Despite promises by Niantic, the creators of Pokemon GO, to add capacity to overloaded servers, the popular mobile game is still crashing for users around the world. The problem was particularly noticeable over the weekend. Niantic recognises that the influx of new players swarming its servers are causing connectivity issues for some Pokemon GO users. It seems the game also experienced a dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attack which made everything worse. Read on for more details and a way to access Pokemon GO even when the servers are down.
Pokemon GO servers are already being pummelled by the high volume of players which has been causing the game to crash or become inaccessible for a large chunk of users. The last thing it needed was a DDoS attack which cause even more connectivity woes for players.
More Pokemon GO DDoS Attacks To Follow?
Over the weekend a group called PoodleCorp claimed responsibility for launching a huge DDoS attack on Pokemon GO servers, which essentially involves overwhelming servers with a flood of request from zombie accounts. Apparently this is just the beginning of more attacks that the group is planning on the augmented reality Pokemon catching game that has taken the world by storm:
PokemonGo #Offline #PoodleCorp
— PoodleCorp (@PoodleCorp) July 16, 2016
Just was a lil test, we will do something on a larger scale soon .
— XO (@xotehpoodle) July 16, 2016
After launching in the US and Australia two weeks ago, Niantic is planning to continue its rollout to additional countries. It has just released the game in Europe and Canada. The company has said it will be boosting server capacity to meet the high demand for Pokemon GO, but that could take some time.
Trainers! We have been working to fix the #PokemonGO server issues. Thank you for your patience. We’ll post an update soon.
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 16, 2016
Check If Pokemon GO is Currently Working In Your Area
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For Australian players, AussieOutages.com has been tracking outages that have been occurring locally. Most people that have reported issues are experiencing server connection and log-in issues. You can check out the live chart for yourself here.
Troubleshoot Your Pokemon GO Problems
If you’re currently hooked on Pokemon GO, inevitably you would have run into problems such as the game freezing up (when your game stops responding or when that spinning Poke Ball icon on the left of the screen doesn’t go away). Your only recourse is to either wait it out or to kill the app and restart.
If you are greeted with a “Server unavailable. Please try again later” message when you fire up Pokemon GO on your phone, then one way to force yourself back onto servers is to follow the instructions below. We’ve reported on this before and judging from the swathe of commenters that have said that this method worked for them, it’s definitely worth giving this a shot:
- Disable the GPS/Location on your phone (you can do this in the Settings) and attempt to log in.
- Once you’re in the game (even if your avatar is standing in the middle of the ocean), enable GPS again and you should be ready to go.
Are you currently experiencing problems when playing Pokemon GO? Let us know in the comments.
Comments
42 responses to “Why Pokemon GO Keeps Crashing (And How To Fix It)”
seriously dont understand why bother DDOSing pokemon go is worth it – it already has so many issues on its own it doesnt need this it might as well be doing it to itself! lol!
****ers. Had so many issues last night when trying to play with a group of friends.
i can get into game just fine but theres an eevee on my house and when i try to vatch it it crashes
Every time I log in tobpokemon go a blue screen appears what do i do
yep it is so frustrating. I haven’t had that much trouble logging in. but a lot of the time when I have logged in it doesn’t respond. sometimes nothing shows up on the map, sometimes stuff does show up but I can’t interact with anything. a complete waste of time. and battery
I keep gettin game freeze when catchin pokemon soon as i catch n ball is about to get gotcha thing or after first shake…
Please stop writing about this game. No one cares
Stop being a troll this is one of the most popular games on earth if you dont like it go away read something else ….mature already ….worry about yourself which you clearly only do…
No one? Really?
Or just you?
Just them.
I think besides the servers one of the top issues right now that thousands are experiencing based on what I have seen on Reddit is the Pokemon tracking issue. None of the Pokemon have show fewer than three paw prints since last Thursday 14 July. The Pokemon do change places on the grid but ones you get a mon into the number one spot no matter what you do you can’t track it down to two one and the none to catch it. Super frustrating this weekend when tracking an Nidoking, a Snorlax and just minutes ago a Scyther. Also it’s making tracking down the Magikarps that spawn on my condos lake.
Why dodge your way back onto servers when they’re having this many issues? So you can throw away more fremium items you’ll have to farm or buy when it crashes on capture or gym win?
My game has several issues. You can be walking down the street and i don’t know if she gets tired, but she just stops. Then next thing i know there she is sprinting down the road to match my location, and then she stops again. Then @ 8-10 stops it freezes. Been playing a week and cant hit level 5. May be done with this game.
No really understanding why those aholes feel the need to stop us from playing?
Im freezing after capture, losing the ball and the pokemon
I keep having the issue of my GPS not picking up where I am correctly all the time. I’ve gone through my settings and tweaked them as suggestions have advised but still no change. Whenever it says my gps isn’t found, it shows my character as being back at my house which is usually about 30 miles away…
This didn’t help me with the issue of the app force closing when anything happens, any advice?
