The Minecraft Education Multiplayer experience was designed and optimized for students to play together in a classroom across the same network.  With the current focus on remote learning we understand the importance of making connections across different networks.  It is possible to connect to other players outside of the classroom by making some changes to your home network configuration.

The How to Set up a Multiplayer Game article walks you through many aspects of multiplayer, such as how to host and join a game, as well as managing players permission inside a game.  Read on for additional information about hosting and joining Multiplayer games from different networks.

Since the equipment and configuration for each home network is different, you may need to do a little extra research to understand how the following steps apply to your particular setup.  Our support team is limited in our ability to troubleshoot these unique network issues, but we are always happy to try to help.

Hosting a Multiplayer Game

To start a Multiplayer world, one player must host the world on their machine, and then invite other players to join.  If you want to host a game, follow these steps to get your device ready to host!

Get Setup to Host

Requirements

In order for players to host and join games together, they must meet the following conditions:

1. Players must be logged into the same Office 365 Education tenant.
2. All players, including the Host, must run the same Minecraft Education version.
3. (Optional) Allow list the website https://*.minecrafteduservices.com/ in your router, and any safety software such as your firewall or anti-virus. This is normally not necessary unless your network has been specifically locked down for unauthorized sites,  For some guidance on how to do it, you can consult this website. 

You can find the version number on the lower right corner of the welcome screen, right under your character.  If the game versions of all devices joining the world don't match, update the devices that aren't running the latest version.

Host a Game Using Join Codes

After you have configured your router, you can host a game and invite other players to join you. 

1. Open Minecraft Education and then follow the instructions in the Multiplayer Guide to open a world and host it
2. Share the picture-based Join Code with other players, using email or another method to communicate. You can share the Multiplayer Guide with players that aren’t familiar with how to use Join Codes.
3. There is currently an issue that prevents users from joining a game with Join Code if they have previously joined a world in the same game session. Ask each player to close Minecraft Education if they have it open, and then re-open the game before joining a world with a Join Code.
4. Check out the Multiplayer Guide to learn more about managing players in a hosted world, including assigning default permissions for players who join your world, and changing permissions once they are in your world.
5. Watch other players join and then enjoy the world together!

Troubleshooting

I was able to host a world and other players joined me, but then the next time I tried to host a world it didn't work.

• There is a known issue where after joining a world and then leaving, a player can't join another world.  To solve this, have player(s) close Minecraft Education, then re-open it and join the world as the first action they take.
• If your network is set up to assign "dynamic" IP addresses, the IP address of your device could change each time you connect to the network.  In this case, you may want to investigate how to assign a static IP address to your device.

 A player trying to join my world sees the error "Unable to connect to world"

• This error is normally seen when the port on your device hasn’t been configured correctly. Make sure you’ve gone through the steps to find the IP address of your device on your network, and also make sure you’ve open to port to both UDP and TCP traffic.

A player trying to join my world sees the error "Unable to access the service you need right now"

• This error is normally seen when the player’s device isn’t able to connect to the Minecraft Education service, which routes traffic between the host and player devices. The player should check that any safety software, such as their firewall or anti-virus, isn’t blocking traffic for the Minecraft Education application or website: https://*.minecrafteduservices.com/. For some guidance on how to do this, you can consult this website.