Re: Minecraft Pocket Edition for iPad, LAN/multiplayer not working correctly

I don't know if this is going to help you but I just started experiencing the same problem having checked all my daughter's privacy settings in Xbox and making sure that within Minecraft his worlds were set up under the "Multiplayer" setting as "Visible to LAN Players"

I found that the fix was to go into the ipad "Settings" tool then navigate to the "Privacy" folder then the "Local Network" option.

Under that option "Minecraft" was marked as "off" (switch to the left). I reset it to "on" (switch to the right) and restarted everything and Minecraft LAN seemed to work again.

I don't know how this happened. Perhaps an update to ios or minecraft? Anyway, something else for you to check.

Good luck!

Thank you!!!!!

After an hour of googling and getting nowhere, this is exactly the fix I needed.

Happy kiddies again.

100% the solution. I also was messing with MS/Xbox accounts, and settings. We have iPads and PCs trying to play together, and nothing I did was getting past the "Cannot connect to world." error. As soon as I saw you mention the "Local Network" settings on the iPad, I knew that was it! Apple recently disabled this by default on all apps since iOS 14.1 (I believe), and sometimes it gets re-enabled when they do a privacy update.

Thank you so much for your insight.

This was a great response! I fixed this on my sons’ iPads, but I still can’t get the “Visible to LAN players” box in Multiplayer to stay checked/green/highlighted/on.

Before Christmas we had fun playing together. Now I’m stressed out because I can’t fix it for them :(

Thank you!  My son and I can play together again!

You are amazing!!! I have spent so much time searching for a fix to this! This worked for my kids perfectly!!!! Thank you.

It is only green when it's the item you last clicked on - the actual on/off status is whether it's switched right or left.  You'll noticed a subtly change in the green background colour when you toggle it - brighter green is on.  Pretty bizarre system!

Thank you Thank you Thank you. We’ve had this problem for over six months and I intermittently googled this and this is the first time I found an answer!!!

I don't know if this is going to help you but I just started experiencing the same problem having checked all my daughter's privacy settings in Xbox and making sure that within Minecraft his worlds were set up under the "Multiplayer" setting as "Visible to LAN Players"

I found that the fix was to go into the ipad "Settings" tool then navigate to the "Privacy" folder then the "Local Network" option.

Under that option "Minecraft" was marked as "off" (switch to the left). I reset it to "on" (switch to the right) and restarted everything and Minecraft LAN seemed to work again.

I don't know how this happened. Perhaps an update to ios or minecraft? Anyway, something else for you to check.

Good luck!

Update: You don't have to buy an extra version. I reinstalled the app on the second iPad. When you start the app for the first time you get the question: is it okay as minecraft search the local network for other devices.

This is okay of course. :-)

Hi all, I have exactly the same problem... We where always playing Minecraft PE on two iPads, same Wifi Network and then playing in each other world.

Going to the iPad settings is, I think, the right direction. I found on one iPad the local area network switch under minecraft setting ( iPad settings). But on the second iPad there is no such switch. On this iPad we use the app by family sharing... Could this be the problem? Do we have to buy an other version of Minecraft to play together?

Thanks in advance