There’s a few bugs in the most recent Dashboard Update for the Xbox 360.
The first bug is affecting Windows Live Messenger. If either your Xbox Live or Messenger account was setup prior to being age 18, you can’t use Messenger on your 360. I know someone who is currently 24 that can’t use his Messenger account on his 360 because it was setup when he was 17 years old.
The next bug is with the official wireless networking adapter. Users with the official wireless adapter are having problems auto signing in to Xbox Live. Changing from the wireless adapter to a wired connection solves the problem instantly, as does using a wireless bridge or third party wireless gaming adapter. Changing the auto sign-in options for both Live and Messenger to Enabled does not solve the problem.
In a call to Xbox Support today, they confirmed they are aware of both issues and are working on fixes. When they’ll be available, no one knows. I’d expect within a week or two.
Have you experienced these or other issues with the most recent dashboard update? Let us know in the comments.
Interesting. I’ve been having issues with the auto sign-in myself but never even considered it was an issue with the ‘Official’ wireless network adaptor, especially since once I sign in my connection is just as solid as before the update.
ive been having problems with my controllers getting disconected whilst on live and its fucking annoying! theyl be fixed soon tho!
@James – I haven’t seen that issue yet, but you never know when Microsoft pushed out an update what it’s going to break. I’m hoping they get it fixed ASAP
I’ve got the official wireless adaptor and (touch wood) have had no problems with the auto sign-in. I wonder why it works for some and not for others?
I have the official wireless adapter and what it seems to do to me now is, it logs in my gamertag on startup, then it autologs into Live when I start a game up. If I want to just hit the marketplace at startup I have to manually log in.
@nostars – Interesting. I hadn’t tried playing a game before I was logged in to Live.
@Fistynuts – I’ve had intermittent times where I have been auto signed in, but most of the time it’s not working. I’m glad it’s working for you though! I’m hoping Microsoft issues a fix sometime soon, but I’m not getting my hopes up…
I have had the controller disconnect occur, it flashed that the controller was disconnected and then thirty seconds later just re-connected. It was odd and I just chalked it up to being a fluke. I hope this doeswnt persist. I also broke down and bought the extra fan for the back of my console because I was having lag problems when loading screens, hope that keeping my system cool and refreshed will help, if not it’s the glue factory for it.
The auto sign-in is also very much depends on you having a DVD in the tray. If no CD is found, the issue will go away,
if you do have the DVD in you might see it – from what i have seen a very small portion of users are seeing this problem. its probably related to specific set of consoles with specific set of DVD drive.
annoying yes, but i think it could be much worse..
I have had problems with the system freezing while in game or while browsing through the marketplace after doing the update. I was playing a game I’ve played many times before and the system froze and the screen turned black. I turned the system off and back on but got the 3 red lights. I fooled with the power cord for a while and finnaly it worked again, but it still freezes from time to time. My system has worked fine up until the update. I hope they fix this soon.
im having the exact same problem concerning the auto-sign in feature
hope they fix it soon
Well after this update my 360 is toast! It crashes in any game withen about 1 minute of play, if not before I even spawn.
It freezes while just sitting in the dashbaord. So I call the tech support and they eventually say I have hardware issues and the 3 red lights finally came on.
FYI this system is from January of 07 with absalutly no prior problems. Withen a day of downloading the update I had sever frezing problems. So now I have to send it in and miss the Halo3 beta test which i purchased crackdown for.
The update broke the in-game custom soundtracks in NHL 2k7. Any idea why?
Any word on a fix to whatever messed with soundtracks? My playlists show up in the game but will no longer play!!!
Yup, My system is freezing up already. Its really does suck because i dont belive they havent fixed this stuff alreday i mean yes it comes with patchs but could microsoft look these things over before they relesse the thing i wasnt expecting a update till summer. >.>;;
Never had a problem, right after installing the Spring Update, I’m getting 3 red flashing lights… UGH! I’m on hold with them now, they’re trying to get me a discount so I can get it repaired cheaper as I’m past the warranty date… They finally said they’d give me a 25% discount on repairs, bringing it down to $104, send me a box, I send it back, they send me a repaired one.
but if this was due to the Spring Update, why should I have to pay anything????
yea my xbox freezes all the time now! within 2 minutes of game play, BAM, FREEZE! its sooo anoying and stressful cause i dont want to pay out the butt to get it fixed. so does anyone know any new news on what they might do about this or what they have had to do to get this fixed?
