Frequent “Failed to connect to instance” disconnects on zone change

Hi there,

I've been experiencing a long-standing issue with Path of Exile 2 that I'm hoping you can help with. Very frequently—around every second or third time I change zones—I get disconnected to the title screen with a "Failed to connect to instance" message. This often happens when I use a portal or enter a new area. Sometimes it even happens within the same zone, although more rarely.

After such a disconnect, I typically cannot reconnect for 10–20 seconds or more. The client either hangs on authentication or shows errors like "Unable to connect to server." Eventually, it does let me back in.

This has been happening since the early closed beta in December, not just since the 0.2 update. I originally played via Steam, but later switched to the standalone client, hoping it would resolve the issue — unfortunately, it did not. I've also tried multiple reinstalls.

Here are my system specs and current settings as requested:

System Info:
OS: Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (Build 26100.3476)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (Driver version: 572.83 – Game Ready)
RAM: 32 GB

Game Settings:
Renderer: Vulkan (also tried DX12, no change)
Triple Buffering: Off (same issue when On)
Engine Multithreading: On
Dynamic Culling: Off
Upscale Mode: Nvidia DLSS (Balanced)
Resolution: 2560x1440
Dynamic Resolution: Off

I play on Amsterdam or Frankfurt servers usually, but switching to different ones with reasonable latency doesn't seem to affect the issue.

I'm not using a VPN, and my firewall settings are default.

I'd really appreciate any insight into what might be causing this or how to work around it.

Thanks in advance for your time and support!