Connecting to Minecraft the easy way

06-Mar-2023

You settle down looking forward to your visit to Funland 3 or Minechester city, but your device won’t connect to your Minecraft world of choice. It’s normally a simple thing to correct, but let’s dig down to the possible reasons for your non-connection to Minecraft, and how to fix them.

How to fix the “Unable to connect to world Minecraft” error?

How to fix the “unable to connect to world Minecraft” error

The most obvious reason is a simple outage on your home router. Remember the difference between internet and Wi-Fi – the internet signal is the one that comes to your home via your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the Wi-Fi is a short-wave radio signal from the router to your device. First check that the ‘internet’ light on the router is not showing red. If it is, you should wait until it comes back white or green, or contact your ISP helpline. If the internet signal is good, try using any web browser and running a Google ‘Speed Test’ – do this through an ethernet cable direct to your device if possible. If the connection works via cable but not via Wi-Fi, there is a fault with the router or perhaps channel interference.

Channel interference

Channel interference is a little-known issue that can really slow down or even kill your Wi-Fi connection. It happens especially in apartment blocks where there might be as many as 50 or more Wi-Fi hotspots within connecting distance of each other. Each Wi-Fi router uses a default channel (usually 1, 6 or 11) – so if you have half a dozen routers all using channel 6 , within 50 metres of each other, ‘sympathetic interference’ effectively scrambles the signals, and they all defeat each other.

You can download free software for any platform to find out which channels are being used around you, then simply go into the admin section of the router itself and select a channel that is least popular in your surroundings. If there are 10 routers using Channel 6, but only one nearby using Channel 11 – obviously choose 11 for your own router and you will notice an increase in Wi-Fi speed almost immediately.

Versions and settings

Then check your Minecraft version – some servers will only connect to specific versions of Minecraft. Update if necessary.

Next take a look at any device firewall settings. A software update might have reset them without you realising, so it’s a good idea to check.

Then try verifying your Minecraft Username and Password. It’s easily done to have changed it in the past and forgotten to note the new settings, especially if your device has stored a previous password and you haven’t updated the saved version

Turn it off and turn it back on again! That’s the first thing they teach Microsoft technicians, and you should try it too. But if you’re still reading, we guess you already tried that…

Access Minecraft servers in different regions with a VPN

Certain Minecraft servers can be restricted in some geographic regions, so installing Urban VPN and choosing a server based in a different country might also fix the problem. The additional benefit of using Urban VPN might be the avoidance of your ISP ‘throttling’ any data if your home is identified from its IP address as a heavy data consumer. But using the VPN anonymizes your presence on the internet, so your ISP can’t slow down your connection if they don’t know who or where they are.

Finally, the problem might be at the Minecraft’s server end itself. First of all, on whatever Minecraft client, select the Multiplayer option, then the ‘add server’ button. After that, you need to fill out some information on the ‘Edit Server Info’ screen. Nominate a name for the server, preferably a mix of names of the group like Tom_Mick_Jane. In the address of the server, paste your IP address and select a port. Recommended ports are TCP: 25565 UDP: 19132

In theory, all you need to do then is highlight / select the server and click the ‘Join Server’ button.

Then you’re all set. If none of those things work, as a last resort, try going to a friend’s house with your device, connect to their Wi-Fi, and compare all their settings to yours. If all settings are identical, and you can connect, when you get back home you can just use a process of elimination, one by one, to find out what’s wrong.

Happy gaming!

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