Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Technical & Gameplay Problems PS5 Unable to join any multiplayer session

Hi all!

Two friends and I are trying to start a multiplayer playthrough on PS5. One of them made a session and when I tried to join it loaded for a while and then returned: "Joining failed: Connection failed". Tried linking and unlinking a Larian account, clearing save data, and am currently redownloading the game. They are able to join each other's lobbies no problem if either of the starts one. If I start the lobby and invite them neither is able to join and they get the same connection failed error I get. I tried joining a random open lobby and got the same error as well.

My PS5 is connected to the internet (am currently downloading the game again from Playstation store with no issues). Will try to see if redownloading and reinstalling will make any difference. Netflix and other apps that require an internet connection also seem to be functioning normally, it is just within BG3 that I am unable to connect to multiplayer sessions. Does anyone have any ideas on how I could go about trying to fix this issue?

Thank you so much!!

Update: Reinstalling the game, resetting the wifi router, and connecting using a LAN cable were all not able to solve the problem and I still get the "Joining failed: Connection failed" error. Really hoping anyone knows a workaround of some kind I haven't thought of. Was able to connect to online multiplayer in another game no problem and streaming services all work as well, so the internet seems to be working in general on the PS5. My friends are still able to connect to each others' multiplayer lobbies with no issues, it is just if I try to join or if they try to join one that I create.

I have uploaded a brief video what it looks like when I try to join a multiplayer lobby on the imgur link below if that helps at all!
https://imgur.com/a/biY84n6

Thank you all again and I am hoping this can get fixed soon because we're loving the game in general!

same issue then you have, we played as soon as it was early acces on PS5 playd on stream for like 7 to 8 hours , then today my friend cant join the game i hosted, we are able to join a random players session and our connections are fine.

as i am writing this i placed our session to public and a random was able to join the session.
so we are verry currious as to what the issue is, seeing as we also had the issue with divinity 2 .
able to play it once then constant connection issues

Same here. three of us are attempting to play together. All on separate networks, separate consoles etc. Two of us can connect just fine, the third however simply gets the "Joining failed: Connection failed" message on attempting to join. If they Host, then we get that same message instead on trying to join. The person getting the issue can however join other random games with no problem.

We have tried everything, reinstalling the game, deleting all saves and cloud saves, disabling cloud sync, several different methods of joining/inviting each other to the party, resetting routers etc. None of it seems to help at all. Really frustrating as the reason we all got the game was to play together. Hopefully we get a solution soon.

Exact same deal here in ps5 world.

I can join randoms in the lobby, but cannot join friends games from the lobby or joining their in game session.

Tried resetting network, confirmed solid connection.
We all wiped all save files, i even reinstalled the game.

All PSN network settings are the same between us, and game version etc.

We even un-friended each other to try public lobbys etc.
Nothing works.
Bought this game to play together...have tried everything.
this is fruatrating as hell.

Alll other games work (even tried that to prove PSN was good).

Just adding to this thread as we had the issue. Sadly we only got off the initial tutorial bit and then shortly after he got disconnected (it presents itself by also disconnecting the party citing a network issue - though we know that's not actually the case).

I was hosting.

My friend was trying to join, it would show as player joined - then [username] left.

We managed to get it working once by deleting his save data (local/cloud) though obviously this is a rubbish solution if he wants to run his own single player campaign (which he does). Might see if he can get it saved on a USB just so we can play but it's bit a real spanner in the works for us.

A 2nd time it happened after the next reload attempt, only he cleared his save data (local/cloud) and he couldn't load in. I cleared my cloud data when it worked, not sure if it was needed or not.

I also cleared my cloud data as host, we're going to try again later and i'll try to clear my cloud data and he can clear all his data, but really hope Larian can jump on this one.

Theres 2 different issues from what i can tell.

1 error message stating "player already connected" or something along those lines.
2 error message where it simply says "connection issue".

#1 a workaround seems to exist where deleting saved data fixes it.
#2 no workaround exists that i can find.

so small update, we trued playnig again today stil the same issue HOWEVER we had a nother friend let them try to join the session we started ( that i hosted) and she was able to join it so the save file is defonatly not the issue, we then tried joining my other friends game who i playd originaly wiht and neither of us could join, then she tried and he couldedn join first as we where both loading in i got in but he couldend. thus we did a final test letting him join first and then me .

and gues what that worked.
we wil see what the next session brings but this might be a stupid thought but what if its a NAT type thing ?

