Investigating Possible Outages in Nintendo’s Online Services: Fact or Fiction?

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If you turn on your Nintendo Switch only to discover that its internet functionality isn’t working, one of two things are happening: Either it’s down for everyone, or something is wrong with your system or network. In almost every case, the issue is temporary, and you can fix it by changing a few settings or just waiting.

Here’s what to do when Nintendo Switch Online isn’t working.

Instructions in this article apply to both the Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite.

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How to Tell if Nintendo Switch Online Is Down

Before you try any troubleshooting steps, you should check whether the service is down for everyone. Here’s what to do.

1. Check its status on the Is the Service Down website . Along with letting you know whether Nintendo Switch Online is currently down, this page also has a graph that shows the problems people have reported over the past 24 hours.
2. Check Nintendo’s X (formerly Twitter) accounts. While the company typically uses its several, regional social media pages (which cover Japan , North America , the United Kingdom , and Europe ) to share news and trailers, if a total outage happens, they’ll likely post updates. You may also try searching the #NintendoSwitchOnline hashtag. While it’s not specifically related to downtime issues, you may find that other users tweet about issues using that hashtag.
3. Search other social media for other people reporting an outage.

If the problem turns out to be a general outage, all you can do is wait for service to resume.

What to Do When You Can’t Connect to Nintendo Switch Online

If Nintendo Switch Online isn’t suffering a general outage, the issue may be with your console or equipment. Here are some things to try to get your system reconnected.

1. Restart your Switch. Turning your hardware off and back on again is a simple way to clear some common problems. You should try it before you move on to more complicated troubleshooting methods.
2. Make sure your internet is up . If your home network is down, neither your Switch nor devices won’t be able to connect. Check your computer, tablet, and anything else that uses the signal to see if they’re connected to your Wi-Fi network and to the internet.
3. Check your internet speed . Even if your internet is working, it may be running slowly or dropping the connection. You’ll want to look out for bandwidth-hogging programs, signal interference, and malware , among other issues.
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4. Power-cycle your network . If you have a separate modem and router, unplug them both. Wait 30 seconds, and then power on your modem, let it finish starting up, and then plug your router back in.
   To restart a combined modem and router , just unplug it, wait 30 seconds, and then plug it back in.
5. Go to the Nintendo support site to find Switch-specific instructions that may solve the problem.
6. Contact Nintendo. If none of these solutions help, you can reach out to Nintendo’s support team via phone, instant message, email, or text to get more assistance.

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