It’s not often that you encounter an error message in Dota 2 as annoying as the one that says “The game could not be started, a party member is in another game.”

This connection error is related to the inability to connect to Valve’s Dota 2 coordinator, and occurs even when you’ve completed a game and plan to queue as a solo player. Here are a few solutions you can try to fix this error in Dota 2.

A normal Dota 2 restart may not be enough to fix this Party issue, as the game coordinator will still think you’re in a match when you’re not. One workaround that players have discovered is to start a custom lobby, launch the game, and then close Dota 2 completely.

The settings don’t matter: just start a custom lobby, close Dota 2 completely, and restart it. This should “disconnect” you from the existing game the dispatcher thinks you’re playing, and you’ll be able to queue normally again. However, if you can’t even start a custom lobby, you’ll need to open the developer console and disconnect from there.