With much over 40 million accounts, Overwatch is a busy game. Overwatch and Blizzard have to supply these players with content and keep all of them happy by fixing any problems they might be facing, which keeps their hands more than full. On top of this, it is quite difficult to maintain server functionality with such a large player base, which means that Blizzard also has to keep performing maintenance on their servers which can result in problems for you logging into the game.
Sometimes when you try to get into the game, Overwatch might give you an error message regarding your account which means that Blizzard is having some problems authenticating it. The message says “Sorry we are unable to log you into Battle.net” but in different circumstances, it can also say “Unable to authenticate’’.
However, you shouldn’t worry as this problem is a slightly common occurrence and many players experience it. It can happen for many different reasons, which are listed below along with how to solve the issues.
Ways To Fix Overwatch Unable To Authenticate
1. Wrong Region
It could be that you have selected the wrong region or have switched to the Public Test Region. This is the usual problem regarding the issue as players like to change their regions to get better connections and the game does not recognize your account or it could be that the game changed your region itself after an update.
Just simply check your region to see if it is the one you usually play on and revert it back to normal if it is changed. This should fix the issue but if your region is already set to what it normally is then the problem lies elsewhere. For this try some of the other fixes given below.
2. Server Maintenance
As mentioned above, Overwatch has a very large player base. Large enough to cause Blizzard’s servers to overload or experience some other problem. It could be that Blizzard is performing unexpected maintenance on its servers which is why the game is having a problem recognizing your account and why you are having a problem with getting to play the game. When Blizzard is running unscheduled maintenance on its servers all you can do is wait and check online to see if the servers are back online.
3. Clear Battle.Net Cache
Sometimes, this problem can be caused by the presence of a corrupted cache file in the Battle.net app. This file needs to be deleted as it can cause problems with all Battle.net related apps, such as Overwatch. To delete this cache file, follow the steps given below:
- Close any programs that are related to Blizzard.
- Press Ctrl+ Shift +Esc to open the Task Manager.
- Click on the little tab that says processes
- If a program by the name of ‘’agent.exe’’ or by the name of ‘’Blizzard Update Agent’’ is running, select the program and then click on the option that says ‘’End Process’’
- Proceed to the directory, which is the folder in which all cache is stored.
- After this, press Windows Key+R to boot up the Run Dialogue.
- A Run field will appear. In this Run field type %ProgramData% and then press Enter.
- If any file or folder related to Blizzard exists in the directory that will appear, select it by right-clicking on it and delete it.
- After deleting the folder, launch the Battle.net application again and launch Overwatch. your problem should be fixed