Madden NFL 21 - Cannot connect to EA servers - Check Ethernet Cable Message

Hey, @rickysteve40 

After looking over the UO Trace there is significant packet loss and wide ping variance. The range you're experiencing is a major concern where it could be a damaged server site your connection is hitting along the way to our servers. There's been some wild weather across the United States lately including blackouts in the East region, so it may not be your equipment or your local network but rather an ISP backbone technical issue.

A similar player was having trouble connecting and their ISP discovered an issue. It's this post here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues/PS5-Madden21-can-t-connect-to-server/m-p/9961639/highlight/true#M8557

I recommend contacting your ISP and showing them these trace route results so they can help troubleshoot the path your connection is taking to our servers. 

Understanding your results

There are a few things to keep your eye out for when running these tests.

• High ping times: If your average ping times are often above 150ms, you’ll see slower response times in-game. If they’re over 200ms, you’ll probably have connection drops.
• Packet loss: If you see numbers other than 0% or 100% in the % Loss column, it means data is being lost at that point in your connection. If you see it in more than one place, or if the numbers are high, this is probably what’s causing your connection issues. Make a note of the hops where packet loss is happening, and contact your ISP to let them know about it
• Big differences between the best/worst ping times: This is a good indicator of an unstable connection. The difference between your best and worst ping times should be 100ms at most. If it’s more than that, that means a jittery or spiky connection. This is what causes lag in games and is the source of frustrating inconsistencies in performance. If you see this in your UOTrace, talk to your ISP about that, too.