Pokemon Go: Why Is There a Red ‘Error’ Message When Trying to Conquer Gyms?

(Niantic)

Pokemon Go players everywhere are beginning to get a look at the new gym system, but some are quickly encountering a mysterious “error” message that displays when trying to conquer a gym. So what is this message, exactly?

The game really doesn’t provide any helpful information about it, but it seems that this message comes up when you try to conquer too many gyms. The game appears to have instituted a new rule in which players can only add Pokemon to 20 gyms. So far, almost everyone who has received that error message has noticed that they received it after trying to position a Pokemon in their 21st gym.

Although it might seem like one, then, the red error message is not a glitch; it’s Niantic intentionally trying to prevent players from overloading too many gyms with their Pokemon. Presumably, in a forthcoming update they will add in some explanatory text to the effect of, “Sorry, you have too many Pokemon in gyms.”

If you’ve received the red error message, all you can really do is wait until some of your Pokemon are defeated from gyms and come back to you. After all, there has never been a way to manually remove Pokemon from gyms; the only way is to wait until another player defeats your Pokemon and kicks it out. With the new update, though, it seems that Pokemon will be defeated a lot quicker if you don’t feed them berries, as their motivation quickly drains and they become more and more vulnerable in battle. If you’re hoping to bring some Pokemon home, simply do not feed them any berries, and some should be back before you know it.

Some players are also receiving a similar red error message when trying to feed Pokemon berries. This seems to be a completely unrelated issue, with the game giving these players an error message because they have fed too many Pokemon berries in a row.