It takes a few seconds to connect, usually.
Exspecially when there's a lot of people on

Huh..Weird. I was having similar issues today, but exiting and re-entering helped. At least this time.
The server might be glitchy today.

Edit;;
Just tried getting on and it took a few tries. Sometimes the server's glitchy, I guess??

I've seen candles around the Ruins, playground, etc when having connection issues, but I did eventually get on after a few minutes.

But I also have been randomly disconnected during weather changes before. (But there's not weather changes currently)

I was connected, playing with everyone I found. When I noticed that deer who were laying down would sit up and not be sleeping like they had been, I got concerned.
Then, all the deer disappeared. The pictos poofed as well.
I reconnected, thinking it was a problem on my side.
Reconnecting multiple times showed no pictos, and yet the connection data in the network tab within options said there was 40+ players connected. Yet none were showing up.
After multiple attempts, a modem reset, and a computer restart, pictos began showing up, but no deer.
Candles appeared at the playground as I wandered, but I didn't stay near them to see if they stayed.
I'd never heard of candles appearing during connection issues, but I did think it was a bit early for the halloween decorations to begin appearing. But assumed it was just going to go up now instead of later.
Pictos finally did start spreading, but only one or two unique ones showed up, the rest were all 'nameless' showing my own picto, rather than their own.
I did finally come across two stagnant deer, but they vanished.
I've just restarted, once more. I heard a lowing, and I can see a few shaded pictos on my borders, but I don't know if there's deer at them or if it's just shadows again.
Someone just bellowed, and the picto lit up. So I'm guessing whatever was wrong is now fixed. But I didn't do anything this time except restart, again.
This lasted roughly four hours.
I could see there were people connected. I was logged in, but I had no deer, or stagnant deer. Several times deer simply disappeared, and I was logged out.
The issue was ruled out as being my modem or connection. As multiple connection tests over multiple devices proved my connection was stable and working properly. It appears to have been a communication issue with the forest's servers.

Yeah, a reinstall was my last ditch effort. I was going to do that if the problem persisted until morning.
This had all the earmarks of something gumming up the server side, and finding out I wasn't the only one having some issues makes me a little more convinced that it was something serverside.
PM had to log in a couple of times, and I know a few other deer who were having troubles too.
I think there was a minor issue at the server farm that caused a hiccup, and my connection just freaked out unlike everyone else's.

I don't think it's worth reinstalling, especially if it's a connection issue, sometimes the server is just like
"lol nah" to peoples games sometimes. Though you can still try, doesn't hurt.

Those brief candles are definately a sign of connection issues, nine times out of ten if I see them while my game is connecting and I know for sure there's no legit candles inforest, my connection will definately be in the yellow or I won't get a spread at all.

TEF really needs a new server

I have very bad connection myself but it's because I am very far away from my motom.

One trick I use when I am having really bad connection issues is open up two TEF windows at the same time and let them both load, usually the second window will load everyone.

To do this you must have TEF "Run in a Window" which you can do going to "Esc" and then "Display"

If this doesn't work, I keep opening and closing TEF until it loads