Re: Searching forever...

@PirataMorado47 

We'll keep an eye out for others with this issue as well. If you want to go through some troubleshooting, let me know.

I'm on PS4 and have experienced this issue daily for the past four days in WoC 6's Drop-In.

If I somehow get into a match, the game often freezes before puck drop, or disconnects (either me or my teammates) at random.

Whenever I can't get into a game (after waiting on the "Searching" screen for 10-20 minutes), I close and restart the game. I have to close the game because, if I press circle to cancel my matchmaking search, I am left on a "Cancelling Search" screen that never changes (or, for some reason, canceling may put me into a group of other users whose searches have also failed).

After restarting my game to retry WoC matchmaking, I am unable to find any matches in 6's Drop-In and sit on the "Searching" screen for an indefinite period of time, doomed to relive the same garbage fate that you have foisted upon the NHL community.

Please, fix the game. I paid for the game because I want to play World of Chel. I have a great, wired internet connection and can count on one hand the number of issues I've had with other games in the 5 years that I have played online games with my PS4. I thought connection problems and game-breaking errors were bad in NHL 22, but trying to play WoC in NHL 23 is, by far, the worst online experience I've had with any game that I ever played.

Hey there, @xef4 

We should try to rule out any connection issues. If this just started several days ago, that could be the case. Were you have any trouble with this previously? Are you playing on a wired or wireless connection? Thanks!

Thanks, Aljo. Immediately after I posted my previous message on the forum, I went on to have a flawless connection to EA servers for the next 5-6 hours straight. It was awesome! Every morning for the last few days, though, between around 2:00 AM and 6:00 AM Central time, I've been having terrible connectivity issues and getting stuck on the "Searching" screen in World of Chel 6's Drop-In during matchmaking.

It's conceivable that my ISP could be throttling bandwidth in the middle of the night, however, I don't experience connectivity issues with my other games or the Playstation Network, outside of NHL 23. Nothing about my physical internet connection changes from day to day -- it's a wired connection that achieves a maximum speed of 300 Mbps.

The only thing I've noticed is that there are times when the game will freeze up during a search, or before the opening faceoff, at which point I may close and restart the game if it doesn't recover. The matchmaking searches that I try after one of those forced restarts seem like the ones that are most vulnerable to the issue of failing to find an opponent. From the outside looking in, it almost seems like the act of restarting the game fails to clear away some junk data that interferes with my matchmaking searches for a while. The issue eventually resolves itself after a long time spent starting and restarting my console and the game, so that I am able to find matches again in 6's Drop-In after repeatedly "Searching" for an hour or two. 

@xef4 

It's going to be harder to find matches during non-peak hours. Where are you located? Also, is UPnP enabled? You should also check your NAT to make sure it's either moderate or open.

Hey again, thanks for the suggestions. I use NAT Type 2 (Moderate), but I am not sure if UPnP is enabled on my router. I'm very happy to report that, so far this week, the game has been running almost perfectly in World of Chel. I am able to find and play online matches at a normal rate, comparable to NHL 22, and the game is not freezing anymore, nor getting stuck in any matchmaking searches. I'm can't be sure if anything changed, either on your end or my ISP's, but whatever the case, it seems that the hard times are behind us. Thanks for your support!

@xef4 

You're very welcome! I'm really glad to hear it's better now. If you have trouble again, look up the instructions for changing the UPnP on your router. You should be able to search on the router model to find this. It would be good to make sure that is enabled. 

Please let us know if you have any other issues. Happy holidays!

I have the same problem in woc it just searches forever or sometimes find a game but then usually freezes. I bought the upgraded version and glad i wasted my money on a trash game that doesnt work half the time it really needs to be fixed