Topic: Fuck Xbox Live, fuck Microsoft, and fuck my 360

[Pugnate]

I didn't know that.

[Cobra951]

Check my last post again, if you would, Scott.  I updated with a pic from the trace utility.  Thanks.

[scottws]

I'm not too good at traceroutes.  Those "missing" ones just don't respond to pings, but are handling the traffic.  I'm not sure why there are so many hops.  It only took me 14 to get to that server that is your last hop.  I didn't hit those ones you did, but then again it looks like you have RoadRunner.  I have Zoomtown.

What did they want to know from the traceroute?  I think it's funny they made you get some program to do that.  The only thing that's different from a normal traceroute (tracert command in Windows) is that it pings each point on the route 25 times.

[Cobra951]

Don't know.  I figured they wanted to know what was happening between home and their server.  I'm not sure how it helps anything.  I should get another reply by tomorrow.  Let's see what they say.

Was that 14th hop on yours the last one?  I got a message saying the max number of hops was exceeded (at 19).  I was wondering if there were any more places after that got cut off.

[scottws]

Well I don't know what your final destination was.  I just traced the route to that last IP (19th hop).  It was my 14th hop.  I didn't get any max hops exceeded messages.

[Cobra951]

In your UO Trace route information, we have found that the log in process is being held up when your routing hits any of the server switches that are dropping or lagging all data. Unfortunately, the issue you are experiencing indicates that in your routing to our log-in servers, the network appears to be congested in such a way that you cannot connect consistently and you may either need to contact your ISP directly and have them contact the owners of the following network point(s) you are experiencing issues with and have them reconfigure or have your ISP re-route your connection via proxy server to see if they can correct the issue that way. In both case, this troubleshooting lies more with the ISP’s which you are connected and passing through and will need to be addressed on that end.

So that's that, I guess.  I had similar problems in Test Drive Unlimited, which isn't an EA-published and supported game.  Between that and seeing the long traceroute, I'm inclined to believe this is not a cop out.  I guess the people to chase after next are at Time-Warner cable.  I'm almost completely sure it's not worth it.

How can using a proxy server speed things up?  I would've thought it would actually slow things down.

[scottws]

Nah, not really.  In a way, NAT routing is very similar to a proxy.

But yeah, that sucks.  You probably won't get anywhere with TWC.  Especially since cable is a shared service, maybe people in your area are excessively active on RR?  I don't know.

Maybe you could give Zoomtown or Duke Energy's Internet a shot.

[Cobra951]

The story, which I thought was finished, has moved on to a sequel.  Someone with the tag "TheSoldierBoy" was replying to problem threads at the Xbox 360 Paradise forum, trying to be helpful, and implying he's with Criterion.  His first name is Matt, and appears to be the genuine article.  I've managed to engage him in a PM conversation.  Here's the latest bit of importance:

Hi again, thanks for all the information, this is going to be useful. Can you just confirm if this is an ingame invite or a cross-game invite?

Also regarding the 100% loss listed in the screenshot. This isn't a problem as some servers won't respond to a ping (to prevent attacks) and this is reported as 100% loss. The important bit is that the connection to the server is successful so we need to investigate further.

Please be patient and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

-Matt

They're aware of the lousy behavior of the program when connections fail, and are planning an update soon, this week I think.  His take is obviously different from EA Support's.  He's taken the responsibility for the connection failures.  Obviously, all this presumes that he is in fact who he says he is.  If he's spoofing, he's doing a great job.

[scottws]

Right, yeah I said the same thing about the servers where there was 100% packet loss.  I don't know why it was so useful, but whatever.  If he knows what he's doing, then hopefully you can get a good resolution.

[PyroMenace]

Well I just formatted the hard drive on my 360. So its completely been wiped of everything, saved game data and all. XBox Live sign up is currently unavailable, figures, but once I can recover my gamertag I'll see if this fixes the problem. If it doesn't, I'm taking the 360 back, and I'll probably pick up an elite instead. I'm not dealing with support for this issue, cause I really doubt they can solve it. I'm wanting them to allow me to send it back to them to fix it, but they will fight to the death to prevent that. They will just give me the run around, try again later then call back, or I'll get some guy that cant understand what the fuck I'm saying. I've tried everything thats conceivably possible and nothing has worked, the only other option besides dealing with support and being extremely frustrated is to get rid of the piece of shit.