I purchased my 360 the day it was released, never had ANY problem. The day the spring dashboard update reached my system, it has been freezing ever since. It even freezes on xbox live arcade games, so I know it’s not a disc or drive issue. I’d sure appreciate any info anyone might have.
Here’s my setup:
360 Premium, MFR date April 06
Horizontal setup, well ventilated on a tv stand near the floor.
I’ve had my 360 for about 11 months now. Never had an issue with freezing (only a couple disc read errors, but that’s normal). After spring update, 5/7/06, I’ve been able to play Gears of War nightly for a couple hours at a time… until last weekend.
The freeze occurs at random – GoW or xbox arcade. Sometimes the game would freeze after an hour, sometimes 10 minutes. There’s no pattern to it and it becomes progressively worse. Screen freezes, screen goes black, screen gets weird static lines, screen turns solid red/pink. There are no red lights, disc in drive still spins, controller vibrates.
Today, the system is finally unplayable and freezing even before I get to the xbox dashboard. Then I get the red lights… 3 red lights… ring of death. M$ is kind enough to repair my xbox since it’s still under warranty, but it should not have broken to begin with. I am convinced something is askew with the spring update.
I have a launch console too which i updated with the spring update and got 3 red flashing light…Apparently because its now out of warranty M$ want me to pay to get it fixed..Im so annoyed
ever since the update I only get a greenish picture via my RGB cable in games and in the dashboard – when I watch videos (DVD, trailers, etc.) the colors are fine but the moment I leave the video player the screen flickers and gets an annoying green hue again
what I hate about this is that there’s no reason to get rid of the update (no system-restore function FTL, I guess) – I could live with not being able to use XBL anymore (at least for the near future) but now I simply cannot play my games
I have a 2nd shipment 360- bought back in December of 2005. Up until this point I have had ZERO problems with my xbox 360. Now this update causes the system to crash ever more frequently, and then with the 3 flashing red lights problem. I am certainly out of warranty.
So they are making people pay to get this fixed? I smell lawsuit- class action. Think about it- Microsoft sends a program through the XBOX Live site presumably to enhance the features of the box as has been done many times before, but instead it destroys the box. They broke it, not me. I have no intention to pay for them to repair what they broke. I have been inconvenienced long enough- they need to do whatever it takes to correct the problem at thier expense. If not, and they are charging people to repair this problem, think about it-
Your xbox goes out of warrantee in a year. Then you had better never patch it or else it could be destroyed. What’s to prevent them from intentionally destroying all out-of-warranty 360’s in order to reap the benefits of renewed sales and/or repair costs. Sounds like a shady care-repair shop to me…
hey, my 360 freezes with in 2 min playing.and i just got it back from ms repair.i called them back and they said theres nothing they can do because my warantty is up.and im not going to pay for them to fix it. WHAT SHOULD I DO.PLEASE HELP ME
Same problem as others. No problems in over a year, and tonight after being too busy to use my xb the past couple of weeks I get the notice for the update. Immediately after the update, nothing it won’t even start up. No red lights, no flashing lights, nothing, just the green power icon. After 20 minutes on the phone with xb they agreed to give me a 75% discount on the repair, but I fully believe it is the update that caused whatever problem currently exists. Now I have to pay $35 to fix their problem.
I have the same problem as all the guys above. I got my 360 at Christmas, and it’s always worked beautifully, until now, after I downloaded the Spring Update. It took about a week to start screwing up, but now the thing will freez if I do anything like play a game in Xbox Live Arcade, or play a demo, or do a regular game, or even play a DVD! It is so annoying. Even though I’m still under warrenty, I don’t want to send it in, who knows what they’ll do to it. I just want them to send another patch fixing everybody’s Xboxs, because they’re all breaking.
Just as a side note, I noticed that just before it breaks you can hear the fan audibly slow down, and then it breaks, especially if it has to do any amount of graphics work after the fan slows down. Has anyone else noticed this? Listen to yours and tell me.
I have exactly the same experience as M$ btter fix it. Our box was bought jan 2006 with no problems until the march update!
I am having the same problem. I moved and hadn’t hooked it up to the internet. As soon as I did and it updated, I just get some white dotted lines here and there. Called M$ and they had me replace the cables. WOW no joy. They too want me to pay $195 to send it back for repair. I had a first shipment which got replaced and then the replaced one replaced too. After that the power supply went bad. I LOVE MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m having the freezing problem also, except I didn’t even know the system had updated! Thought my XBox had gone belly-up (just like my first one). Spent about 20 min on the phone with Microsoft, and they agreed to a BS 25% discount for repair. This seems like it can’t be a coincidence and they had better fess up to it quickly.
