How do I test for connectivity issues?

Proper network and security settings are important to your safety. But they can sometimes cause hiccups with web services. If you’re planning to host an important game session, we’d recommend you to test for connectivity issues at your venue at least a few days before your event. This will give you time to work with your IT team to fix any issues discovered.

Testing for connectivity issues

Any public kahoot can be used to test for issues. All you need are two devices with a supported browser. Here’s a shareable play link for a public kahoot:

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/ba0d29ff-87f8-11e2-ac18-12313c03a233

How to test

1. Use the shareable play link above on one device to start hosting a live game.
2. Go to https://kahoot.it on the other device to join your live game.
3. Navigate both devices through all questions to see if any connectivity issues arise.

Issues that can cause connectivity issues

Proxy servers

Kahoot! uses SSL to encrypt data between devices and servers. Kahoot! Also uses secure websockets to establish low-latency, low-bandwidth connections between all devices and our servers. Presenters or players may experience certificate authentication errors if a proxy server is replacing our SSL certificates with its own, or frequent “trying to reconnect” messages if a proxy server is severing websockets connections. You may need to let the websockets URLs listed below bypass your proxy server.

• wss://play.kahoot.it/cometd
• wss://kahoot.it/cometd

Firewalls

Kahoot! needs access to ports 80 and 443 for URL *.kahoot.it. If this domain is blocked by a firewall, presenters or players may witness error messages stating they can’t connect to our web pages.

Bandwidth

A stable internet connection will keep everyone’s devices updated within milliseconds of each other. Players may experience gameplay on their devices being seconds behind the presenter’s screen if the players or presenter are on a slow connection.

Ideally, the hosting device should be connected via ethernet (not wifi or cell data). We recommend encouraging players to use their cell data if they have a good 3G or better signal. Try to reserve wifi for players with bad or no signal.

Based on the maximum number of players you’re expecting (whether by wifi or cell data), we recommend the following minimum internet speeds:

• 20 players / 2 Mbps up & down
• 50 players / 3 Mbps up & down
• 100 players / 5 Mbps up & down
• 500 players / 23 Mbps up & down
• 1000+ players / 45 Mbps up & down

Javascript and cookies

These are used extensively to keep track of progress during a live game. These will need to be allowed for our services to work. Presenters or players might see blank screens or error messages if either of these are disabled in their browser or blocked by their network.