A Ubisoft Service Is Currently Unavailable (Fixed)

Whether you’re looking to suit up for a thrill-seeking adventure in Riders Republic, become a member of DedSec in Watch Dogs: Legion, or recount the tales of the viking raiders in Assassin Creed’s Valhalla, nothing is worse than being met with an error upon loading up Ubisoft’s Connect (formally Uplay) launcher. The “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error on Windows completely prevents you from launching any of Ubisoft’s titles and simply tells you to try again later which is unhelpful, to say the least. So, with that said, let’s take a look at what causes this error and how to troubleshoot it so that you can get back to playing your favorite games. 

What causes the “A Ubisoft Service is Currently Unavailable” error? 

When you see the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error on your Ubisoft Connect (Uplay) launcher, it simply means that your Windows computer is having a hard time connecting to Ubisoft’s services. There are several potential causes as to why you may be experiencing this issue: 

• The time and date on your computer is set incorrectly, preventing you from accessing Ubisoft’s online services.
• You may be trying to use IPv6 to connect to Ubisoft’s services.
• Network setting issues are occurring on your Windows computer, preventing it from connecting to Ubisoft’s services. Resetting your network, using technical solutions like assigning static IP/DNS addresses, or resetting the host’s file, tends to fix the problem.
• When attempting to launch a game, if the executable file in the ProgramData folder is corrupted, you’re going to get the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error.
• If you are using the Hamachi VPN software, this can cause a conflict between Ubisoft services and your network. 
• Ubisoft’s services or servers are simply down and inaccessible. 

If you do receive the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error, you can launch Ubisoft Connect (Uplay) in offline mode, but this isn’t useful if you are looking to play a game that has a cooperative or multiplayer mode. Now that you know the common causes behind this error, let’s troubleshoot how to fix it. 

9 solutions to fix the “A Ubisoft Service Is Currently Unavailable” error on Ubisoft Connect or Uplay

1. Check to see if Ubisoft’s servers are down.

The first thing you should do is check Ubisoft’s social media channels to ensure that their service just isn’t simply down. If the service is experiencing interruptions, this could cause the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error. To check Ubisoft’s services, go to their Facebook or Twitter. You can also go to their news banners on the help portion of their website to see live updates from Ubisoft. You can find this here.

2. Make sure your date & time is set correctly.

In order to take full advantage of Ubisoft’s online services, you must have your date and time set correctly. Otherwise, you will get the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error when launching Ubisoft Connect or Uplay.

1. In your computer’s search menu, type in “Settings” and open the app. An alternate way to do this is by pressing the Windows key + I on your keyboard. 
2. Find the Time & Language option in the settings and click it.
3. Now click on the Date & Time option. 

4. Verify that the date and time are correct. If they are not, toggle the “set time automatically” option to fix the issue.

5. If the automatic option does not work, toggle it off and manually make the changes to the date and time.

Another option that you can use is to sync your time to time.windows.com by choosing the Sync now option in the additional settings menu.

3. Look for a faulty process in ProgramData and end it.

Unfortunately, files running in your ProgramData folder can sometimes become broken, damaged, or corrupt. If this happens, the process that allows the Ubisoft Connect/Uplay utility to launch will not work. As a result, this process will appear as a string of letters in your Task Manager. By heading into your Task Manager and ending the process, you can resolve the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error and successfully launch Ubisoft Connect/Uplay. 

1. Press CTRL + Shift + ESC at the same time on your keyboard.
2. The Task Manager should open. You can also search for it by using your computer’s search menu and typing in “Task Manager”.
3. Choose More Details at the bottom of the Task Manager Window to expand it.

4. Make sure you are on the Process tab. 
5. Scroll through until you find a background process that looks like a string of random letters. 
6. Right-click on this string of letters and choose to End Task.

7. Confirm the action and exit Task Manager.
8. Retry logging into Ubisoft Connect/Uplay.

4. Hamachi VPN: Uninstall or turn it Off.

If you are running Hamachi, which is a virtual private network application (VPN), to emulate a secure connection between your local network and the internet, this connection may be causing the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error. Therefore, we would recommend that you disable the VPN for now and retry connecting to Ubisoft Connect/Uplay to see if the issue resolves. If it does, uninstall Hamachi VPN to continue using the Ubisoft Connect/Uplay client without error.

