How to join MinecraftSA

First: which edition do you have?

Minecraft comes in two separate editions that are not the same program, and the join process differs between them. Before you start, work out which one you are running:

The quick test on PC: if the title screen says Java Edition underneath the logo, it is Java. If the main menu has a large "Play" button leading to Worlds / Friends / Servers tabs, and there is a Marketplace button, it is Bedrock.

Both editions can play here together — see how crossplay actually works if you are curious about the mechanism.

Joining on Java Edition

This is the simplest case. Java has supported arbitrary server addresses since the beginning and nothing gets in your way.

1. Launch Minecraft: Java Edition and wait for the main menu.
2. Click "Multiplayer". If you get a warning about third-party servers, that is Mojang's standard notice on every server that is not theirs — read it and continue.
3. Click "Add Server" at the bottom of the screen.
4. Server Name: type anything you like — MinecraftSA is fine. This is only a label in your own list.
5. Server Address: enter play.minecraftsa.co.za exactly. No http://, no www., no trailing slash, and no port number unless you have been told otherwise.
6. Click "Done". You will be back at the server list with MinecraftSA in it.
7. Wait for the green connection bars to appear next to the name. That means your client has pinged the server successfully. Hover over the bars to see your ping in milliseconds.
8. Double-click the server — or select it and click "Join Server".

You are in. Read the rules before you start building, and if this is your first survival server, your first day guide covers what to do with the next thirty minutes.

Joining on Bedrock — Windows, iOS and Android

Bedrock on these platforms lets you add external servers directly. The only extra step compared with Java is that you must enter the port yourself.

1. Open Minecraft and tap or click Play on the main menu.
2. Switch to the "Servers" tab along the top of the screen, next to Worlds and Friends.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the list, past the featured servers Mojang promotes, and select "Add Server".
4. Server Name: MinecraftSA, or whatever you want to call it.
5. Server Address: play.minecraftsa.co.za
6. Port: 19132 — this matters. Bedrock defaults this field to 19132 already, but if it is blank or shows something else, correct it.
7. Save. The server appears under "Additional Servers" at the bottom of your Servers tab.
8. Select it and press "Play" on the panel that slides out.

Joining on Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch

Here is the honest position: the console versions of Minecraft do not let you type in a server address. There is no "Add Server" button on the Servers tab — you get Mojang's list of partnered servers and nothing else. This is a restriction Microsoft applies to console editions, and no server operator can remove it from their end.

There are two ways around it, and one is much easier than the other.

Option 1: join through a friend (easiest)

If you know someone playing on MinecraftSA from a PC or phone, you can join through them:

1. Add each other as friends via your Microsoft accounts — in Minecraft, or through the Xbox app.
2. Have your friend join MinecraftSA first from their device.
3. On your console, go to Play → Friends. Their session will appear in the list.
4. Select it to join, and you will land on the server with them.

Your friend needs to be online at the time, and both of you need "Join Multiplayer Games" and friend-joining enabled in your Xbox privacy settings — an issue that most often affects child accounts, where the setting is controlled by the parent account.

Option 2: change your console's DNS

The community solution is a service called BedrockConnect. You point your console's DNS settings at it, and it replaces the featured-servers list with a menu where you can enter any server address you like.

Broadly the process is: find your console's network settings, switch DNS from Automatic to Manual, enter a BedrockConnect DNS address as the primary DNS, save, then open Minecraft and select any server from the featured list — you will get the BedrockConnect menu instead, where you add play.minecraftsa.co.za on port 19132.

Matching the server version

The most common reason a correctly-entered address still fails is a version mismatch. Minecraft clients can generally only talk to servers running the same protocol version, and the error usually says so outright — something like "Outdated client" or "Outdated server".

On Java, you control this precisely. Open the Minecraft Launcher, go to Installations, click New installation, and pick the version you need from the dropdown. Launch that installation and try again. You can keep as many versions installed side by side as you like.

On Bedrock, you have much less control — the store updates you automatically and there is no supported way to roll back. If Bedrock has just pushed an update and the server has not caught up yet, waiting is realistically the only option. It is usually a short gap.

If your client is older than the server, just update normally through your launcher or store.

If it will not connect

Work through these in order — they are ranked by how often they turn out to be the problem:

• Check the address character by character. play.minecraftsa.co.za. It is .co.za, not .com or .co.za. with a trailing dot. Typos here account for a large share of failures.
• Check the port. Bedrock needs 19132. If you put the Java port into a Bedrock client it will never connect, and the error will not tell you why.
• Restart Minecraft completely. Not just back to the menu — close the application and reopen it. Bedrock in particular caches failed server lookups in a way that a menu-level restart does not clear.
• Try another network. Tethering to your phone for thirty seconds tells you instantly whether the problem is your home connection. Some school, office, and university networks block game ports outright.
• Restart your router if you have been online for weeks — stale NAT tables cause exactly this kind of intermittent failure.

Still stuck? The connection error guide works through the specific messages — io.netty.channel errors, "Connection timed out", "Unable to connect to world" — and what each one actually means. If none of that helps, email us with the exact error text and your platform.

Frequently asked questions