I recently started test driving T-Mobile home internet at my house, and it's worked great for everything except games, where I'm having a weird issue with some of them. When I try to play Apex Legends on PC, the game will connect and play really smooth for anywhere from 1-3 minutes, and then all communication will be lost, which will take 20 seconds for the game to kick me out to the main menu. If I go back into the game from the main menu, it'll work fine untill the 1-3 minutes elapses. During all of this my PC never loses connection, and this issue occurs over wifi and ethernet. This issue probably does not lie with the game as this issue does not occur with other ISPs, and it did not coincide with an update. A similar issue is happening with Splatoon 3 on the Nintendo Switch, where the game will play superb for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before dropping the connection. Is this a known issue with the service or gateway, is there anyway I can debug my connection, and does anyone know anyway that could possibly remedy the situation? I'd love to keep the home internet, but one of the main things I use the internet for is games, meaning this service wouldn't work for me.

Home Internet Gaming Problem | T-Mobile Community

Markos198
First activity
2 replies
1 year ago
12 January 2023

I’ve also been having the same problem since mid-December. Doesn’t matter the server or the game, I’m kicked within five minutes. I’ve tried downgrading from 5G to LTE, I’ve taken my laptop with my mobile hotspot to different locations in order to connect to a different tower with better signal, nothing helps. I even went so far as to buy a new mobile hotspot. The responses I’m getting from customer service border on gaslighting.

I was able to play games just fine for six months on Tmobile’s 5G, even with a not-so-great signal, and for five years before that on Sprint with one iffy bar of LTE. Now they’re trying to tell me that my issue is simply because of a weak signal or network congestion. It’s gratifying to see so many others with the same issue.

It’s maddening. I would really love to be able to stay with Tmobile. Until this I’ve been overwhelmingly happy with the service, it’s been a game changer in my rural area, and recommended it to many others. But if this isn’t resolved soon, if they can’t even be upfront about the existence of an issue, I might have to jump ship.

It annoying and I wish they could fix this cuz I’m kinda stuck with them for now

K

Userlevel 1

I just spoke to a representative who said that the gamers at T-Mobile are using a Nighthawk router and switching to a Cat6 Ethernet cable but that didn’t work for us. He said there is no fix coming for the static IP to keep it open tech is asking management to ask people in the stores if they are gamers. It sounds like the $50 home internet is not going to be a good option. So bummed. I hate Cox Cable.

X

Userlevel 2

XCOATX
Learner
14 replies
1 year ago
3 January 2023

I talked with a T-mobile rep and they are aware of this issue but are still trying I troubleshooting. Related to a firmware update they pushed out to the routers. Much of the problem he thinks is traceable to how the Dynamic IP behaves that various gaming consoles and websites don't like. The tech agreed that much of the problem might be solved if T-Mobile gave consumers Static IP options (available only to Businesses right now). Fingers crossed that they'll get a fix out soon because everything else with T-mobile internet has been great for us!

I am experiencing the exact same issues with my T-Mobile home internet. While this is probably true, I have also tried playing off my cellphone hotspot and I experience the exact same random disconnects. 350 down and 30 up isn’t worth a $1 if it’s gonna disconnect every minute. Several friends and I going back to cable internet because of this one issue. It’s a complete deal breaker.

Everyone I know that is having this issue have the older grey cylinder modems. I’m guessing this is happening with all models, but just to confirm does anyone have one of the newer model towers, and are you also experiencing these issues?

By newer model, you mean the cylindrical Nokia gateway one? If so, then yeah. Problems started for my brother and I both at the same time.

T

I haven’t had much trouble with the games I’ve played. I don’t play all that much but Diablo 2 Remaster, Forged Alliance and Redfall worked fine. I did have some trouble with disconnects with Forged Alliance however. That was remedied by disabling IPV6 in Windows on that PC (in the network connection settings). For some reason the game was happy with only IPV4 enabled.

I would also suggest setting a custom DNS server instead of using TMobile’s. I’ve seen it be unable to resolve some domain names. Maybe try using Google DNS or Cloudflare DNS instead.

