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The most common Sea of Thieves problems and how to fix them

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There are few experiences better than gathering a crew of friends and embarking on a thrilling pirate adventure in Sea of Thieves. When everything is working as intended, Sea of Thieves is a fun and addicting time, but players have reported a number of technical issues and bugs that can interrupt your voyage. We compiled a list of the most common problems players have reported, as well as how to fix them.

Connection issues

A pirate fishing in Sea of Thieves.
Rare

While Sea of Thieves depends on online group-ups, sometimes the digital waves get a little choppy.  Upon loading into the Sea of Thieves main menu, you might see a message such as “KiwiBeard, “Greybeard,” or “DaffodilBeard,” among other facial hair-themed errors. The majority of these are error messages related to the game’s servers rather than a problem with your system or your own internet connection.

Possible solutions:

  • There isn’t much you can do to resolve server-side errors. Instead, check back during hours when game traffic is likely to be lower, such as in the middle of the day. The server changes Rare made in 2020 have gone a long way to fixing serious traffic issues, but connection problems can still pop up from time to time. To see if it’s a widespread issue or something wrong with your own connection, it’s a good idea to visit sites like Downdetector and see if other players are having problems.
  • If you get either a “CinnamonBeard” or “BronzeBeard” connection error, Rare recommends completely quitting the Sea of Thieves application and restarting it. To do this on Xbox, return to the system’s dashboard, highlight the game, and press the Menu button. Choose to quit the game, then start it as you normally do and attempt to connect again.
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Missing reputation, ship, or currency

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Occasionally, you may load into Sea of Thieves and find you don’t have any items, that your currency will be completely depleted, or that your ship hasn’t appeared. You may also find you aren’t receiving new money or earning reputation for completing voyages.

Possible solutions:

  • Quit to the main menu of Sea of Thieves and then reconnect to the game. This will usually alleviate any issues you have with your currency being completely missing or with your ship not spawning at the dock. If it doesn’t work on your first attempt, try reconnecting a second time. Should this fail, you may just need to wait it out.
  • As of 2021, Rare has largely solved this issue with server fixes. If you find it still happens to you, you may want to check with support and your ISP to see if you are having unique connection issues.

A new quest parchment is completely blank

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Skeleton Captains and similar enemies can drop quest parchments to start a new voyage in search of buried treasure. The thrill of getting a parchment drop is occasionally thwarted when players take a look and find nothing but a blank parchment with no clues or an island map to be found.

Possible solutions: 

  • Exit the game, and log back in. Your quest parchment should remain in your possession, but now it will show the proper information. Rare continues to tackle this bug with various improvements, but it can still happen.

All known issues

Sea of Thieves Fire
Rare / Rare

Rare has a dedicated page listing all the known issues in Sea of Thieves. Each one has a date it was added, and will be labelled as resolved once fixed. Even if an issue isn’t yet resolved, seeing it on this list at least lets you know that Rare is aware of the problem and activly working on fixing it.

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Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
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