Peer to peer matchmaking issue

[PC/Steam] Persistent Peer Lost Connection During Match Loading — Request for Networking Team Investigation

Game: EA SPORTS College Football 27
Platform: PC (Steam / EA account)
Mode affected: Road to CFP / Online multiplayer
Error: Peer Lost Connection / Opponent disconnects during match loading
Frequency: Most matchmaking attempts; occasional successful matches

Issue Description

I’m requesting assistance with a persistent peer-to-peer (P2P) connectivity issue that has continued despite extensive troubleshooting on my PC and home network.

I can successfully launch College Football 27, connect to EA’s online services, enter multiplayer matchmaking, and find an opponent.

However, during the transition from the matchmaking lobby into the actual game, the connection frequently fails.

The typical failure sequence is:

1. Matchmaking successfully finds an opponent.
2. Both players enter the pregame/loading process.
3. My opponent disconnects or times out first. In some cases, I’ve confirmed this directly with opponents through Discord.
4. My game continues loading briefly before displaying “Peer Lost Connection” or returning to the menu.
5. The game itself remains running; it does not crash.

Occasionally, a match connects successfully. When that happens, I can complete the entire game without lag, instability, or disconnections.

Other players in my online league can connect and play each other normally, but I repeatedly experience this problem when attempting to play them.

This appears to be an issue with establishing or maintaining the initial P2P multiplayer session rather than a general inability to connect to EA’s online services.

Troubleshooting Already Completed

PC / Windows:

• Updated my Intel I219-V Ethernet adapter driver to version 12.19.2.64.
• Restarted Windows after the driver update.
• Reset Windows Winsock and TCP/IP networking and flushed DNS.
• Rebooted and retested after the network reset.
• Verified Steam game-file integrity. Steam identified one file that failed validation and downloaded a replacement, but the issue persisted.
• Previously reinstalled/repaired EA Javelin Anti-Cheat.
• Previously tested Windows Firewall changes without resolving the issue.
• Checked Windows Event Viewer; no confirmed College Football 27 process crash corresponding to the peer disconnects.

UniFi Network / Router:

• Using a UniFi Dream Machine Special Edition (UDM SE) with Comcast/Xfinity Internet.
• Confirmed the UniFi WAN receives a public IPv4 address, with no apparent carrier-grade NAT or double NAT.
• Confirmed UPnP is enabled and successfully creating dynamic UDP port mappings for the game.
• Tested with UPnP disabled and enabled; the problem persisted.
• Verified inbound and outbound UDP traffic through the router.
• Checked relevant firewall, intrusion prevention, WAN, and NAT settings.
• Confirmed UniFi OS and UniFi Network are up to date.
• Verified normal Internet MTU behavior and no apparent connection-tracking table exhaustion.
• Did not identify a router security rule blocking the game.

Network Packet Capture:

I captured and analyzed UDP traffic on the UniFi gateway during a failed multiplayer session.

The capture showed:

• Bidirectional UDP communication between my gaming PC and a remote game peer.
• Game traffic using UDP port 3659 on my PC.
• Traffic successfully passing through the router’s NAT mapping.
• Both directions of peer traffic stopping close together around the time of the failed session.
• Separate EA/backend communication continuing afterward.

This suggests that basic UDP connectivity is possible, but the multiplayer session is still being terminated or failing to establish successfully.

The packet capture alone does not establish whether the termination originates from the game client, remote peer, EA’s session coordination, or the network path.

Other Relevant Observations:

• Other online games, including EA SPORTS FC 26 and Dota 2, work normally on this PC and Internet connection.
• General Internet browsing, downloads, and streaming work normally.
• The issue occurs with multiple College Football 27 opponents.
• Once a College Football 27 match establishes successfully, gameplay is stable.

Request for EA Networking / Engineering Assistance

At this point, I would appreciate having this issue reviewed by a team with access to multiplayer session diagnostics rather than repeating standard port-forwarding, router-restart, or driver-update instructions.

Specifically, could EA investigate:

1. P2P session establishment: Why do peers successfully match but repeatedly fail during the transition into gameplay?
2. Session termination reason: Do EA’s matchmaking/session services record a disconnect reason, timeout, failed connectivity check, or session-negotiation error for these matches?
3. NAT traversal / peer negotiation: Is there evidence that peer connectivity checks or NAT traversal are failing despite successful bidirectional UDP communication?
4. Client or account-specific issues: Could there be an EA account, PC client, or session configuration issue causing repeated failures across multiple opponents?
5. Known PC multiplayer issues: Are there known problems with College Football 27’s PC peer-to-peer connectivity or session establishment?
6. Diagnostic collection: Is there a specific EA client log, connection diagnostic, session identifier, or other information I can provide to help identify the failure?

I can provide exact timestamps of failed matchmaking attempts, my EA ID, relevant technical details, and redacted packet-capture information if requested through an appropriate support channel.

Could an EA community manager please help flag this for the game’s networking/engineering team, or identify the appropriate process for escalating a reproducible P2P session-establishment issue?

I’m happy to cooperate with targeted diagnostics. I’m simply trying to move beyond the standard troubleshooting steps that have already been completed.

Thank you.