1. In your computer’s search menu, type in “Control Panel”.
2. In the Control Panel, choose Programs – Uninstall a Program.

3. Find the LogMeIn Hamachi in the list of programs.

4. Select Hamachi, and then choose Uninstall from above.
5. Close out the Control Panel when the program has finished uninstalling. 
6. Retry connecting to Ubisoft Connect/Uplay.

5. Temporarily disable IPv6 connectivity.

Another fix for the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” is to temporarily disable IPv6 protocol connectivity and use only IPv4 instead. 

1. Open the Windows Run Dialogue box by pressing the Windows key + R.
2. In the Run Dialogue box, type in “ncpa.cpl” and hit okay.

3. This will bring up your Network Connections window.
4. Right-click on the internet connection you are using (Ethernet or WiFi).
5. Choose Properties from the right-click menu that pops up.

6. Under the Networking tab, scroll down until you find Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6).
7. Uncheck the box and hit okay.

8. Reboot your computer for it to take effect. 
9. Retry connecting to Ubisoft Connect/Uplay to see if the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error has disappeared.

6. Change your DNS server addresses.

Typically, your DNS server addresses are dynamic and change with time, which is normally not a problem. However, in the case of the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error, switching them to a static address may resolve the issue.

1. In your computer’s search menu, type in “CMD”.
2. Open up the Command Window and type in “ipconfig /all” and hit Enter.

3. This command will allow you to see your Default Gateway, Subnet Mask, MAC address, and DNS addresses. Write these down so that you can revert back to them later if you need to.
4. Now use the Run dialogue box and the “ncpa.cpl” command like in fix 5.
5. Right-click on the internet connection you are using and hit Properties.
6. Find the IPv4 Protocol Version in the list and select it (do not uncheck the box, though).
7. Now choose Properties from the list. 
8. In the new window that opens up, under the general tab, choose the option to “use the following DNS server address”. 
9. Type in “8.8.8.8” as the primary and “8.8.4.4” as the secondary DNS server address.

10. Note: These DNS server addresses belong to Google. Another similarly good public DNS alternative is Open DNS.

7. Reset your hosts file.

Your host file is a short text file that is used to interact with certain applications. If it becomes corrupted or damaged, it can cause networking problems. To reset your hosts file:

1. Head to your local disk with the Windows OS installed on it – most often called C. 
2. In the disk, navigate to Windows – System32 – Drivers – ETC.
3. Open the Hosts File in Notepad.

4. Delete all of the text in the Host file.
5. Paste in the text that can be found here.
6. Save the file and exit Notepad.

8. Scan for corrupt system files with SFC.

If your system files for the Ubisoft Connect/Uplay utility are damaged or corrupted, then fixing them with the SFC ScanNow tool can completely resolve the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error.

1. In your computer’s search menu, type in “CMD”.
2. Right-click on the result that appears and choose to Run as an administrator.

3. In the Command Window, type in “sfc /scannow” and hit Enter.

4. Wait until the process is done, and then close out the Command Window.
5. Retry connecting to the Ubisoft Connect/Uplay launcher.

Note: If you run into an SFC /Scannow error when starting the scan, don’t worry. We have written dedicated articles on what to do if SFC scannow is not working, including:

• Windows Resource Protection Could Not Perform The Requested Operation
• Windows resource protection could not start the repair service

9. Reset your network.

If you are having network issues, resetting the network may be able to help you resolve the “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error.

1. Open up the Run dialogue box with the Windows key + R combination.
2. Type in “ms-settings”, and hit Enter.
3. In the Settings Window, find Network & Internet on the left-hand sidebar.
4. Click into Network & Internet and scroll until you see Advanced Network Settings.

5. Click into Advanced Network Settings and choose Network Reset.

6. Hit the Network Reset button and follow the on-screen instructions. 

Wrapping It Up

We hope that one of the nine fixes above helped you resolve your “a Ubisoft service is currently unavailable” error that often occurs with the Ubisoft Connect/Uplay launcher. If any of these solutions worked for you, please let us know in the comments below, and consider sharing this article with others!