Pragmatic Play Slots load up very slowly

Hey,

At first I didn't really wanna look for a solution to this, but recently it's been getting more and more annoying.

Usually Pragmatic Play slots have been loading up for me in a matter of seconds, but for a couple weeks now it's been taking every slot nearly half a minute - maybe even longer - to load up. Then in the slot the game has to load up all the features, music, sounds etc. which takes another half minute. I don't care about waiting, but loading everything up in a matter of seconds (~4-5sec.) going to barely loading the slot is weird.

When I open up a Pragmatic Play slot with a VPN on, it will just fully blackscreen the slot for me after a couple seconds and I cannot click on anything about the slot afterwards.

If someone could help me out and help me find why Pragmatic slots load up so long for me, it would mean the world to me.

Best regards

b1shTV

Hey b1shTV!

This sounds like something that is worth troubleshooting step by step because there are quite a few possible causes here and the fact that it affects Pragmatic Play games specifically is an interesting clue.

Could you maybe check a few things?

• Does this happen with Pragmatic Play slots in all casinos you use, or only in one particular casino?
• Does it happen with every Pragmatic Play slot, or only certain games?
• Have you tested the same game in a different browser (e.g., Chrome vs. Firefox/Edge)?
• Does the problem occur on another device as well, if you have one available?
• Are you experiencing similar loading issues with games from other providers or only Pragmatic Play?
• Is your internet connection otherwise behaving normally when this happens?

The VPN behavior is also interesting, but I would probably leave that aside for the moment and first give a look to whether the issue follows the game/provider, the casino, the browser/device, or your connection.

Perhaps with this analytical approach we should be able to narrow down the source of the problem instead of just guessing. 🙂

Hey Radka,

Thank you for your answer, I can answer your questions:

• It happens in every casino that I use, tested a couple different ones and they all have the same issue
• It happens with every Pragmatic Play slot
• I tested it on Firefox, Edge and Opera GX aswell, same thing happening sadly
• I have tested it on my smartphone with the same internet connection, but it doesn't happen on my phone
• I don't have any issues with any other provider. Everything else loads up normally
• My internet connection is steady and running smoothly next to it when this issue happens.

Best regards

Kaan

Hey Kaan,

Thanks, that's actually very helpful, since you've already ruled out quite a few of the most obvious possibilities!

Since the issue affects every Pragmatic Play slot across multiple casinos and browsers, while other providers work normally, and the same internet connection works fine on your phone, how about narrowing this down quite a bit?

Could perhaps you try connecting your computer to your phone's mobile hotspot and try opening a Pragmatic Play slot again? You don't need to change anything else, just use the same computer and browser, but through the mobile hotspot instead of your usual internet connection.

If Im not mistaken, this could help us determine whether we're looking at something related to your PC/browser environment or something specific to your normal network connection.

Also, you mentioned this started only a couple of weeks ago. Do you remember whether anything changed around that time on your computer? For example a Windows update, antivirus/security software update, browser update, new software, DNS/network settings, etc.?

I can for examply confirm that the last five win updates has messed up with my bluetooth drivers, sound card drivers and few other tech "details".... Im just saying we live in very interesting online enviroment and I find this digging sort of amusing. 😁

Hey Radka,

I wish I could connect my PC to my mobile hotspot, unfortunately I don't have the option, to connect to any wireless connection, since my PC is LAN connection only.

I vaguely remember that I installed like 2-3 free VPN softwares a while back which I don't have installed anymore. I also can't remember which I ones I installed, but the only one I have installed right now is Urban VPN, but the issue has been there before I got this one.

Best regards

Kaan

Hey Radka, a small but very positive double post from my end

Almost at the end of your post you had mentioned DNS/network settings, which made me check my DNS settings on Google Chrome and on my PC. Turns out my network was getting a DNS server address automatically, which Pragmatic Play slots didn't like that much. Instead, I put in Googles public DNS server addresses which finally fixed my issue with the provider. I checked across different browsers and different websites and it seems like everything is working just fine for now. If I have any more news, I will let you know, but for now it is pretty much fixed. Thank you for the hint towards DNS/network settings 😀

Best regards

Kaan

Hey Kaan,

That's great news! I'm honestly quite surprised!

The DNS settings were definitely not the first thing I would have expected 😆, but it makes kind of sense given that the issue was affecting Pragmatic Play specifically while everything else was working normally....

