UEFN failed to download required content before joining the session

Summary

We have an error when trying to get into our private island session for testing.
“Matchmaking error#2: failed to download required content before joining the session” for island 5834-4626-5804

Please select what you are reporting on:

Unreal Editor for Fortnite

What Type of Bug are you experiencing?

Matchmaking

Steps to Reproduce

we are in the playtesting group, put the 5834-4626-5804 number in the search bar in fortnite, we press play and after a few minutes we have the error.

Expected Result

i want to be able to get into my island and playtest it.

Observed Result

Now i cannot playtest my island.

Platform(s)

I am using a PC

Island Code

5834-4626-5804

Upload an image

Video

hi @Exmerald_0 ,
I’ve been searching online and reviewing the official Epic Games documentation, and I found that this error can have several causes related to content access permissions.

First of all, try restarting the Epic Games application. Sometimes the error is resolved simply by closing and reopening the launcher, as there can be temporary issues with content downloading.

That said, even if you are the creator of the island, it’s possible that the content is set to private or only accessible to team members. In that case, if your account is not properly linked to the project or the team managing it, the system won’t allow you to download the files required to join the session. That’s why the message “failed to download required content before joining the session” appears ,it actually means you’re not authorized to access that content.

The most direct solution is to check that the account you’re using to join is added to the correct Team in the Creator Portal. Once your account is part of the team assigned to the project, the system should allow you to download the content and join without issues.

Here is the official documentation that explains this in more detail:

I also found a similar post where the error message shows up as: “Matchmaking Error 2: You are unable to play this game at this time

Hope it helps!

hi @Exmerald_0 ,
Sometimes this error occurs due to protection from Windows.
There is a known problem where Windows 11 wont download or even allow UEFN to login on Windows 11
UEFN will not install correctly from Launcher on any Windows 11 (eleven) version needs to run Elevated "Run As Administrator - General / Issues and Bug Reporting - Epic Developer Community Forums
In the months after writing this post we found problems with pre-loading content function. So you have to run this one as in instructions