During a server outage or after server maintenance some players may not be able to access the online Battle Royale game, Call of Duty Warzone. While attempting to access the game they get an error message that says “Server Disconnected. You have been disconnected from the Call of Duty Modern Warfare servers.” and if accessing the game again, they get a new error message that says “Connection Failed. Unable to access online services”.
There are plenty of reasons for this outage, it’s either because EA scheduled a maintenance to release minor or major updates for their game.
If it’s a minor update, the outage would only last for about 10 minutes, up to an hour. With this, not all game regions will be affected by the maintenance and quick fix can be done by playing other regions. Although using this trick is only a temporary solution because the maintenance will also take effect on that region at any given time.
If it is a major update, some users may not be able to access the server for several hours or even a day. This is because major updates include new setup of servers that allocate new sets of host names and it takes some time for these new records to spread to all DNS server. If your Internet Service Provider (ISP) are using slow DNS server, you’ll end up not connecting the game for several hours or even a day, but it if is faster it’s just about minutes. A way to fix it is by changing your DNS Server to a faster one like using the publicly available DNS server like from Google, OpenDNS or Cloudflare.
Table of Contents
- How to Fix by Changing Region
- Using Different DNS Server for PC
- Flushing DNS for PC
- To Change DNS Server for PS4 Users
- How to Troubleshoot
We will all discuss this on the step below.
How to Fix by Changing Region
The first thing you need to do is to try playing other region. Since the server maintenance is done by batches, not all server will be affected with the down times. Switching in different region will fix this problem temporarily.
To switch to other region, open up Blizzard launcher then go to the Blizzard Battle Net menu, then select Call of Duty: MW.
At the bottom, you’ll see a Globe icon, click that to select a region. Then you have three options to select AMERICA, EUROPE or ASIA.
After switching, try opening the game and check if you can play it.
Using Different DNS Server for PC
If changing region doesn’t work, you can also try fixing this error by using a different DNS server. As discuss above, after server maintenance there will be new sets of host name and IP address assigned to their game server. Your ISP maybe slow on catching up these new records and using a faster DNS server will able to fix this issue.
There are lots of available free DNS server out there like from Google, Cloudflare and OpenDNS.
To change your DNS server, just search at the Cortana “View Network Connections“. Click the first result to open it.
Then identify your Internet connection. Usually it is Ethernet, right click on it and click properties.
Then at Networking tab, find and double click the Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4).
Then at General tab, find and mark check the Use the following DNS server addresses.
Below, you can select from these publicly available DNS server. If one of the DNS server from the list is not working, you can try the other one from the list.
| Preferred DNS Server: 8.8.8.8 Alternate DNS Server: 8.8.4.4 | |
| Cloudflare | Preferred DNS Server: 1.1.1.1 Alternate DNS Server: 1.0.0.1 |
| OpenDNS | Preferred DNS Server: 208.67.222.222 Alternate DNS Server: 208.67.220.220 |
Press OK, then try opening Call of Duty again if it plays.
Flushing DNS for PC
In case the above instruction is not working, you can try flushing your DNS resolver cache. To do that, just open command prompt (CMD).
In Cortana, just type “command prompt”.
Then enter this command:
ipconfig /flushdns
Once successful, it should give you this message, “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache”.
Try opening the game again and see if its working now.
To Change DNS Server for PlayStation 4 Users
For PS4 users, you can fix your connection problem by changing your DNS server this is by using a Custom connection for both Wi-Fi or LAN Cable.
But before doing that, you need to write down your network information, you can find this at View Connection Status.
Go to Settings > Network > View Connection Status.
Then, take note of the IP Address, Subnet Mask, and the Default Gateway.
After that, just press X to go back to the Network page. Then select Set Up Internet Connection.
Then select your connection type Wi-Fi or Lan Cable.
Then you’ll be asked how you set up your internet connection. You need to select Custom.
If you’re using wifi, you’ll have an additional screen of selecting your wifi connection and entering the password. After that for Wifi and Lan Cable, you’ll be redirected to IP Address Settings. You need to select Manual.
Now here, you’ll enter the exact IP Address, Subnet Mask and the Default Gateway you take noted earlier from the View Connection Screen.
Now for the Primary DNS and Secondary DNS. You can select from the following DNS Server below. If the current DNS you are using is not working, use different one.
| Primary DNS: 8.8.8.8 Secondary DNS: 8.8.4.4 | |
| Cloudflare | Primary DNS: 1.1.1.1 Secondary DNS: 1.0.0.1 |
| OpenDNS | Primary DNS: 208.67.222.222 Secondary DNS: 208.67.220.220 |
Once done, select Next.
For the next page – just select Automatic for MTU Settings, Do Not Use for the Proxy Server.
Then don’t forget to Test Internet Connection to make sure the DNS is flushed properly.
If everything is Successful, you can now go back to Call of Duty Warzone and try if the error will not pop up again.
How to Troubleshoot
To know if Call of Duty Modern Warfare server has a server outage, you can visit https://support.activision.com/onlineservices.Call%20of%20Duty:%20Modern%20Warfare.html.
From here, when they have problem, you’ll see the status becomes “Outage”.
