Image via Valve
If, like me, you play Counter-Strike regularly, or even games like Valorant that can have matchmaking errors, you’ve probably had those moments where it takes a long time to find a match. Sometimes, you may not even be able to find any games. In CS2, you will sometimes receive the message “Error locating official game servers with acceptable ping.” Below I will tell you why this happens in CS2 and how to fix it.
How to Fix CS2 Matchmaking Error ‘The official game servers could not be located with an acceptable ping’
This error can occur due to the lack of a server in the specific ping and bandwidth range to host a single-player game in many different scenarios, whether you are queuing alone or if you are with a pre-established team. Anyway, here are the steps you need to follow to fix this issue:
- Click on the gear icon and go to Settings
- Click on the Game tab and set:
- Maximum Acceptable Pairing Ping
- Maximum acceptable gaming traffic bandwidth
Related: How to cast Mirage Window Smoke in CS2
If you have a pre-built team, all your teammates should also change their settings to accommodate a wider search area in case there is a server outage in your region. This error may not always be on the player’s side; could be in the server side.
You can head to websites like SteamDB (unofficial) Steam server status website, which uses the Steam API and lets you know which server is under high load, possibly causing problems on the player’s side.
If all else fails, you should check if other casual game modes are working properly, and if not, I would recommend checking your local CS2 game files through your Steam library.
For more information on CS2, be sure to check out When is a new operation coming to CS2? here at Pro Gaming Guides.