Family membership wont work for anyone - Nintendo Switch Forum (2024)

Hi everyone! last night we created a family group, added everyone we wanted to be in it and purchased the nintendo online family membership. it works for me as i bought it on my console and 3 others still had individual memberships remaining but my mother in law who has had a switch for about a year but never for the membership it doesnt work for her it says that she doesnt have a membership whatsoever and we cant figure anything out at all and we’ve tried everything!! please help

I believe the family membership is for same console only. In other words, you can either buy online for a single player profile, or you can pay a little more so that every player profile can access it. Pretty sure it doesn't work across multiple consoles.

@Mountain_Man we all joined a family group and then we paid £31.95 for the nintendo switch online family membership and it just doesnt work

If you're trying to access online from a console other than the one you used to purchase the membership, then it's not going to work.

@Mountain_Man This is wrong. It isn't bound to a switch. It's connected to your family.

@ok1 The family account is tied to the account that bought it. The other family member accounts need to be linked to the account that bought it, which is done in your nintendo account on nintendo's website. You can add/link other accounts in there. (if you want reliable info, you're better off asking nintendo support. As far as I know nintendo UK is email only. (Pre-pandemic they had a phone line, but I don't know when that will be active again))

You can find directions for most everything on nintendo's support page too, if you search there. https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/contact

@annaliciah try taking them off then adding them back on the group again. Each member should get a email that they accept as soon as you add them and join, then you should get a email saying they are in your family group.

@ok1 you are correct.

@1UP_MARIO we tried that and it didn’t work

@WoomyNNYes i did everything the video said to do in the first place and it doesn’t work still

I wonder if people did click the verification on their actual email account?

@SwitchForce yes they all definitely did we all live together so we all saw each other do it

@annaliciah That sounds very strange that you've followed all the steps and it's still not working. If you open the Nintendo Switch Online menu from the home screen, does it say 'Family Membership' next to your profile icon up the top? And if so, if you click on that then click on 'Check Family Group Members', does everyone you added show up in the list?

As others have said, you're completely wrong. If you're going to advise people, check your facts. I share my family group membership with users of this forum. We've never met and certainly do not share one Switch between us.

@BenAV it only says family membership on my account but on my mother in laws it said “no membership” and everyone else still had individual memberships remaining so on their switches it says its on an individual but my mother in law has never had a membership and its just not working. ive checked to see whos in it loads of times and its still the same people ive removed and re added everyone and it doesnt seem to work

@annaliciah If it's correctly showing up as a family membership and everyone is correctly showing up as part of the group then I can't think of what might be causing it to not work. Every time I've added someone to my family group, it's worked straight away without issue. You might need to contact Nintendo.

@BenAV ive already contacted nintendo but theyve been no help so far

@annaliciah Have you logged into your Nintendo Account (accounts.nintendo.com) online, using a phone or pc web browser, and using the account details of the user that registered the family account?

This is what I see in my account:

If I click on the Family Group button it takes me to a list of members of my family group. Have you looked at your equivalent page?

@gcunit yes i have and everyone we want is on there

@annaliciah Has your mother-in-law turned the Switch completely off, then on again, and is it running the latest system firmware update?