[Quemaqua]

I'll cross my fingers for you, man.  Failing that, I say we bomb some office buildings.

[K-man]

Yeah, Pyro's whole 360 debacle has been immensely ridiculous.

[PyroMenace]

Alright I tried emailing them, pretty much asking them if I can send it in for a repair, here's the email I sent:

I am sorry but I have resorted to emailing because support has been down for the passed couple days after repeated dropped calls. I really need someones help with this issue because it hasn't been resolved in 2 months. I've included passed emails so you can understand the problem better.

In January I had my console sent in for repairs, my console was getting 3 red lights. I got it back for the most part fixed, it plays games fine. Its mainly a problem with Live Marketplace. I cannot download any sort of media or videos specifically that has media usage rights. The error I am getting is this:

"Media usage rights could not be downloaded. Please try again later. Any points you used for this transaction have already been deducted from your balance and will not be deducted again.  Status code: 803c0002"

This is preventing me from downloading any media at all associated with media usage rights so that includes, movies, movie trailers, and TV show content etc. I have paid for 2 episodes that never have and will not ever download. I have called support several times only to find that they are perplexed at the issue and insist that I wait to see if it goes away. If you look at the emails below, theres one in which I wrote a list of all the things I have tried, which is everything that I and the support members thought of. I even switched out my hard drive for my 360 to a friends to see if it changed matters. The latest attempt that I made which was a last ditch effort was completely formatting the hard drive, which removed saved game data and all.

As you can see its a rather frustrating situation and I'm being as patient as I can with the matter. I did ignore the problem for sometime which is why its been so long. But after this period I have still been stuck back with the same problem, a problem as far as I could research on the issue, which is extensive forum hunting on various XBox forum boards including the official site, is completely isolated to me because all issues associated with this error were only temporary to a handful of movies for a short time span.

In the end what I am asking can be done is my console be sent away again for repair so someone from Microsoft can investigate the issue themselves since I have tried all that I can think of and I do not have the resources to go any further. If this can be done then you have my personal thanks and I will be glad to patiently wait through the process. Thanks.

- Corey

Now here is the response:

Hello Corey,

Thank you for writing Xbox Customer Support!

 We have received your email. As I understand, you are unable to download some contents from Video Marketplace that is media rights protected or licensed and you get an error message “Media usage rights could not be downloaded”. I apologize for the inconvenience that this might have caused you.

 Beginning in May 2007, the Xbox LIVE service will restrict the download or purchase of content based on geographic location of their console.

 Xbox LIVE will determine the user’s geographic location based on their console’s IP address upon login. If the content the user is trying to obtain is restricted in their geographic location, Xbox LIVE will block the purchase or download from occurring.

 Upon blocking content, the user recieves the following error message: "This item is not available from your current location."

 Licensing Compliance will primarily affect Video Marketplace content, as it is licensed only for U.S. distribution. Additionally, gaming content will be restricted based on government regulation. There are certain countries, such as Germany, where that content cannot be viewed per government regulation.

 Note: US military bases should not be affected by this policy due to the fact that Xbox LIVE worked with the Department of Defense to get as many bases immune from the restriction as possible. If a soldier calls Xbox Support and have restrictions on certain content while playing from a US base located outside of the US, they should have their case escalated to their base's commanding officer to have their connection placed on the official Department of Defense's network. Thank you for understanding.

 If you need to reply to this e-mail, please reply 'with history' (include any previous e-mail) so we can expedite our service to you.

 You may also call Xbox Phone Support at 1-800-4MYXBOX (1-800-469-9269) at your earliest convenience, and we’ll be happy to help you. We are open everyday from 8am to 12mn US Central Time.

 To expedite service, please provide Service Request Number 1056940443 when you call.

 Thank you for visiting Xbox.com. If you should have future questions on Xbox products or services, please be sure to revisit our Web site as we are continually adding information to enhance our service.

 Sincerely,

Martin
Xbox Customer Care Team

I guess they are asking me to wait till May. Fuck them.

