keep minimul start apps
    10. In apex video settings set texture streaming budget to 1gb (if available)
    11. Try a launch command like +fps_max 60
    12. Disable NTFS compression on Origin install folder/Apex install folder (right click properties->advanced=>disable compression)
    13. Disable intel hd graphics in the bios
    14. Visual c++ 2012/2013/2015/2017 in 32bit AND 64 bit latest version from microsoft website (no double versions or older versions)
    15. Disable all overlays (origin/amd/xbox/ any type)


    Please take this post with a grain of salt, dont waste your time only make changes u are comfortable doing
  • DatGuyDoe1's avatar
    DatGuyDoe1
    7 years ago

    OK so i'm happy to report that my game is playable at this point in time:

    the freezing still happens however the game recovers after 6-7 seconds and rarely disconnects.

    I only disconnected once yesterday and i was able to play at least 5 matches, wow!

    Yesterday I was looking for a solution and i stumbled across a video.

    I didn't follow all of the instructions since some of the steps sounded quite pointless to be honest (the video looks really awkward but hey it worked for me).

    I will link the video anyway just as reference for anyone who's curious to see what it's all about.

    I'm giving this advice as is, i don't fully understand what these commands do exactly, however i've used them in the past and they seem to be safe.

    So here is what worked in my case, please let others know if it works for you, especially since i wasn't taking notes of all the steps i took prior to trying this out:

    1. Right click your Apex Legends desktop icon, go to proprieties and under compatibility check disable fullscreen optimizations and run as administrator.
    2. Go to the start menu and search for "cmd". Run the command prompt as administrator.
    3. Copy and paste this command into the command prompt : ipconfig /flushdns
    4. Press enter.
    5. Copy and paste this command into the command prompt : netsh int ip reset
    6. Press enter.
    7. Reboot your computer.
    8. Open Apex Legends using the desktop icon.
    9. See if the freezing and disconnecting still occurs.

    As i said before i didn't take notes of everything i did before taking these steps, but i only did a couple of things that i think are noteworthy.

    You might want to replicate these two steps in case they apply to your PC and the steps above didn't work for you.

    1. Updated my GPU drivers from 19.2.1 to 19.4.2 (AMD), and this didn't solve the issue on its own in my case when i tested.
    2. I set the "Adaptive Resolution FPS Target" to 30 and set everything to the lowest setting except for resolution (mine was 1080p), model detail (mine was medium) while keeping Texture streaming budget to the default value (mine was 2GB).

    I'm accepting this post as my solution but please let others know if this helped, so others won't waste time.

    Happy holidays! 🙂

    Video that gave some of these instructions:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtlHNsbiS8U

    A video i made to showcase the problem:

    https://streamable.com/ydxdo

  • VoltaInstinct's avatar
    VoltaInstinct
    7 years ago

    Hey man I have the same exact thing happening to me. I have a amd fx-6300 and a gtx 960 and im confused as too what my problem is. i did all your steps and it still happens. ill be chilling in the main lobby and after 60 seconds my game freezes and the sounds stutter and it comes back to me being in the main lobby. Then give me the unable to connect crap. i just wanna play the game dude. i havent had any problem like this w any other game

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