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Sometimes during a game in Overwatch, no matter the hero (except Reinhardt and Mech D.Va) when I have fired a few shots and hit the R button to reload, my hero will not reload.

This usually goes away after a short while (Around 5-10 second or so, but sometimes longer), and occasionally the hero will begin to reload, then stop, and refuse to reload for the duration of this glitch. It doesn't impact my character automatically reloading on an empty clip, but it is very inconvenient when trying to keep my clip topped up between fights.

I do have some performance lag sometimes on my machine, but my connection is fairly stable. Could my performance lag be the problem, or is this a known bug?

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  • Make sure that the key to reload is really R in your Keyboard settings.
    – Karlyr
    Commented Oct 6, 2016 at 22:06
  • Were you trying to melee someone? I often find that I fail to reload in close combat while trying to use a the melee attack, it can interrupt reloading.
    – user126536
    Commented Oct 6, 2016 at 22:48
  • Does it look like your character starts the reload, then decides against it? I experience that a fair amount (start reloading the Peacemaker, then McCree being all "Nah bruh, I only need 1 bullet"). I also see this with what look like double taps when I shoot (I click once, I see two distinct weapon trails going out, one affected by recoil. Only 1 ammo is consumed and it appears as though the second/recoiled shot is the one that actually has a projectile. The trail that went where I was aiming is a ghost).
    – KizTrap
    Commented Oct 7, 2016 at 7:51
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    I play Overwatch on PS4, and I notice that if I start to lag, even slightly, occasionally the game will either not get my signal to reload, or will start but the animation fails, and I have to press reload again. What is your down and up speeds? Are you hardwired or wireless?
    – nightsurfer
    Commented Oct 7, 2016 at 13:14
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    Make sure to enable the "show performances..." in the options menu (can't remember the exact name right now), and monitor your ping.
    – Karlyr
    Commented Oct 7, 2016 at 13:38

1 Answer 1

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This is definitely due to packet loss.

Overwatch handles everything server-side, and has to make sure that happens on its server is consistent with what happens on everyone's client. The server keeps track of every player's health, ammo, shots fired, ult charge, and so on, for various reasons, such as preventing cheating. When you want to reload, your client announces that to the server, which updates its ammo count for you; meanwhile, the client is playing the reload animation and only actually reloads when it receives confirmation from the server.

Now I'm not exactly sure what kind of information loss prevention mechanisms Overwatch uses, but if enough messages are lost, any action such as firing your weapon, activating an ability, or indeed reloading can be lost, and for some reason it seems to happen most often with reloading.

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    Sometimes, the server even thinks you're moving very quickly to the left. Very. Quickly.
    – nightsurfer
    Commented Oct 7, 2016 at 14:00
  • So it's possible that if I just fire one additional time, the Server Client will pick up the fact that I've fired my weapon, and allow me to reload?
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Oct 7, 2016 at 14:44
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    @Zibbobz No, it shouldn't work like that. Just spam your reload key/button.
    – Wrigglenite
    Commented Oct 7, 2016 at 15:44

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