[Quemaqua]

I hate support.  So useless.  I like how their email doesn't address anything you said in any capacity.

[beo]

Beginning in May 2007

check the date again.

they aren't asking you to wait, they're just telling you recycled and irrelevant information.

[scottws]

Where do they think you are?

[PyroMenace]

check the date again.

they aren't asking you to wait, they're just telling you recycled and irrelevant information.

Oh shit I did just notice that. I didnt even notice it since they were talking in future tense. So its like, I didnt even get any sort of solution, just a bunch of useless info.

[Pugnate]

They are just pasting useless info. You need to write everything including your correspondence and mail it to gamasutra, kotaku and joystiq.

[Cobra951]

What's wrong with this picture?



Take a fucking guess.

[scottws]

Sucks.

[Quemaqua]

Damn.  The nightmare begins anew.  Let us know how it turns out, Cobra.  And see if you can run Sins of a Solar Empire.  That'd be a great way to pass the time while your box is in the shop.

[Cobra951]

What's weird is that it's working.  It was working in that picture, see?  The RRoD is animated, and it went round and round for almost an hour as I continued to play.  The whole story is a bit more complicated.  The DVD speed dropped audibly, like when a disc can't be read at multiple-X in a PC reader, and it drops to a safe speed.  (That has happened to me before in other games, and I've always saved ASAP and rebooted.  It seldom happened again.)  A bit later, the game crashed with a nasty pop sound through the speakers.  I power cycled, and nothing.  Black screen.  No red ring.  I power cycled again, and it came up.  I went into the game, and it crashed on the opening screen.  3rd time was a charm, it came up, worked, then the red spinning started.  After I got over the shock, I noticed that things were loading up slow.  Textures popping in one by one, that sort of thing.  Then, it seemed to sort itself out.  I played the game for close to an hour.  Then I decided to see if another power cycle would make the red nightmare stop.  Thinking it might be related to the DVD reader, I ejected the game disc, powered off, waited about a minute, then powered back up with no disc.  Came right up without a hitch.  No red ring.  I looked for the most work-intensive thing I had on the HDD, and came up with the Crackdown demo.  Fired that up, and played it till it timed out.  That got me in the Crackdown mood, so I went for the full game.  In went the Crackdown disc, and I played it for hours.  It's off now.  Had other things to do.

I think it must be the fucking DVD reader.  It does sound louder and whinier than ever.  Some games make a lot more noise in there than others.  Have you noticed?  Mass Effect is one of them.  It probably stressed the borderline piece of shit into surrendering.  Problem is, now there's no RRoD anymore.  I have no doubt it will happen again sometime, but as long as it works, MS ain't gonna do shit for me.

Bitch, bitch.  Man, they suck.  Discs get hot in there, so it's no big leap to conclude that if the electronics survive the oven, maybe the mechanical components won't.

[Cobra951]

Well, it's fully broken now.  Goes to 3 red lights right away, with or without a disc.  I'm glad in a way.  I know this is covered.  Such a Christmassy look.  Red and green.

I sent an email to support at xbox.com.  I probably should call instead, but I don't feel like dealing with them right now.  I might lose my cool.  They're supposed to get back to me within a day. 

Pyro, what did you have to do in order to send it to them initially?  Any details would be helpful.  Thanks.

Edit:  I went ahead and called after all.  Spoke to a polite Indian guy.  They're sending me a box.  I have a feeling we are all going to go through this sooner or later, so, who's next?

[MysterD]

Damn, Cobra -- that sucks that you got the RRoD. Bleh.

Man, this RROD issue w/ these X360's must be costing Microsoft ridiculous amounts of $$$$.

[scottws]

Edit:  I went ahead and called after all.  Spoke to a polite Indian guy.  They're sending me a box.  I have a feeling we are all going to go through this sooner or later, so, who's next?

I'd say me, but my 360 has been in a box in the garage since June.  I'm probably going to sell it.

[PyroMenace]

Well, it's fully broken now.  Goes to 3 red lights right away, with or without a disc.  I'm glad in a way.  I know this is covered.  Such a Christmassy look.  Red and green.