I'll keep this in mind as a possible troubleshooting step for similar cases in the future! 😁

Hopefully everything continues working normally for you now! 🤞

Enjoy yourself and be lucky while playing casino games!

Hey Radka,

I had made a post, deleted it, but it looks like I have to rewrite it again.

The issue was gone yesterday evening, but after I woke up today and turned on my PC to go and check on the issue, it was back to slow loading Pragmatic Play slots only.

I haven't changed anything, didn't install anything whatsoever, but the issue is back sadly.

Hey Kaan,

That's actually making me wonder about something.... I don't know if you had the same thing happen on your PC, but I had a Windows update pop up on all of my computers yesterday.

Microsoft actually mentions that network adapter/settings can be involved when connection problems start after a recent Windows update, and that Windows may reinstall network adapters and reset their settings in some circumstances.

I'm wondering if there could be a connection here, especially because you said the issue was completely gone yesterday, and then came back after you started your PC again today without changing or installing anything yourself.

And your old VPN software history makes me wonder about the network side of things even more. VPN software can add its own network components, so even though you've already removed those older VPNs, there could potentially still be something in the network configuration that interacts differently after an update or restart.

I'm definitely not saying we've found the cause here 😄, but given that the issue affects Pragmatic Play across different casinos and browsers while other providers work normally, and that it can apparently disappear and return without you changing anything, I think the Windows/network angle is worth keeping in mind. What do you think?

Perhaps its a blind shot, of course.

This is turning into quite the detective story, by the way. 😂

Hi,

Same here issue here with Pragamatic Play, but also NoLimit City and PlaynGo. Though definitely not the ludicrious 5min + then time out from Pragmatic I get.

Reported to Bitstarz a week ago, and included Dev Tool analysis screen caps. FYI, I'm a web dev and own server's sysadmin, so I can assure you it's nothing to do with anyone's internet connection, drivers or Win updates. This issues sits quarly with a loader issue and its file dependencies.

Checked today, still not fixed. Another email sent to BSC.

Hi, did the casino tell you anything about this? Are they investigating the issue with the game provider, or not?

If other providers load normald rule out the internet connection first. Could be something specific with Pragmatic’s servers or how Windows is handling the connection.

Hey, this is getting really interesting, not in a positive way, I guess.

Do you think it may be somehow similar to the previous kind of tech discussion with b1shTV? I'm really curious.

Hi Jaroslav,

I've spent close to four hours trying to help them isolate this issue.

At the request of their Dev/Tech team, I've supplied HAR files, screenshots, DevTools captures and even video recordings of the affected games.

The HAR captures are particularly interesting because they show the problem very clearly. This isn't simply a case of a game "feeling slow". There are enormous delays and bottlenecks within the game-resource delivery/loading sequence itself.

As one example, I've captured the same Pragmatic Play game, CULT, in completely different states:

~78 seconds to load while affected

~14 seconds when working normally

~155 seconds when the problem returned

and later more than 4 minutes in another affected capture

The HAR waterfalls show the difference clearly, including huge gaps between resource-loading stages that simply aren't present when the game is working normally.

I've also now seen similar problems affecting Pragmatic Play, Play'n GO and Nolimit City, while games from other providers continue loading normally. That makes some common part of the delivery/CDN/proxy/aggregation path used by the affected providers an obvious area to investigate.

Every controlled test I've performed has been from a clean browser state, cache and cookies cleared and DNS flushed, and I've also tested different browsers, different internet connections, VPN routing and a completely separate physical device.

So, after supplying all of that diagnostic information, what do you suppose came back from Tech?

"Tell the player to clear his cookies/cache, try incognito, another device and another connection."

Seriously. SMH.

The particularly frustrating part is that my original email to VIP had already documented that I'd done exactly those tests before escalating the issue.

VIP can obviously only do so much with something like this. They're the middleman and generally aren't network/infrastructure engineers. According to VIP, everything I supplied: HARs, tests, screenshots, video and the original technical report, was forwarded intact to the appropriate technical team.

At this point the affected games have repeatedly switched between working normally and being severely degraded while I've been testing them. The HAR captures preserve those different states.

Something in the game-delivery path is clearly behaving very differently between the good and bad states.

But apparently I should clear my cookies again. :)