How to Check if Minecraft Realms is Down: A Comprehensive Guide
Is Minecraft Realms down? It can be a frustrating experience, especially when you’re paying for a subscription and suddenly can’t access your private server. While there are plenty of public Minecraft servers to choose from, they can be chaotic depending on who you’re playing with. Realms offers a great way to host your friends in a private setting, but when it goes offline, it feels like you’re not getting what you paid for.
Here are some tips to help you figure out possible Minecraft Realms down causes, and what steps you can take to resolve the issue.
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Troubleshooting Tips if Minecraft Realms is Down
Here is a list of possible fixes if you find Minecraft Realms down.
- Firstly, “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” There’s a reason why this famous IT Crowd reference makes people chuckle. This should be the first thing you try as it can fix a lot of glitches.
- If you’re playing on a PC, restart your computer.
- If you’re playing on a console, be sure that you have your Realms subscription is still active and set up properly with your gaming equipment.
- Try closing and reopening the realm.
- Check your wireless connection. Reboot your router or reset it, if applicable.
- Try configuring your router so that it uses open or moderate NAT (network address translation).
- If you’ve previously adjusted your console’s DNS settings, try resetting them to automatic and see if it resolves the problem.
- Use an Ethernet cable to connect instead of Wi-Fi.
- Try closing any running programs that may be hogging your internet bandwidth.
- Be sure that any VPN, antivirus, or firewall you may be using isn’t making your connection sluggish, or blocking it outright. Make certain that ports 26000-28000 are open and that port 443 and 80 don’t have destructive proxies.
- Consider contacting the server host if you’re using a private server/realm.
- For the Java edition, if your server status message is green, it should be open and ready to go. If it’s yellow, it is expiring shortly. If it’s red, it means that it either expired, is down, or was closed.
- Update to the latest version of Minecraft, as sometimes older versions are no longer supported.
- Make sure your device (PC, laptop, console, etc.) is supported and not too old to be compatible. Same with your operating system. If it’s too old, Realms will not be supported.
- If you’re playing on a console, make sure that your console’s server is up and running. You should be able to check their network service status by simply searching for the console name and “network service status” or a similarly worded prompt. It should be one of the top results.
How to Check if Minecraft Realms is Down
If you’re unable to connect to world Minecraft servers or your Realms account, there are sites that will indicate if the actual servers are down or having difficulties. If they do indicate there’s a problem, you can be pretty sure the issue isn’t on your end and your best course is to wait until they fix it or give official instructions on how to rectify the problem. Otherwise, if all looks normal on these sites, it may be a dilemma on your end. Here are your two best options to check for outages:
Option 1: Check Down Detector
Are Minecraft Realms down? There’s a handy way to check. If Mojang Studios hasn’t posted an update, or they’re not aware of a problem with Realms, try Down Detector. This site works on user search trends. If lots of people, even those who do not play on the same realm as you, are searching to determine if Realms is down, it will show up on the Down Detector.
If it does, it is safe to assume that there is a server-side problem. You can send a tweet to the Twitter Mojang support account to get their attention.
Option 2: Check Mojang’s X/Twitter Account
One easy place to check is Mojang’s official X account. They regularly post status updates for all Mojang Studios games. They also specify if there are issues with servers, consoles, or authentication bugs.
Conclusion
Minecraft Realms are smaller servers, but lots of people have their own Realm set up. A single realm may only cater to a handful of people, but the service itself is massive. It’s pretty common for a service of this size to go down. That said, if everyone can connect to a realm, but you can’t, it’s unlikely that Realms is down. Check your connection, your antivirus definitions, and your firewall settings. They may have updated or reset and may be blocking the connection.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can’t I join my friend’s Realm in Minecraft?
If you’re asking, “Why can’t I join my friend’s Minecraft world?” you should first check Mojang’s X account or check Down Detector. If this is a widespread problem, you’ll know pretty fast. Depending on if everything checks out, have your friend go through the troubleshooting steps listed earlier and try the applicable ones yourself. It could be some bug or setting that needs to be adjusted. The first thing to try is to restart, as it can solve a lot of glitches.
Why is Minecraft Realms not working?
There are several possibilities for why you’d find Minecraft Realms down. Here are some common culprits:
- The actual official servers are down for problems on the developer’s end
- An update had an unknown glitch or bug that is causing issues
- Authentication servers are having problems
- Problems with your subscription service
- Internet connectivity issues
- The site is being blocked by apps, tools, software, etc.
- Your subscription has run out and your account is inactive
- Problems with your PC or bugs with the operating system
How do I fix Minecraft not connecting to the server?
The troubleshooting section will have the most in-depth things to try, but a handful of possible fixes include:
- Rebooting your PC or console
- Restarting Minecraft/Realms
- Checking to see if there is a server outage or authentication error
- Checking your internet connection
- Pay attention to whether a recent update caused the problem. It’s common for new updates to actually cause issues that require patching. This could be for Minecraft itself, or even your PC or console
- Disable your VPN. Occasionally, a Minecraft server may actually block a VPN, and disabling it temporarily may solve it. Sometimes VPNs also cause connection issues. You can always turn it back on if it isn’t the culprit
- Disable DNS/reset to default. If you’re using a custom domain name system, it can sometimes cause problems when trying to connect to some servers
