Wordle fail — some players just lost their streaks and stats

Update: Our own Henry T. Casey has got a slick Worlde trick to keep his streak going.

Everyone's favorite daily word game Wordle has completed its move to The New York Times today, but the migration has left some players furious after their stats were lost.

The viral hit was bought by the NYT for a figure in the "low seven figures" a couple of weeks ago, having gone from just a handful of players to more than a million daily users in the space of a month. But while the NYT and the game's developer Josh Wardle both promised those all-important stats would transfer over seamlessly, that hasn't been the case for everyone.

Several players have taken to Twitter to reports that they've lost their streaks — their record of successive victories — or even all their data including win and loss percentage. 

This may not seem like a big deal to those of you who don't play it, but us Wordlers are very protective of our streaks (I'm at 39, in case you're interested). Competing with friends, or strangers over Twitter, is a big part of the game — and without those stats, there's no way to prove how much of a genius you are.

The NYT itself has given mixed messages about the issue. The game's help page contains this fairly definitive statement: 

How can I transfer my game statistics to the new Wordle site?

We have automatically transferred your game statistics (including streaks) to Wordle’s new home on New York Times Games. Nothing to do on your end.

However, directly below that, it then raises the possibility that stats could have been lost — seemingly in contradiction of the first statement:

Help! My game statistics or streaks did not migrate correctly.

We have automatically transferred your game statistics to Wordle’s new home on New York Times Games. If your data looks a little different than you remember, first ensure you are opening the game on the same device and browser you used previously. Your game data is stored locally on your browser and your statistics will automatically transfer without any additional action on your part.

And today, the NYT has gone further and admitted on Twitter that some players have definitely been affected and that it is "currently investigating."

The problem is seemingly random, although presumably there is some logic behind it. Tom's Guide Senior Writer Kate Kozuch has lost all of her stats (and isn't happy about it), but several others have been entirely unaffected. 

On the plus side, some affected users have apparently been able to get their stats back.

The issue appears to be related to browsers getting confused by the redirect implemented to send users from the game's original home at powerlanguage.com to its new one at https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle. And the fixes suggested — which we haven't tried ourselves — all involve tricking the browser into thinking it's still at the original URL, even if only briefly. 

For instance, one user reported that they were able to fix the issue by "copying the migration URL into Chrome" and another solved it by clearing their browser history for the last hour or so.

Hopefully the NYT will be able to restore everyone's streaks and win percentages and not fuel the idea that it will ruin one of 2022's big success stories. 

This problem aside, there's no sign of that happening yet. Wordle is still free to play and the NYT has changed very little in the migration. The font is slightly different, the Twitter link out goes to the NYT Games account rather than to Wardle's own, and there's a menu that lets you jump to other NYT games — but otherwise it's the Wordle you already know and love. 

If you've not yet joined the Wordle bandwagon then now is as good a time as any to start, so check out our Wordle tips including the best Wordle start words and how to play the Wordle Archive.

Read next: Your Wordle streak is about to get a multi-device boost — here's how to get it set up