The League Client Was Unavailable Causing Concerns for Season 16’s Launch
During the day yesterday, players noticed that they were unable to access the League Client. The news spread like wildfire. Thousands of players tried to log into the game. Instead of logging them into the League Client, players were met with the Riot Client. The reason for this is quite an embarrassing one for the famed League of Legends creator. Players also managed to discover a workaround for the issue. Fortunately, the problem is resolved, and players can log in to the Client again.
The League Client Was Unavailable
At 1:42 PM PDT yesterday, the League of Legends X account posted that there were issues affecting player logins. They also mentioned that all Ranked Queues would be disabled until a fix is implemented. Before the post, multiple players reported being unable to access the League Client. The Client would appear briefly before sending players back to the Riot Games Client. After a brief investigation, Vandril discovered the reason behind the issue. The Secure Sockets Layer certificate for the League Client had expired, a rather embarrassing reason for Riot Games.
Not The First Time
One occasion of this situation happening is bad enough. The 2026 incident was one of two occasions on which Riot Games failed to renew its certificate for the Client. Ten years ago, Riot faced an identical issue. They renewed the certificate for ten years, but someone had forgotten about the expiry date this year.
Players Discovered A Workaround
Bizarrely, players discovered a way to open the Client, despite the issues. If you set your PC’s Date and Time to a point on January 3rd, you could log in to the League Client. Ranked Queues were still disabled, but you could at least play game modes like Aram, Arena, and Teamfight Tactics non-ranked modes. The change in time could affect other aspects of your PC. Discord was one of the apps that would brick due to the time change on your PC.
No Confirmation of the Reason
While the lack of certificate renewal appears to be the reason, no one from Riot has confirmed it. There may have been other reasons for the issues, but it seems unlikely. Given that Riot has not made a statement about the reason, we probably will never know the exact reason behind the Client outage.
The Client Is Fixed
At the time of writing, the League Client is back up and running. Reports have suggested that Riot has renewed the Client certificate for 100 years. That likely means most of us will not be around when it needs to be renewed. Who knows what will happen to League of Legends in that time?
A couple of weeks ago, Riot announced a new Client coming in 2027. The certificate will likely apply to the Client, but we will have to wait and see what that will look like. Further details on the updated Client will come later this year, with Riot targeting the period between the Mid-Season Invitational and the World Championship.
Season 16 is Around the Corner
Season 16 is bringing many changes to Summoner’s Rift. From new Role Quests, new items, a new theme, and missing objectives, Season 16 promises to excite players. Many have already had access to the changes through the PBE Client. However, Riot will likely implement further adjustments based on player feedback.
Professional Players have had access to the tournament realm, which utilizes the Season 16 changes. They are using these to prepare for the upcoming professional year. Patch 26.01 goes live on Thursday, after League went on a five-week patch absence. With almost all of the Riot employees off for the holidays, no patch was scheduled. Fortunately, the certificate expired after the holidays. Otherwise, we might have gone weeks without having access to League of Legends.
