Fortnite Season 4: “You do not have permission to play” error, information, and fixes

A huge wave of Fortnite players are being prevented from playing Fortnite Season 4 for some unknown reason. All that they are told by the game is that they “do not have permission to play.” This is not the first time this error has occurred, and there’s already some information about why it happens and what you can do to fix it.

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Fortnite Season 4 “permission to play” error info

has anybody else not been able to go in fortnite? “You do not have permission to play fortnite”

— Kyone Moore (@bigdripkyone) August 27, 2020

Although similar errors can often have different causes, this error may be tied to your individual Epic Games account. If your account is experiencing some kind of mismatch, then Fortnite may suspect someone is attempting to access your account illicitly and deny you permission to play.

Occasionally, an error can occur where this error can lock you out of the game without anyone actually trying to access your account.

fortnite: you do not have permission to play me: pic.twitter.com/Bfj02qAI4x

— ren (@renwellss) August 27, 2020

Another possible cause may be related to the Fortnite Season 4 update, both the update in general and the fact that Fortnite for iOS and macOS was separated from the rest of the community. If your account was active across multiple platforms, it may end up appearing mismatched by Fortnite’s internal account protection programs.

Regardless of what specific event caused it, there are a few different fixes you can attempt to get back on the island to play Fortnite Season 4.

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Potential fixes to attempt

fortnite be like "You do not have permission to play Fortnite" man i am a grown ass adult who can play whatever nites and forts they desire shut the fuck up

— FΛLCO (@FalcoLambda) August 27, 2020

The first thing to try is to unlink your previous email. According to Driver Easy., this process is simple.

1. Log in on the game and click Connected Accounts.
2. Check all the options to link your Epic Games account. Disable them.
3. Click on the Xbox option and signed in.

If you can’t remember which email you’ve used for Epic Games, you can click Forgot your password? and send you it to every old email you have.

1. Sign in when you find the email and unlink from the long-forgotten Epic account.
2. Log in to the Epic Games account you want it associated with and connect.

The second method recommended by them is to update your game. This, however, may be a challenge given how heavily taxed the servers are at the moment. Additionally, players are experiencing this error even after updating their games, so this is not likely to be the best fix.

The third option, and the one most likely to be effective, is to wait. Fortnite Season 4 only just released, there are bound to be bugs, errors, and unexpected interactions all over the place. It is unfortunate, but that is the case when dealing with something as complicated as Fortnite Season 4.

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The status of the bug

All Fortnite services have returned to normal. Thanks for your patience! pic.twitter.com/rr2JRPzy1t

— Fortnite Status (@FortniteStatus) August 27, 2020

Although the Fortnite Status twitter hasn’t identified this error by name, it did mention roughly an hour ago that Fortnite Season 4 was experiencing significant server outages in the servers that handle both logins and matchmaking. If the login server was down for some reason, this could have resulted in players having their permissions temporarily denied.

However, the Fortnite Status page recently announced that they managed to fix this, so if you haven’t attempted to log in recently then give it another shot and see.