It’s happened to all of us before...
You rush home from work, make yourself comfortable and you're eagerly anticipating a night of teamwork button-bashing and potential blisters.
You turn your Xbox on and impatiently wait for your console to connect. And you wait. And wait some more. Then the dreaded ‘cannot connect’ message pops out.
You frantically reset your modem, try to reconnect again. But for some reason, the console just won’t connect. Your frustrations mount, until you finally give up and end up watching TV instead. Night ruined.
This article will walk you through some basic troubleshooting if your Xbox One just won’t connect to the internet (or Xbox Live).
> Check out the best routers for Xbox One
Reasons Why Xbox One Won’t Connect to Internet (and how to fix)
Can’t Connect To The Internet With A Plugged Connection?
Power cycle your console and network hardware.
First check that your internet connection is working fine on another device. If yes, follow the steps below:
- Unplug the power cable of the router or modem for at least 30 seconds.
- While waiting, restart your Xbox console. It’s as simple as going to Settings Menu and selecting Restart Console.
- Plug in the router or modem and wait for all the lights to turn on and stabilize.
If that didn’t work, you should get off wifi (if you haven't already) and use Ethernet cables. DIsable wifi in the Xbox settings and plug an Ethernet cable in between your router and Xbox One.
....if that doesn't work:
- The next step you should do is to check the network cables. Check if everything is plugged in properly, or if there are is any visible damage - particularly the cabls. If it still doesn’t work, try to use another cable—your old cable might not be working anymore.
- If you are using a router, you can directly plug in the network cable to your modem (from the Xbox) and check if it connects to the internet. Now if this works, your router might be the problem. It could be a NAT issue, that Xbox live doesn't like. Use our guide on port forwarding to see if it resolves the issue.
Can’t Connect To The Internet With A Wireless Connection?
Power cycling your console and network hardware might solve the problem. If that doesn’t work, try disconnecting your third party devices, such as wireless headsets.
You may also want to disconnect devices that may interfere with your wifi, such as microwaves, cordless phones and baby monitors.
Third party devices can cause interference with your wireless connection, as they broadcast in the same frequency as your wireless router.
- Disconnect your headset from the base station
- On your console, select All Settings > Network > Network Settings
- Select test network connection on the right side of the screen.
- If the headset is the problem, then you should now be connected to the internet.
If the problem is NOT the headset or any third-party devices that may be interfering with your connection, check your Xbox again to see if it’s connected to the correct wireless SSID (this is the wifi network name, broadcast by your router).
To do this, check the sticker on the back of your router. The SSID and encryption key information are usually printed there. Of course, if you have manually changed it, then use whatever you changed it to.
Can’t Connect With An Automatic IP Address?
If you get the “cannot connect to an automatic IP address” message, it may mean that your console can connect to your home router, but not get an address via DHCP.
Again, power cycling your console and your network hardware may fix the problem. If not, you may want to set up your console with a static IP address.
- Go to your computer and login to your router.
- Depending on what router you’re using, choose an IP address for your Xbox One to use, within the range of IP addresses in your LAN subnet. Don't use one in the DHCP range, unless you know what you're doing!
- On your console, go to Settings > Network > Advanced Settings.
- Scroll down to IP Settings
- Enter the IP address you chose, as well as the subnet mask. Also enter the "Default Gateway". This will be the router LAN address.
Take note that while assigning a static IP address may work, it doesn’t solve the underlying problem with connecting with an automatic IP address. However, it's not a deal-breaker.
Can’t get an IP address?
Make sure your router is not malfunctioning. If it works fine, log on to your router and expand your home network’s IP range to include your Xbox.
When you get this message, it means your Xbox One is not able to receive an IP address even though it can connect to your router. If your router is working fine, then that means all available addresses are being used by other devices. This would be indicative of "DHCP pool exhaustion". It's unlikely this would happen with a router's default setup. But if have A LOT of devices, or you've for some reason lessened the DHCP pool, this can be an issue.
To get round this you should increase the DHCP pool to be able to automatically ass?ign more addresses.
Xbox One Won't Connect To Xbox Live, But Is Connected To Internet
Make Sure That Your Console Is Not Banned
If you like mods, it’s possible that Microsoft detects the console as tampered, and bans it permanently from connecting to Xbox Live. If this happens, you should contact the Xbox Live team.
"We Are Not Sure What Is Wrong"
Sometimes, you may get the “We are not sure what is wrong” message. In some cases, this may mean that Xbox Live is down or experiencing technical issues, and will resolve itself in a few hours.If not, try all the steps above. If nothing solves the problem, then contact customer support and have them guide you with troubleshooting your console.
NAT Firewall Issues
?As we talked about earlier, Xbox live can be sensitive to NAT. This relates to translating your private LAN IP to a public WAN IP, and vice-versa. It kind of acts lie a firewall. In order to lessen NAT sensitivity, you should allow port-forwarding for Xbox live, on your router. Here's the link again.