You can add me to the list, my 360 was purchased in Nov 06, worked fine until about last week. Installed the new dashboard update the week before that. Now it has crashed on start up as the logo is displayed, also was making a loud whirring sound when it froze. Freezes during game play, froze while on the dashboard, the dashboard freeze also came with weird a checkered pattern across the screen. No red ring of death just some weird behaviour. I’m no expert but from what my 360 has been doing I assume that it is a software problem. Anyone agree?
This is my second 360, I’m really pissed now, but what can I do about it other than jump through the hoops that MS tells me to jump through.
I’ve gone through two xboxes already….this last one was working fine since October of last year. Last week, got the notice that there was a xbox update available, I declined it cuz I just need to show someone a few pics I had. Displayed the first pic….system froze…got a green checkerboard type of thing across the screen. I shut down the system, it never booted up again…continuous 3 red lights. Tried for over a week unplugging stuff etc…no luck. Went to EBGames to get the system exchanged, they were out of the 360’s in 3 different locations because everyone has been bringing their system in because of defects. No one at EBGames could explain the sudden surge of defects with the 360s over the past week or two. Now, the more you read online, seems this last update option screwed up ALOT ALOT of people. M$ should in no way be charging people for their mess! Go into your local EBGames and ask about the recent 360 defects that have been coming in.
well im pissed console was working great then i decided to plug in the Ethernet cable every thing ok then told there was a update available for the dashboard updated.you guessed it …froze thought ok rebooted and nothing just the green light on power button and now what iam supposed to do line mircocraps pocket think not….
My system died within a few minutes of downloading and installing the update. 3 red lights. dead. MS claims there is no problem with the spring update, despite over 450 complaints in their own forum threads on the xbox.com site.
This is bs. My system was an original launch system. It was fine until that update, then it croaked.
Try this on for size….
I got the lucky three red lights right after I took it out of the box brand new. I sent it in (a hassle) and apparently they fixed it. Worked fine for 5 months until I unleashed the spring update on the console. The console works, but I can’t sign into xbox live (not a big deal to me) but on certain games I am no longer able to use any personal items saved to the hard drive (a big deal to me). Anyway, after the update, the console no longer does what I want it to do anymore. So I’m getting rid of it….the console and their buggy update will be in the trash can come Monday morning.
I just bought my Xbox360 1 month ago – no problems during wired gaming.
Just got the official wireless adaptor and instantly “auto sign-in” fails during start…
Has Microsoft fixed this problem yet or is there a wireless workaround ?
Ever since the spring update my adapter stopped working. I’ve gotten it to connect a few times but it usally disconnects after a minute or so.
I updated my xbox today (4th December) which as some new features added to the dashboard which I thought was realy cool. Untill i noticed the dashboard keeps freezing all the time and also any xbox game online freezes and wont let me play it . This is since i updated it.
Hey, Xbox 360 was realy kool , untill i found out that a live vision camera was watching me naked.. Yeah it was a set up but ive hated the box ever since!!!!!!
@ Amy:
No words can describe…. should have sent a poet…
After i got the update, my Xbox cant play any more games anymore
Whenever i put any disc in, it just says on the bottom “Disc Unplayable”
Any suggestions?
i got the red ring of death after it…. the guy on the phone said that they didnt test the new update with the old xbox 360 consoles on the newer elites and ones with hdmi ports in the back now i get to go a month without video games….i have no life
Damn, I’ve got my XBOX360 from day 1 it was released in the Netherlands, never had ny problems with the updates until the one from the 4th of December… I also use the original Wireless Adapter, it worked fine… But when I power on the console it freezes up randomly, sometimes when I play a downloaded (demo)game from Marketplace, sometimes when I play an original game, sometimes at booting (snowing screen), sometimes I got the Red Circles of Death…
I’m not going to pay for repair, this is a bug created by Microsoft and must be fixed by Microsoft for free!
Why do they release the Fall Update when it’s not tested on “older” consoles?
Look I was kinda sucked into purchasing a refurbished system from videogame911.com after them telling me my unit i sent in was too damaged which was BS, but what can you do, I paid the 200 and got a refurbished thinking that whatever problems it might have would show up soon under the warranty. It worked fine the first 2 months I had it. I moved and didnt touch it for about 4 months and now I plug it in this past week. Im having all kinds of problems.
First it had minor freezing after around 3-5 mins of gameplay. Reboot.
Getting the same thing: freezing again and again.
Then last time i tried I got the checkerboard effect and rebooted and got Red lights of death.
So now im on here doing some research and I hate microsoft because of this nonsense.
