The path between you and the live server process only has a very small part that the site has any control over. When the live server begins to pair a round, it looks to see if there is active connection to the clients, and if there isn’t, it will not pair those players, to try an avoid a dead pairing.
If you have other processes happening on your system/local network, those can potentially cause connection problems.
You might check out the following articles to minimize issues, for issues you can control
https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8584209-how-do-i-fix-my-disconnect-lag-issues
https://support.chess.com/en/articles/8652402-how-can-i-optimize-my-online-chess-performance
I’m not going to say that there couldn’t be intermittent issues with the client connection code but it’s often going to be something client side (network or system) or between you and the site live server process.
Hi, I don’t know if this is the proper spot for this type of post, I doubt it is, but I am in the chesscom beta club and after having this same issue happen more than a handful of times, I was on their club’s forums just kinda seeing if anyone else had been experiencing similar issues and was about to make this post there, but I saw a link to this club and thought it would make more sense to post it in a forum related to “chess.com feedback” where someone who would either know why it’s happening, or possibly works for the site and could possibly see about fixing the issue. That’s all a long winded way of saying that I came here because this club’s link was on the beta club’s forum page, and “feedback” seemed appropriate.
Anyhow, multiple times now, including the most recent 10|0 Rapid Swiss (>1199) tournament, the ones that cycle through every four hours on the site’s tourney schedule, but I got to the join page, like the New Game page but it includes the Tournament Standings tab with the list of players joined and the join button, and joined the tournament with the tournament not starting for like 10 minutes. So while waiting I left my browser window open on that page whilst watching tv in the background and occasionally reloading the page, strictly in order to avoid having this problem happen but to no avail.
Once the start timer was on like 1:30, I opened itunes so I have some background music and then sat watching the clock count down to 0 anticipating the start of my first game, but nothing happened. Having an idea of what was going on I quickly tried to click between the standings, games, and chat tabs, then when that did nothing, I again reloaded the page only to be met with a popup saying that I was being given a 0-point by because I was found to be disconnected when the tournament started, which I absolutely wasn’t.
This has happened quite a few times in the past month or so, and it isn’t exclusive to waiting on the tournament to start. At least two times, that I can recall for sure, the same thing has happened after I had finished one of the games and was sitting on the tournament standings screen, clicking back and forth between one of the tournament games I was watching and the tournament chat, waiting for the next round to start. Once it said Next Round Starting Soon…I closed the game I was watching, and went to the standings page again waiting for the next round to begin. After it seemed to be taking forever I started looking and noticed that most of the other players had begun their next games. So I reloaded the page only to be given the same popup about being given a by due to being disconnected, even though I was actively chatting with other players in the tournament chat.
I know it’s not a huge deal as the tournaments are not for money or status or anything significant, but still, for the amount of money I would assume the site is pulling in off of the number of memberships and the price of said memberships, I would think the site could afford to avoid stuff like this, especially if it is happening numerous times. I genuinely am not someone that complains about paying for memberships to stuff, or the prices of the memberships, because in my eyes no one is forcing you to pay the fees and join so if ya wanna gripe then cancel your subscription, but in this particular case, I sincerely believe that chess.com is superior in the online chess landscape, and it’s not even close. I don’t want to cancel my sub and go play on a different site, I like this site and, honestly, regardless if this problem is fixed or not, I ain’t going anywhere lol but I am getting really tired of having to withdraw from a tournament after two or three wins, or not even getting to begin the tournament at all after waiting half an hour and watching the clock for it to begin, due to what I am sure is some dumb glitch. Anyhow, if anyone read this far enough to get to this point, thanks for reading my stupid meaningless grievances, and sorry it turned into a novella.