You’re geared up. Your car has the perfect decal, you’ve warmed up your aerials in free play, and you hit "Find Match." Then, nothing. Just a spinning circle or that dreaded "Error 71" message staring back at you. It’s incredibly frustrating. When you're wondering is Rocket League servers down, every minute feels like an hour, especially if you’re trying to squeeze in a few ranked games before dinner or a stream.
Sometimes the answer is a massive regional outage. Other times, it's just a weird local cache issue on your console.
Usually, the first thing you should do is check the official Rocket League Status Twitter (X) account. Psyonix is actually pretty decent about tweeting when they’re performing scheduled maintenance or if their databases are having a meltdown. But let's be real—sometimes the tweet comes out twenty minutes after the servers actually died. If the official channels are silent, head over to DownDetector. It’s a community-driven site where players report issues in real-time. If you see a giant spike in the graph within the last ten minutes, yeah, the servers are toast. You aren’t alone.
The Most Likely Culprits for "Server Down" Errors
It’s not always a total blackout. Rocket League uses a complex infrastructure powered largely by Epic Online Services since the acquisition. This means if Epic is having a bad day, Rocket League is going to have a bad day too. We’ve seen instances where the Epic Games Store login goes down, and suddenly, even Steam players can’t get into a match because the cross-platform authentication layer is broken.
Maintenance is another big one. Psyonix usually schedules these windows for late at night in North America, which unfortunately hits the afternoon or evening crowds in other parts of the world. They’ve been trying to streamline this, but with a game this old and code this "legacy," things get messy. You might see a "Version Mismatch" error. That’s a classic. It basically means your game hasn't downloaded the latest tiny hotfix, and the server refuses to talk to an outdated client. Close the game. Restart your launcher. Usually, the update starts instantly.
Then there’s the "Ghost Server" phenomenon. This is when the matchmaking service works, you find a game, but you get stuck on the loading screen or join a lobby where everyone has 999 ping. This usually indicates a specific data center is failing—maybe something in US-East or EU-West—rather than the entire global network being offline.
Why Your Console Might Be Lying to You
If you're on PlayStation or Xbox, the "servers down" message might actually be referring to the console's network (PSN or Xbox Live) rather than Psyonix’s own servers. It’s a common point of confusion. If PSN is undergoing maintenance, Rocket League won't be able to verify your account or handle the multiplayer handshake.
📖 Related: Baldur’s Gate 3 Class: What Most People Get Wrong About Picking the Right One
Always check your platform's specific status page:
- PlayStation Network Status
- Xbox Live Status
- Nintendo Online Service Status
- Epic Games Server Status
I’ve spent hours troubleshooting my router only to realize that Sony was just doing a firmware update on their backend. Save yourself the headache. Check the platform first, then the game.
Troubleshooting Like a Pro
If DownDetector looks flat and your friends are currently in a match while you’re stuck in the menu, the problem is local. It sucks to hear, but it's true.
First, try the "Cold Boot." Don't just put your console in rest mode. Actually turn it off, unplug the power cable for thirty seconds, and restart. This clears the system cache. On PC, killing the Epic Games Launcher and Rocket League via Task Manager does something similar. Sometimes a background process hangs and prevents the game from "calling home" to the servers.
Check your "Region" settings in the matchmaking menu too. Sometimes, after an update, the game resets your region to "Recommended." If the "Recommended" server for you is halfway across the world due to a routing glitch, you’ll get a "Connection Timed Out" error. Set it manually to your closest geographical location.
If you’re on Wi-Fi, honestly, that’s your first mistake. Rocket League is incredibly sensitive to packet loss. Unlike a shooter where you might just teleport a bit, packet loss in Rocket League makes the ball look like it's vibrating or changing direction mid-air. If you get the "Server Health" icon (the little orange or red speedometer), it often means the server is struggling to keep up with the physics calculations for all players. If everyone in the chat is typing "LAGGG," then it’s a server-side issue. If it’s just you, it’s your Wi-Fi dropping packets.
Understanding Error Codes
Psyonix has a few specific codes that pop up when things go sideways.
Error 71 is the most famous. It’s a generic connection timeout. It often happens if the match has already started and you were too slow to connect, or if the server literally disappeared. Error 67 is similar but usually points to a handshake failure. Then you have the "Feature Disabled" message. This happens when Psyonix is doing live maintenance on the competitive ranks or the Item Shop. You can still play casual, but the "Competitive" buttons will be greyed out.
Don't panic if your rank shows as "Unranked" suddenly. This is a common visual bug when the inventory and rank servers are out of sync. Your MMR is still there; the game just can’t fetch the data at that exact second. Usually, playing one match or restarting the client fixes the visual display.
When to Actually Give Up and Wait
If there is a major update—like a new Season launch or the "Rocket Pass" refresh—the servers will be unstable. It is almost a guarantee. Thousands of players rush the gates at once, and the matchmaking servers buckle under the pressure. In these cases, there is nothing you can do. No amount of router resetting or DNS flushing will help.
The best move is to keep an eye on the community. Reddit's /r/RocketLeague usually has a "Mega Thread" the moment things go south. If you see five hundred comments in five minutes, go play something else for an hour.
💡 You might also like: Finding Codes for Project Smash: Why Most Players Are Looking in the Wrong Places
Actionable Steps for the Next Time It Happens
Stop smashing the "Reconnect" button. It won't help and just adds to the server load. Instead, follow this specific order of operations to get back on the pitch as fast as possible.
- Verify the Outage: Check @RL_Status on Twitter or DownDetector. If the spike is there, go watch some RLCS highlights and wait it out.
- Check Your Version: Ensure there isn't a "Update Required" notification hiding in your Steam or Epic library.
- Reset the Path: Restart the game, then the console/PC, then the router. In that order.
- Change Your DNS: If you consistently have trouble connecting while others don't, try switching your DNS settings on your console or PC to Google’s Public DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1). This can often bypass local ISP routing issues that make the servers appear "down" when they aren't.
- Clear Cache: On PC, go to your
Documents/My Games/Rocket League/TAGamefolder and delete theCachefolder. The game will rebuild it when you launch, and this fixes a surprising amount of "ghost" connection issues.
By the time you finish these steps, the servers are either back up, or you’ve confirmed that you’re stuck waiting for Psyonix to plug a cable back in. Either way, you’ve stopped wasting time on "ghost" fixes and can actually get back to focusing on your mechanics.