X

Userlevel 2

XCOATX
Learner
14 replies
1 year ago
19 January 2023

I’ve also been having the same problem since mid-December. Doesn’t matter the server or the game, I’m kicked within five minutes. I’ve tried downgrading from 5G to LTE, I’ve taken my laptop with my mobile hotspot to different locations in order to connect to a different tower with better signal, nothing helps. I even went so far as to buy a new mobile hotspot. The responses I’m getting from customer service border on gaslighting.

I was able to play games just fine for six months on Tmobile’s 5G, even with a not-so-great signal, and for five years before that on Sprint with one iffy bar of LTE. Now they’re trying to tell me that my issue is simply because of a weak signal or network congestion. It’s gratifying to see so many others with the same issue.

It’s maddening. I would really love to be able to stay with Tmobile. Until this I’ve been overwhelmingly happy with the service, it’s been a game changer in my rural area, and recommended it to many others. But if this isn’t resolved soon, if they can’t even be upfront about the existence of an issue, I might have to jump ship.

It annoying and I wish they could fix this cuz I’m kinda stuck with them for now

I found that UDP is not supported for video games. I had to switch providers. Whats the purpose for internet if it cannot be used for video games as well.

The problem is that it worked just fine for the six months I had the service.

Whatever update they pushed was a conscious decision to remove your ability to use the service you paid for, without even so much as an email or text.

I haven't received any notification that their internet isn't intended for gaming, or that they've changed anything. They're perfectly fine letting me continue to pay for a service that they stopped functionality for.

M

Sooooo….our multi-player gaming issues seems to have magically resolved. Are others still having problems?

Nope, my games have been working fine for about a week now, no issues at all. MAGIC!!

What were your issues? Mine is UDP stopping crashing my game.

G

Userlevel 1

Sooooo….our multi-player gaming issues seems to have magically resolved. Are others still having problems?

Nope, my games have been working fine for about a week now, no issues at all. MAGIC!!

What were your issues? Mine is UDP stopping crashing my game.

I’m not sure exactly what caused it, but I would connect to an online game and after 5 minutes to 30 minutes it would just disconnect.

M

Sounds similar to mine. I watched my UDP in the game and it worked fine at first then dropped till my game crashed every time. I did talk to tech support and he told me UDP wasnt supported. I have been waiting until the problem is fixed to switch back to T-Mobile.

M

Sounds similar to mine. I watched my UDP in the game and it worked fine at first then dropped till my game crashed every time. I did talk to tech support and he told me UDP wasnt supported. I have been waiting until the problem is fixed to switch back to T-Mobile.

Idk what they're telling people now, but the service worked flawlessly up until December. Low ping, fast downloads, until they changed something.

I just talked to tech support. UDP port forwarding is not supported with their boxes. He could not tell me when if if its going to get fixed. He is forwarding my concerns to the engineering team. Is quite disappointing because T-Mobile internet has the best pricing for internet. Ill wait it out while my current internet keeps going up in price.

V

Userlevel 1

Exact same issue. I’ve been a customer for months and just started seeing this happen after about 30-40 minutes of any multiplayer game. I’ve tried 2 different Nokia modems, and even went in store to exchange for a different model with an LCD on the front, model FAST 5688W. Support confirmed this new unit is on the latest Firmware.

We have tried running multiple streaming services, multiple security cameras, but as soon as a game connects the 30-40 minute countdown to loosing service starts. My first ticket into support was in November 2022 and I am still having this issue in January 2023 but they have not been able to connect this issue in the forms to my issue.

Going to try and use Express VPN or something to make a Static IP and see if that helps.

ttyler83, any luck with Express VPN? Our issues are isolated to the X-Box. Gaming on PC works fine.

Userlevel 1

Mister36
Learner
11 replies
1 year ago
9 January 2023

Also another note - I’ve never checked this before but on your PC if you have the Xbox companion console app, you can go to settings > Network and it will display your NAT settings - for me it’s strict.

