Stadia, mobile data, and checking your connection

[smxldn]

Hi all,

Re: Issue with Stadia using mobile data.

I recently got Google's Stadia game service and have it working on wifi on my phone, a Google Pixel 3a. My issue is that when I try to use EE's mobile data (on 4g and getting an average 60mbps), Stadia ends up stuck with the message "Checking your connection". I spoke to Google and really cannot see the issue being on their end (after all, Stadia works great across various devices on wifi): it only has an issue when trying to play via 4g on EE.

Stadia's traffic goes via TCP/UDP: 44700-44899. It sort of seems like EE is not opening these ports when Stadia is requesting to access them in order to allow the Stadia gaming service to run and hence why I end up getting stuck with the "Checking your connection" message. Having said that (which is just an assumption on my part), I do know others who have successfully used the Stadia service on EE's 4g mobile data, so I know that it is possible and that EE does allow the service to operate.

Is there some sort of setting that EE needs to switch on for the service to operate? I'm on the monthly SIM Plan 50GB and the service to date has been great. I would really like to resolve this issue I'm having with Stadia but at the moment I'm struggling to get it resolved.

Help!

Thanks,

James

[smxldn]

Hi @mikeliuk,

Yeah, I thought so too. I did look through the EE boards and noticed a couple saying that IPv4 was no longer working for some people, though those posts were in 2018/19, and only some people mentioned that. Like you, I too have seen IPv4 as a solution, but it did not work for me. Upon reflection, I think IPv4 not working may have been a specific issue for me, and that I misinterpred the posts I had read. I mention this just in case someone else check this post!

I'm about to update this post with the final outcome of my Stadia adventure!

Just wanted to say thanks for the quick response Mike: much appreciated. I got bogged down and only now got the chance to respond.

Cheers,

James

[smxldn · Accepted solution]

Solution

TL;DR: Seems to be a hardware issue with my specific Google Pixel 3a model.

Further info

After using a 3 sim card in my Pixel 3a and it accessing the Stadia service via mobile data and my EE sim card failing to do so, I concluded that the problem must be to do with EE's network. Right? Wrong... The conclusion seemed logical but I jumped to it without doing some further important testing. I was also curious as to why practically no-one else was complaining about EE, mobile data, and Stadia's service. So, I managed to get another Android phone, a very old Moto model running Android 8, factory reset the phone and then put my EE sim into it and tried Stadia, both on Chrome and via the Stadia app too. And, to my surprise, it worked using mobile data... Flawlessly, and on my first attempt too. Huh??? I was confused... I tried another Android phone, again, same result: worked flawlessly... So there seems to be some sort of issue with my particular Pixel 3a. It still doesn't really explain why the 3 sim card worked, but life is short... My best guess is that the way 3 accesses its network versus the way EE does is slightly different in some way which I am not privy to. I did try going into the Pixel 3a's 'Settings' and chose 'Reset Wi-Fi, mobile & bluetooth' as I thought that maybe some kind of corruption had occurred with my network settings but doing this reset did not resolve the issue. Interestingly though, it did take a long time for the reset to run and it did not seem to complete successfully. Because of this I finally decided to factory reset the Pixel 3a and made sure that I did not restore from my backup, instead choosing a completely clean install. At this point I was sure that the Stadia service would not work. It didn't... Based on this I can only assume that there is some sort of idiosyncratic issue, probably hardware related, that is preventing the EE/Stadia/MY Pixel 3a combo from successfully running.

I was in the process of looking to upgrade my phone as I had the Pixel 3a for quite a while and this gave me the impetus to do so. I'm now using a Pixel 4a and can report that the Stadia service is running flawlessly using EE's mobile data.

I hope this post helps anyone else unfortunate enough to face the situation I did and save them some troubleshooting time along the way.

Cheers,

James

PS. Do note that I tried all the usual things before going down this rabbit hole such as clearing cache, data, reinstalling app, turning off accessibility, etc, all of which is good advice to try in the first instance!