Valve has a decent track record of keeping its servers online. Dota 2 shares this feat with the developer, but on rare occasions, players might find themselves receiving server-related errors like getting stuck at “Confirming Match” while searching for a game.
This generally happens when the servers are overloaded with new or returning players. Huge patch releases or the end of a highly-anticipated one can cause player numbers to surge and servers to struggle to the point where Valve can’t keep up.
Server-related issues are a tricky thing to manage too, since most of the time it is not something you can directly fix or resolve without the game’s developer or server host stepping in. There are a few tricks you can try to help you get back to running down lanes, however.
How to fix Dota 2 ‘Confirming Match’ bug and server issue
If you’re stuck on “Confirming Match” while searching for a Dota 2 game, there are only a handful of fixes you can try out.
- Wait for around five minutes to see if the servers come back and verify the match.
- If it’s been longer than five minutes, manually exit from the queue and restart the game.
- There’s a small chance that you might receive a five-minute queue penalty if the servers start ticking during this time.
- Restart your router.
- Check if there are any pending Dota 2 patches
- Wait for servers to come back online.
In most cases, players will need to wait for Valve to fix Dota 2’s servers. Valve’s timing changes greatly based on cases, however, sometimes it can take less than an hour for the developer to get rid of the error. But there’s also a chance it might need several hours to roll out a proper hotfix.
This typically happens when big events are starting or ending, like back in January 2023, for example, when the error popped up multiple times throughout the final day of The International 2022 battle pass.
