Pokemon Go down: How to try and fix app when it's broken

Sometimes it just means admitting defeat

Three Pokemon Go enthusiasts display their cellphones while playing Pokemon Go on July 13, 2016 at Pershing Square in Los Angeles, California (Getty)

Pokémon Go is down — almost all the time. But here are some tips for trying to get it back up.

The hugely successful game has struggled since it was launched under the pressure of its massive popularity.

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That hasn't been helped by reported intentional attacks on the game's servers, which have seen malicious people send huge amounts of requests in an attempt to bring down the game.

Developer Niantic has promised to make the game more stable, and has stopped it being rolled out across the world until it is fixed. But neither seems to have fixed the game yet.

Sometimes it will be down entirely, and if you try these tips and find the app doesn't load properly repeatedly, then it might be worth giving up for a while.

But here are some things worth trying.

1) Get your timing right

There are certain times when it's impossible to get on, and others when it's far better. They seem mostly to correlate with when people in the US are playing, and presumably putting more load on the servers. That means that you'll find it far easier, in the UK and Europe, to play in the morning and early afternoon local time; once 3 or 4 o'clock comes around, and people in the US start having their lunch breaks, the game becomes mostly inaccessible.

2) Mobile data vs WiFi

Try WiFi when you can. The problems are mostly with Niantic's servers, it seems, and so the speed of your connection shouldn't theoretically matter. But anecdotally it does seem easier to get on when on WiFi, presumably because all-important delays are avoided.

3) Know when to close the app

If the game doesn't load quickly, it probably won't load. The two initial loading screens can hang and go slowly when the game isn't working properly, but they'll usually load in less than a minute. It seems that if the game is taking an unusual amount of time to get through them, you're probably not going to get through. In those situations it's best to close the game — entirely, by shutting it from the multitasking screen on your phone — and then try again.

And conversely, if you're on, you're on. If you manage to make it through to two important screens, then there's far less chance you'll be kicked off. At times of high demand, you'll find some things load slowly — Pokéstops might be inaccessible, and Pokémon might not appear — but the game will keep you online and so it's worth just leaving it open.

4) Know your icons

The spinning Pokéball in the top left corner mostly means that the game isn't working, not that it is. This icon is meant to be a loading message, meaning the same as the whirring circles you'll get on other apps. But since the game doesn't actually have to load much when it's working, the fact you're seeing it is probably a bad sign. If it starts popping up a lot, hold on, because your game is probably about to break down. (Not that there's anything you can do.)

If it does stop working, check the journal to see how much of your activity has been saved. Clicking on the Pokéball at the bottom of the screen will let you bring up the journal, which has a full timeline of everything you've been up to. From there you can see where your activity stopped saving — and whether or not you missed out on that last Pokémon.