I read about were the update should help so for the first time I set it up for connection and applied the update and the xbox restarted.
I was too happy to see that it had no signs of freezing up as I was in the dashboard. So started playing GH2 and took about 10 mins to freeze. It was worse it froze to a screen of nothing but static and colored boxes. And once again the red lights after rebooting. I threw the shit in my closet.
I was just planning on buying rock band and assassins creed for some fun but now my plans gone to shit and Im not paying anymore 200 for a piece of shit system. I hope a new update helps fix my problem.
Oh P.S I cant send it in to MS its a refurbished system from videogame911.com
i’ve been having some problems with my dashboard for a while, i have even had plenty of different 360 all that experience the same problem… i have to sign out and sign in in order to get a connection that wont just kick me out in 2 minutes… but ever since the update it has been much worse, i have to sign in and out like 10 times in order to get a decent connection… and a lot of the time it makes me freeze up trying to sign in and out so much. everything it does takes longer now and a lot of functionality has been acting up, like checking messages or joining parties will say things like “can’t be processed over x-box live at this time.” i didnt even think that it would have anything to do with the update until my friend asked me if my system started freezing since the update, then i realized that it was around the time of the update that my system started acting up.
Have any of you guys found out something yet. This thread is, as I can see, only about bitching about the same problems over and over without any clue what could help us.
Btw I have the same problem and I really googled for the answer without any luck. It looks like M$ was not checked this thing through.
Only thing I can hope for now is that the next update will fix my xbox.
Or else I’ll go for PS3.
I’ve called the Microsoft XBOX helpdesk in The Netherlands, they told me the problem is only with the “older” XBOX 360’s, not with the newer models. It seems that Microsoft forgot to test this update on the older models! I told them that I’ve got the Red Rings of Death after I applied the Fall 2007 Update and the nice woman from Microsoft told me they will fix this @ no charge! They send me an UPS barcode, told me to call UPS to make an appointment to let them pick up the XBOX 360 at the time I wanted…again @ no charge! Yeah Microsoft! Finally the support we need (and supposed to get) from Microsoft and they’re not afraid to admit they made an error… The XBOX was picked up last Friday, Microsoft told me it will take about 3-5 weeks to get it back… Really Cold Turkey!
Don’t forget, if you’re going to send the XBOX to Microsoft, to remove the front face (if it’s not the default one), remove the HD and to check if you didn’t leave a game or movie in the DVD player… Send it without any cables to Microsoft!
@Zapp: Forgot one thing to let you know: I’m going to buy a PS3 anyway! You should do 2… It’s the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market 2day
Will have the following @ home in a few weeks:
PSX, PS2, PS3, PSP, XBOX, XBOX360, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii.
Nice going DaDude.
My warranty has however expired and I either have to wait for new update or try something myself. But since its software related it will then require some hacking.
I hope that someone who has a clue about when update is coming of how to fix this freezing ass screen will post reply ’somewhere’ on the internet so I don’t have to go all the way and buy every shit that come out of Japan, as DaDude ;P.
If nothing comes up before GTA IV release then I will have to spend more money on useless hardware.
@Zapp, I bought the XBOX360 on the first day it came out, the warranty is also expired, Microsoft changed the warranty from 1 to 3 years when the XBOX is not working anymore after an update they released. Don’t know where I read it, it was a news statement from them after all the havoc after the XBOX updates…
So, just call the XBOX helpdesk and they will tell you what your options are…
So in your opinion only shit comes out of Japan? Whahahaha! I don’t think so…
Never had any problems with the Sony hardware, only with the XBOX and the XBOX360…
Thanks for the advice.
.
However I was bad boy and flashed my dvd firmware long ago, which means no warranty. When I talked about sh*t from Japan I really meant everything that comes from Japan, not only sony/nitendo products
Anyway I will check this thread again once I find solution, if any. Its games for windows from now on.
yea… this is actually happened to me right now and earlier in the day, i downloaded the update and now when i try to sign in it just has the rotating lights telling you its loading but i’ve been waiting for over 45 minutes and it hasnt done crap….
I turned on my 360 elite this morning to see an update pop up. I install it and the console restarts as usual.
Only this time my HDMI TV (bought specifially for the 360) is suddenly incompatible. I try resetting te console to default graphics settings using microsoft’s own guide for doing this and still have the same issue.
I can’t tell you what update it is as I can’t see or hear ANYTHING because of tis compatability Issue. Right now I’m waiting on Customer support to see if they can do anything (could be 24hours but I think it’ll be longer).