Discord RTC Connecting / No Route

On screen: RTC Connecting, or a red No Route, in the voice panel

What it actually means

Discord voice is WebRTC over UDP to a regional voice node. RTC Connecting means the signalling connection is up and the media handshake is in progress. No Route means your client could not reach the voice server's address over UDP at all.

Discord itself draws the line for you. Their support page groups ICE Checking, No Route, RTC Connecting and Connecting together and says: “These errors generally mean there's something interfering with the connection on your end -- like a firewall or possibly a VPN.” The server-side counterpart has different wording.

How to tell which one you have

If the panel says Waiting for Voice Server, that one is Discord's — their page says you should not see it unless they are having trouble. Anything in the RTC Connecting or No Route family is on your side of the wire.

Fixes, in the order worth trying

1. Change the voice region — Channel Settings, Overview, Region Override. This is the most effective step and it is buried in every other guide. No Route usually means one specific regional node is unreachable from your ISP — moving to another region sidesteps it entirely.
2. Turn off Quality of Service High Packet Priority — Settings, Voice and Video. A well-known cause of No Route on Windows with certain routers and network adapters.
3. Disable your VPN, or use one that passes UDP — Discord voice only works over VPNs that support UDP. They state this themselves.
4. Allow Discord through the firewall and antivirus — Both the app and its updater.
5. If you are on a school or work network — UDP is very likely blocked wholesale, and there is no local fix. A phone hotspot confirms it in seconds.
6. Release and renew your IP address — ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew on Windows.
7. Restart the router — Discord lists this first. In practice it resolves far fewer cases than changing region.

Operator documentation: support.discord.com. Discord's page is the clearest official statement of the client-versus-server split we have found anywhere, which is why we quote it directly above.

Common questions