Disconnection FAQ

It was my opponent's turn and their clock ran out but somehow I still lost the game, why is that?

This often happens due to a disconnection.

Sometimes your browser or app doesn't register a disconnection, it's waiting and waiting for the next move to come through but it never does. Meanwhile, your opponent makes their move and now your clock is counting down. When you finally reconnect to the server you've run out of time and lost. It's very frustrating but there isn't much we can do about it.

Why did I lose a game when Lichess was updating?

Updates are necessary to add new features to Lichess and fix bugs. Essentially we turn Lichess off and quickly turn it on again. We try to do restarts at off-peak hours when as few users as possible will be affected and with ample warning.

Most ongoing games will survive a site update, but not 100%. It is hard to make a website function properly while turned off.

How could I have disconnected although I had a good connection?

There is no single connection to everything on the internet. It's possible to be connected to one part and not connected to another. You may disconnect from Lichess while other parts of the internet continue to function perfectly well.

My phone had 5 bars!

The bars measures you connection to the cell phone tower, not to Lichess itself or any of the other intermediate steps between Lichess servers and you.

The bars that measure your WiFi connection also only measure the connection to the router.

Can I have a refund of the points I lost to a disconnection?

Sorry, we can't refund points for disconnections, even if the disconnection is somehow the fault of Lichess servers. All disconnections look the same from our end; we can't tell what caused it.

I got temporarily banned for disconnecting from too many games, but I didn't do it on purpose! I just have a bad connection.

Sorry, this is the system working as intended. It is very annoying to lose your opponent suddenly in the middle of a game, so we have to discourage users from abandoning games too often. At first you will get a warning, then a short ban, then a longer ban. The system is more patient with players who have a history of finishing all of their games, and less patient with those who don't.

We are sympathetic to users with a poor connection, but at some point certain players are abandoning so many games that it doesn't matter if they are doing it on purpose. They make playing on Lichess less enjoyable for other users and we need to do something about it.

Is there anything I can do about disconnections?

Lichess generally does not forfeit your game immediately when you disconnect. The exact amount of time you have to reconnect varies, but there is usually a possibility you could reconnect and continue the game.

If you have a different connection you could quickly switch to that when you disconnect. For example, if the wifi connection to your laptop fails you could try to quickly switch to your cell phone using mobile data.

More generally, if you often have connection problems you might contact your Internet Service provider to see if they can help.