X

Userlevel 2

XCOATX
Learner
14 replies
1 year ago
9 January 2023

Is anyone experiencing their internet cutting 9ut? This be the 3rd time I had to unplug the router

This particular thread/forum isn’t about general disconnects - which do happen - but rather very specific issues of being dropped while playing games or other applications. Unfortunately this last Friday and today I’ve noticed it’s started making my work laptop lose connection to my softphone service (Cisco Jabber) which previously had no issues - this is while connecting through a VPN that seems to not have any issues, but I’m also noticing my PC saying it doesn’t have a connection briefly at the same time (Even though I am hardwired in directly to the gateway)

Also, Vermintide 2 I can now safely add to the list of affected games.

Overall the service is stable, speeds good, videos no problem, etc. It’s just the very specific dropping of certain connection types which *didn’t happen before* - I even did a deep factory reset of my Gateway yesterday and I’m not sure it did anything.

Same for me, today my work VPN keeps dropping and yet speeds stay fine. I’ve had to reboot 3 times, after a reboot the VPN stays stable for 40 minutes to an hour then starts flaking out. Like you said, this is new behavior that started mid december for me.

Is anyone experiencing their internet cutting 9ut? This be the 3rd time I had to unplug the router

This particular thread/forum isn’t about general disconnects - which do happen - but rather very specific issues of being dropped while playing games or other applications. Unfortunately this last Friday and today I’ve noticed it’s started making my work laptop lose connection to my softphone service (Cisco Jabber) which previously had no issues - this is while connecting through a VPN that seems to not have any issues, but I’m also noticing my PC saying it doesn’t have a connection briefly at the same time (Even though I am hardwired in directly to the gateway)

Also, Vermintide 2 I can now safely add to the list of affected games.

Overall the service is stable, speeds good, videos no problem, etc. It’s just the very specific dropping of certain connection types which *didn’t happen before* - I even did a deep factory reset of my Gateway yesterday and I’m not sure it did anything.

Interesting. I work from home through a VPN and am getting booted several times a day. I didn’t consider it being on my end and another component to the gaming and MyQ issues. I kept asking my coworkers to restart my computer. Sigh.

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one - the most annoying part about this problem is it’s wildly inconsistent - I’m an IT guy and I can troubleshoot and deep dive into these things, but because I can’t really do anything with what is probably the cause (my trash can) all I can do is maybe apply some workarounds. I connected my Nighthawk R5700v2 that I had before I switched over to TMHI last year december and after putting it into bridge mode and connecting my devices to the router, my work laptop issues stopped - however I’m not sure if it affected my gaming stuff, as I did time out once playing TF2 within 1-2 minutes, but then ran another session and went 20-30 without a problem.

Is it caused by a certain tower/connection type? Congestion? I just can’t tell. Rebooting the gateway would sometimes have no effect. Games work for a bit then fail, which means it’s not just “it doesn’t work”, it does until something specific happens then I time out. It’s not just old games either that might have poorly designed/outdated protocol network settings.

I’ve seen lots of old posts that say “TMHI is not for gaming” and yes, there might be a bit more latency, but that’s worth $30 or whatever the difference was for me and using Xfinity, and I don’t use consoles which were mostly the main culprit; since I started just over a year ago, I didn’t have any *disconnects* and things just failing until the last 2-1.5 months. This is new and frustrating - and along with this I think my area has gotten MORE 5G ultra coverage around me too.

Yeah, and it's not like the internet itself is disconnecting, either. Everything else is working perfectly fine. It's like they're specifically filtering the traffic used by certain ports.

Did they just underestimate how many users they would have with an unlimited data plan? If they came right out and said it, I would pay more, I just want to be able to use what I'm paying for.

K

Userlevel 1

The rep told me the reason it’s happening is these games require a static IP address and T-Mobile does not allow that for security and it will not be changing. But again, prior to December we didn’t have many issues.

Userlevel 1

Mister36
Learner
11 replies
1 year ago
9 January 2023