How to Know if You Have Been Locked Out on Pókemon Go

If you live in a country where the app is still not available to download through Google Play or App Store and you have downloaded unlawfully, without rooting and without using tricks to hack it, you can rest assured that you have not been banned.

However, if you have done any of the following actions you may have been locked out on Pokémon Go by Niantic:

• If you have downloaded the game using the APK, if Pokémon Go is not yet available in your country, downloading it by using this method is a way of tricking the system, something that Niantic wants to penalize.
• Hacking the system to move around the map and capture Pokémon located in other countries or cities.
• Using several accounts to play, changing them and even selling them.
• Using hacks to trap Pokémon without moving from home, to walk more miles or any other trick that allows you to reach a higher level quicker than you should be.

Niantic wants to prove that cheating will only lead to a penalty, which is why you may experience problems to log into Pokémon Go if you are trying to cheat the system.

Though the idea is to show that cheats are not worth it in this community, lockouts on Pokémon Go start in a soft way: you can log in to the game but you won't be able to do anything during several hours. This includes not being able to capture Pokémon, battling in gyms... it would be as if you didn't exist.

However, if you keep on trying to cheat doing things that Niantic considers illicit, you may be banned for several days. In this case, you won't be able to access the game or, in the worst case scenario, you will be completely expelled from the community and won't be able to use it any longer, this is the maximum penalty for cheats.

So how to know if you have been locked out on Pókemon Go? The following signs indicate you have actually been blocked:

• You can log in to the game but can't catch wild Pokémon, they run away from you every time.
• Pokémon appear, but you can't throw any Pokéballs and thus can't catch them.
• Pokéstops don't give anything, they seem to have frozen and don't give out any of their prizes.
• You won't be able to battle at the gyms.

In more serious banning cases you won't be able to open the app and you account may even be suspended by Niantic if they find it necessary, which is why the best thing to do is to play the game according to their rules to avoid this risk. For more information, take a look at our complete guide to Pokémon Go.

Banned or servers down?

It's good to remember that this game's servers go down frequently due to the amount of people loging into the game so, before assuming the worse, make sure it's not a problem with the server on the MMO Server Status site you'll be able to see the Worldwide server's status. If you're country's server si marked with a red X and a specific amount of minutes, it means that you won't be able to play the game for now. If you see a green tick it means that it's operative, so you may not be able to log in due to other causes, such as being locked out.

If you want to read similar articles to How to Know if You Have Been Locked Out on Pókemon Go, we recommend you visit our Software category.