Switch [BUG] Switch Local Co-op No Longer Working

Hello, my sister and I started a farm, she’s the starting player and I’m a secondary cabin. We were able to play on local co op once, and then the second time I tried to connect to her farm it would say that I was kicked from the server so we started playing online instead but it is very laggy.

We have been trying to do local co op again the last few times we’ve played and her farm doesn’t even show up to join anymore (on local). I’m still able to join online, but we would like to play local co op to avoid the lag, especially since we’re sitting right next to each other, local should work.

I tried looking up local co op issues online for one switch but I didn’t see anything. I think it’s her switch that is causing the issue, because when I host a different farm we are able to play locally.

Please let me know if this makes sense and if you have any suggestions, I appreciate it!
 

Zheta

Greenhorn
I have the exact same problem with the farm I started with my BF. We tried playing online once to see if we could move around while playing.

I think the issue seems to be that if you play online even once on a save file, it "flags" the save somehow as online-only or something. The save file seems permanently unable to connect locally again. Started a second farm to test and was able to play locally again until going online.

Unfortunate, because even in the same room the online tends to have massive freezes/lag spikes, wheras the local multiplayer was always smooth.
 
Last edited:

Wokietokie

Newcomer
Hi! I’m having the same problem. Started playing locally with my boyfriend for around a week before I had to go away do we started playing online. When we met up again and tried to start playing locally, his farm wouldn’t show up anymore. Tried making a new farm and hosting it to see if we could play it locally and we could.

I think Zheta is right, if you start playing online with a farm that you started locally, it flags your save file/farm into an online-only farm. I hope they find a workaround for this. :(
 

sHAGGY

Greenhorn
I have the same problem when I'm playing with my daughter. I hope that a fix arrives and we can still play the same save without lose more than 200 game hours.
 

DekuFox

Greenhorn
Hi, I am running into the problem as well. It's unfortunate since sometimes we wish to play in areas without WiFi but now it is impossible as the save is forced to be online.

I can confirm it works fine if we create a whole new farm to play local, but the farm that was played online is not available to play locally anymore (the host can start it in local mode but other players won't see the farm as an option to join).
 
Last edited:

nunesvictor

Farmhand
Same issue here. I’ll try to find some info about that on the community discord server. I hope if this is confirmed we can have a patch to fix it soon. It’s very frustrating not being able to play local coop.
well, the only info I got from discord is that apparently there’s nothing we can do to fix this issue beyond restart the console and/or reinstall the game (and prey it works)

I’m sure eventually someone will tag this as an issue. For now we wait and play online only 🙂
 

nunesvictor

Farmhand
I made some tests last night and I think @Zheta has a point. The farm created in Local Co-Op mode will appear in online mode and will enable the guest farmer connect to it even in online Co-Op mode. The problem starts when the farm is saved in online mode, after this point it’s useless to host it at local coop mode because the guest switch won’t be able to see it anymore.

Steps to reproduce the issue:
  1. Create a new farm in local coop mode
  2. On the online coop mode, host the farm and play a day
  3. After the day was saved the farm will only be visible on online coop mode
As I think the expected behavior is that the same farm can be played both in local and online coop mode, I ask if we could change the title of this thread from HELP to BUG.

I hope my description of the issue was clear, English isn’t my first language. Sorry everyone
 

tahosa

Newcomer
I ran into this problem as well, and after finding a thread on Reddit, the following fix worked for me:

1. Host starts the game in local mode
2. Have Robin, build a new cabin (100g + 10 wood or stone). It will be built immediately
3. Finish the day and save the game - THIS IS THE CRITICAL STEP. If the game doesn't save, you won't be able to join
4. Have player 2 attempt to join local session
5. Choose existing player to re-join with

This allowed me to re-join a farm which started as local, was played online a couple times, then wouldn't let me reconnect.
 

tahosa

Newcomer
Some additional details:

Don't delete the empty cabin after re-joining. If the game is saved again, the non-host player can once again not join the session. You will be stuck with an extra cabin so long as you want to use the save file, but that's better than losing the whole thing, in my opinion. This is speculation, but I'm guess that after going online something is set about the player's cabin locking it to an online ID. When hosting locally again, the remote player's session sees there is not a matching cabin, nor a new one available to join as so the local session is hidden. If the unclaimed cabin is removed or claimed, the remote player once again sees nothing to join as. It's definitely odd that they still can join as their existing player, into the now-online-ID-cabin instead of taking the new slot entirely.