I work at night and sleep in the day.. I can’t play pikemen go at night coz I can’t login at all it the only time I can play so please help someone
I am not even able tvo get into the game. I get the niantic screen for about 30 seconds then the game crashes. I have an android LG phone. (I did check all the requirements and I am within all of them. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
My game crash when i try to look around and zoom out, every time. Anyone know what i could do to fix this? I have tried uninstaling it many time and i did a factory reset. I am kinda giving up untill they do a update if not someone know how to fix it ofcourse
SO FRUSTRATING! My son is in tears because he can’t get the stupid app to work. I hope they get this figured out, so it works the way it is supposed to.
when i have my character the game says unfortunately pokemon go has stopped plese any one help me
When it starts i will pick a pokemon then it will crash help please.
Have you tried updating Google play services?
Where can I see if that needs a update? In my apps? Where do I find that?^^
Guys when I get to the home screen with gyrados it says I should stay alert and when I press OK it crashes.I haven’t even played the game yet
So I’ve had different results since trying to launch the Pokemon Go app since 4 days ago.
Mostly it makes it to the signin page, then on the safety message I click it and it closes, or I make it to the licence agreement page, and 1 second later it closes even if I click accept
Managed to get around the crash side of things, works for me but may not work for all of course. I have an ipad mini, i turned on hotspot ( yes its an android) then i tethered my ipad to phone, The application is on my ipad,, no crashes. A lil gps glitch sometimes,, i just stay still a few mins and gps catches up and off i go again. The ipad has no tethering issues to my android hotspot.
My PokemonGO Acc Keeps Randomly Crashing And Then The App Closes Bringing Me Bacj Ti The Homescreen On My Phone, This Normally Happens When A Pokemon Soawns And I Click On It To Try Catch But Instead Of Going To The Catching Phase My App Closes.
Yeah, I kind a having the same problem. I always crash when I try to look around (in game). This have happend after i downloaded the game when it actually came out in.my country. I am also on vacation so maybe its because i am in another location than normall. But we kinda have the same problem so i was wondering what phone you had? Maybe thats our problem. Mine have 2gb ram and 5.1 something android version so i dont rly know why could be the problem. I have a huawei btw (andoid)
You are not alone and it is not only Android that is crashing!! I have an iPhone 6 and it has exactly the same problem. Running iOS 9.5.3 as well. iOS 10 has mega problems and battery life was no more than 5 – 6 hours, so rolled back to 9.5.3 and it got alot better!! Still crashes lots thou, but is totally random as to what makes it crash. Sometimes in a gym, winning a gym, catching pokemon or using items. No consistency in the crashes at all. I hope “Niandic” get their aristocratic shit together and fix this quickly. My patience is being tested and may drop the game altogether.
Me too! I can’t get past the agreement page…so annoying…
While playing the game, it will close on the middle of playing either catching a pokemon, checking out a gym or a pokestop. It closes on occasion while idling even. Its random, but it seems to be a minute or two after running the game. Any help or ideas on why this is happening to me?
Everytime I catch a Pokemon the app crashes but when I log back on I have the Pokemon still. Its just super annoying.
I can’t even log into the game as soon as i tap google sign in the game crashes and kicks me out, and I really want to play the game. I don’t want to spend more money on a new phone unless i have to, all my friends are playing on there phones but i haven’t even had the chance to create my character.
The “settings” tab usually doesn’t work for me. This is a big problem if I’ve needed to sign out of the game and log in again, because I can’t access the tab to turn off the music. Not only do I hate that music going on and on over and over, but also, and more importantly, it’s a rude distraction for people around me. I like to play while walking my dogs late at night, but can’t with that God-awful music blasting through a quiet neighborhood.
Today the page showing the contents of my bag froze, too. I could hear the sound effects continuing as I walked, but couldn’t close that page to return to the home screen.
My game will just crash when I try to boot it up. Its been doing this since day one. Anyone else been having this problem?
i’m on an ipad 2 … kid has my phone … but he also has an ipad and with both of those its hard to get a gps signal … we don’t have chips in ours and have to piggy back off the phones on a hot spot … also my ipad 2 keeps shutting down … at pokestops and then when I does finally come back up … it gets locked out as the pokestop has gone purple … when it opens again after 5 mins same thing happens I gave up on that day …
When ever I open the app, it closes and then it takes me to my home screen.
I have tried everything from cleaning my phone memory deleted apps which are not used. the game still crashes.
Has anyone else here been unable to caught pokemon i mean like they pop up but you click to get them and your phone kicks you out i have a new phone and don’t understand y its doing this please help.
Im having the same issue even uninstalled and reinstalled, cleaned out unused apps, logged out and back in. Still crashes when i click on a pokemon and it goes to zoom in.
Same problem! Crashes every time I try to catch a Pokemon. Haven’t been able to play for over a month.
If they figure it out would be great. I’m running on almost three months now, and I’m getting tired of missing all the events. Also a couple of rare pokemon that has spawned that I can’t catch.