NAT 2 and 3 are the once with the most issues aparently and NAT 1 is more recomended for online multiplayer.
then again switching that just for one game and not knowing if its a 100% fix might not be worth the risk of lower connection security ( depending on how its done)


thought id update everyone about this

Me and my buddy found the solution. You need to open some ports on your router:

TCP: 1395, 3478 - 3480

UDP: 3074, 3478, 3479

Have tried this.
it did improve my upload speeds from 20mb to 80mb but didnt solve the underlying problem.

Update:
Found my issue...my ISP has a thing called CGN (carrier grade networking).
After a short call with them explaining my situation she was all like "oh, thats likely CGN, ill just turn it off for you now.".

BAM - problem solved.

This ISNT a fix for the "player already connected" issue.

This fixes the "joining failed: connection issue" problem.

You are legend! It works!! Thank you so much.

I and my friend has this connection issue on PS5 since day 1.
I can’t join his game neither to him.

However we can connect to our friend no issue.
Done the delete save, port forwarding and whatever NAT1 NAT2 settings all not works.

Sus it is our ISP thing as I and my friend are using the same ISP while our other friend using different one. But I don’t know how to explain that to ISP….

After saw your post, I called up to my ISP to explain (CS has no idea what I am talking about) after a couple of minutes, she said she put me out of CGN but into the dynamic IP range.

BAM! Thank you.


This is the thing we are talking about (correct me if I am wrong)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier-grade_NAT

Yep, spot on.

Glad that helped.

My husband and I are not able to join due to already connected on ps5. We are on the same network, 2 separate PS5 and PS5 accounts, and 2 separate copies of the game. We have tried many things except deleting saved game files. We want to play together, but we don’t want to loose out single player saves. I feel that shouldn’t be the fix anyway.

Hey River, why don't you try what Thunderclees did in his most recent post - he had to contact his ISP (internet provider) and see if they can disable a setting; the fact you and your husband are on the same ISP, means I would expect it to not work for both of you if anyone.

It's not an ideal workaround and I am curious what kind of solution Larian could develop; but this should allow you to start enjoying the game.

Great find @Thunderclees!

You don’t need to delete the save and I believe it is NOT the solution for the connection issue on PS5 anyway.

Try @Thunderclees’s suggestion and contact to you ISP.
Not sure if it will help for your situation as it is different from mine.

Again, don’t delete your save on PS5 which is not related.

I think I found a solution. We tried everything and nothing was working. The only thing that finally let our friend join without getting “connection timed out” was when we switched to a free shitty public wifi that was available instead of our usual wifi. Intrigued, i checked the connection settings for this public wifi and our usual wifi to see if there were any glaring differences. The main one that stuck out was that our ps5 was on 2.4ghz band and this public wifi was on 5ghz band. So i switched our usual private wifi to 5ghz and then invited our friend…and it finally worked!

To do this on your ps5 go to Network > Settings > Set Up Internet Connection. Hover over your current network, then press the Options button and choose Advance Settings > Wi-Fi Frequency Bands. Switch the option from “Automatic” to “5 GHz”

Lemme know if that helps you all too!

Hello all,

I have had the game since early access on PS5. I can connect to other players but not with my brother who is also on ps5 with the same internet provider. We both have a NAT 2 connection and 0 problems playing any other games. We have not been able to connect once to play together we keep getting the Join failed: Connection failed error. I have tried deleting my data, and changed from a Ethernet cable to both a 2.1 and 4 GHz Wi-Fi connection. It is important to note he has been able to play with his wife since day one with 0 problems. Any suggestions would be helpful I really feel like this isn’t a problem with my connection but some sort of memory leak in the game. When loading into their lobby i don’t even get to 1% it just spins for a few seconds then disconnects back to main menu with the error.

I can't join my friend and can't join me either on the ps5 keeps saying not the same version of the game check it's up to date we are both up to date and on the same console hoping this issue gets fixed I know game is still new so hopefully in time

@Nealoroni I'm pretty sure your ISP is using CGN in that case.
CgN (or CGNAT/Carrier grade networking) is what they slap across their customer base in order to share a pool of publicly facing IP addresses within a range of IP's...rather than providing each customer with their own individual public IP. Cost saving measure so they dont need to pay for a bigger reserved IP range when handing them out.

Read through my rants above and my final fix after nearly a week of trying everything under the sun.

I reckon Larian is IP filtering to allow only unique IP connections. They should be using mac address which would likely have avoided this.