Also, I haven't tested taking the session online again with the empty cabin, but I may create a new farm and do some testing.
 

PretzilZ

Newcomer
I have some information that might be helpful, although I am not sure if I am experiencing a different bug or the same one. We had been playing for 50 hours on a save with dozens of successful play sessions on local co-op. Then one day out of the blue it just stopped working. We did nothing differently. Didn't join in online or anything, just stopped working. The specific save is also not able to be found in online or local anymore, however a newly created farm will work for both. The solution where you place a new house didn't work either for us. So currently for us our same game has been rendered unplaying except for hunching over the small screen to play split screen. Best of luck to those seeking help and hope this gets patched soon!
 

harvillionare

Newcomer
Hope this will be fixed soon. Switching between local and online co-op seems like it would be a pretty common use case. Prefer local co-op at home as the performance is better. Also, there are scenarios, when traveling together, where online co-op isn't possible.
 

AaronMike

Greenhorn
Also experiencing this issue with the same repro steps that nunesvictor described.

I made some tests last night and I think @Zheta has a point. The farm created in Local Co-Op mode will appear in online mode and will enable the guest farmer connect to it even in online Co-Op mode. The problem starts when the farm is saved in online mode, after this point it’s useless to host it at local coop mode because the guest switch won’t be able to see it anymore.

Steps to reproduce the issue:
  1. Create a new farm in local coop mode
  2. On the online coop mode, host the farm and play a day
  3. After the day was saved the farm will only be visible on online coop mode
As I think the expected behavior is that the same farm can be played both in local and online coop mode, I ask if we could change the title of this thread from HELP to BUG.

I hope my description of the issue was clear, English isn’t my first language. Sorry everyone
 

Blazican420

Newcomer
Same issue here. Bumping this cuz its a problem and needs to be fixed asap. I have had this issue. I have had world's be completely corrupted, constant disconnects for the non host. The local and online for switch right now just isn't stable, at all.
 
Just ran into this issue last night too. My girlfriend and I had played about 30 hours on a farm over both local communication and online communication and randomly I was unable to see the farm in the local communication list to join. We had to resort to playing online until I found the adding a cabin fix, which is still a bummer to have taking up useable space.
 

Bluberrione

Greenhorn
Just experienced this issue as well w my gf on a farm we’ve been playing on for a min :/ a bummer bc we go back n forth from college a lot n it continually happens regardless of the cabin approach. What’s the chances this gets fixed soon?
 
Just experienced this issue as well w my gf on a farm we’ve been playing on for a min :/ a bummer bc we go back n forth from college a lot n it continually happens regardless of the cabin approach. What’s the chances this gets fixed soon?
I’m not sure if ConcernedApe has said whether or not he’s aware of it or actively working on it. I was tempted to mention it to him on Twitter just to see if it was on his radar, but was anxious about bothering him on there since I know he already gets a lot of mentions, and this forum is here for a reason so I just tried finding a post about it on this forum and letting it be known that I also had this issue.
 

Mooshattack

Newcomer
This happened to me and my boyfriend also. But it happened because we deleted cabins. I had him add them back in and sleep for a day. Problem solved 🤷‍♀️
 
Reading the thread. I've encountered both of these issues separately. On the being booted from the server as soon as I join my daughter's hosted game and not being able to go back local.

For the being booted as soon as I join, I noticed it only happened when she left Stardew Valley running and her Switch lite would sleep. When it happens, I power her switch actually off and then restart. She would always be able to host local again and I could join locally.

With the "online only" problem - A month or so ago, I was out of town and we played online as opposed to locally and we haven't been able to play local since. I didn't know about the saving a new cabin in local and then saving the day. I will have to try that.
 
Top