Why can I only cross play Minecraft on LAN and not from a distance?

bryanna kestner · Jun 15, 2023

I have heard from multiple people now that this is an issue regarding one of our Microsoft account settings, which isn’t true because we have all made sure our settings are correct. I play on the switch and mobile, my friends play on the switch and Xbox one. We can play together just fine on LAN but I travel for work and can’t just connect to the wifi when I’m 500 miles away. We all have paid online subscriptions to play multiplayer, but it’s only letting us do it when we’re in the same room. It’s very frustrating.

On my switch it shows me “0 friends playing Minecraft” so I hit add friend, type in their gamertag, and it says we are friends, and that they are currently online, playing Minecraft. The game settings are set to multiplayer. I can’t figure it out at all. When I invite them, they time out, when they invite me I don’t get an invitation.

:)

Ben4724

Hi! My name is Ben a fellow member here in the community and hope you are doing well!

Just to confirm, is this a Minecraft Java or Minecraft Bedrock edition you are using on your device? Because as per Minecraft FAQ page, for Java you can only play with Java edition of Minecrafts only.

This is based on the Minecraft page https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/36...

I hope the information helps somehow. If there are any error messages when you are joining with them or multiplayer, it would help if you can provide a screenshot so we can further check and so other members here in the community might be able to share their insights as well.

Kind regards,

Ben

XBF Ihssane Z

First, make sure every player that wants to join is connected to the same network, then choose a host device that will run the world, and make sure everyone joining is running the same version of the game as the host.

Start a LAN game:

Press Play
Create a new world or edit a current world by pressing the pen icon
Go to multiplayer and make sure that “Visible to LAN Players” is enabled
Start the world by choosing Create or Play

Join a LAN game:

1. Go to the Play menu
2. Click the Friends tab and look for available LAN Games

If the issue still persists please contact Mojang

aaaislinnn

Ah thank you so much this works!

Lucas Lauer

Hello. Thanks for reaching out! I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft Xbox Community expert user. I'll be happy to assist you today.

Yes, you can play cross platforms on a LAN connection.

First, make sure every player that wants to join is connected to the same network, then choose a host device that will run the world, and make sure everyone joining is running the same version of the game as the host.

Start a LAN game:

Press Play

Create a new world or edit a current world by pressing the pen icon

Go to multiplayer and make sure that “Visible to LAN Players” is enabled

Start the world by choosing Create or Play

Join a LAN game:

1. Go to the Play menu

2. Click the Friends tab and look for available LAN Games

Ricardo Lechuga

Hi JuanCastro_013! My name is Ricardo an independent advisor ready to help you with this situation!

This would be a question for Nintendo support, but I can say that Lan games are only among the same device, you can't do cross-platform lan

Why can I only cross play Minecraft on LAN and not from a distance?