I sent an email to support at xbox.com.  I probably should call instead, but I don't feel like dealing with them right now.  I might lose my cool.  They're supposed to get back to me within a day. 

Pyro, what did you have to do in order to send it to them initially?  Any details would be helpful.  Thanks.

Edit:  I went ahead and called after all.  Spoke to a polite Indian guy.  They're sending me a box.  I have a feeling we are all going to go through this sooner or later, so, who's next?

Yea you'll get the box and it'll have some instructions. Basically you put the console in without any cords, take the hard drive off and any disc in the drive out, then you put it in the box, tape it up and put the shipping label it comes with on there and send it out via UPS.  It used to come with a sheet that you filled out and checked what problem you were having and then filled out the reference number. This last time I didnt get that, and since I didnt have a red ringed console this time I typed out a description of what was wrong with it being as detailed as I could and sent it in with it.

The wait time is between 1 - 3 weeks. My first time it only took me one week. I sent mine out recently this passed Wednsday, I hoping I get the one week deal again, but Im thinking I wont be so lucky this time as I hear most people say its usually over that.

[Cobra951]

The guy made it pretty clear not to include anything except the bare console.  I asked specifically about the power supply, and he told me to leave that behind as well.  Worst case (other than getting back a broken console) is about a month from right now.  I can take a break for that long.  It will give me the chance to finally play through Twilight Princess, among other things.  Mass Effect doesn't have the immense pull for me that Burnout Paradise did, so I don't mind too much waiting to get back to it.

Damn, Cobra -- that sucks that you got the RRoD. Bleh.

Man, this RROD issue w/ these X360's must be costing Microsoft ridiculous amounts of $$$$.

Oh, I hope so.  I hope it ends up sinking them, or at least hurting them enough to make sure no one tries to push a defective design on consumers again.

[scottws]

It's killing them.  Aren't the loss estimates in the billions now?

[Cobra951]

They estimated a $1 billion loss on the additional warranty coverage.  I don't know if it's worse than that, but I have to believe now that the failure rate is at best one of every few consoles.  I couldn't have been more heat and power conscious with mine.  It had lots of room to breathe, and the temperature in here is never above 75.  Usually it's below 70 during the winter.  The house is perennially closed, always heated or AC'd.  The system was plugged into the APC UPS, which offers a lot of protection from power spikes, blackouts and brownouts.  Its only mistreatment was that I used it a lot.  I probably put 3 years of normal use into it over the past year and few months.  Which is why I'm inclined to think that it's only a matter of time before they all fail.  2 of us here have now red-ringed.  How many 360s among us, 6?  Every other console I have ever owned still works, or worked at least while I owned it.  I'm talking decades-old equipment.  The 360 is the first to ever fail.

[Pugnate]

I think they just don't make any piece of electronic like they used to.

Yes the 360 is just fucked regardless, but I find that most products of today just aren't built to last. I used to hear that when I was younger, and thought of it as something funny, that older people would say. But now I am convinced.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, what Pug said.  My PS2 is now failing (though that's mostly the disk laser calibration).  Otherwise, no bad luck so far.

[scottws]

Well to be fair the PS2 had a major problem with disc read errors.  Mine no longer works.  And the original NES had the whole blinking screen thing...



But yeah, it's true.  Things just are more disposable now.  My ice maker went out on my refrigerator this week.  We got the refrigerator in June!  My parents' worked for like 12 years.

[Cobra951]

Never had a problem with my NES, and my small PS2 is sitting close by.  I put about 160 hours into FF XII recently, without any problems.  I gave my daughter my PSX, and it still works.  The Gamecube I gave her fried the power adapter.  Got her a new 3rd-party one for $25, and it's all working fine.  My GC is in fine shape.  N64, works fine.  SNES, works fine.

[scottws]

Well yeah, other than the NES, the PS2, and the 360, I'm not aware of any other really common problems.

[Cobra951]

Got the box.  They supply everything, down to tape to seal the box and a return UPS label (which was stuck under a bottom box flap, and I made a tool of myself calling support about it, then having to backpedal when I found it--canceled initial ticket, new ticket, blah).  Off it went.  Now to hope the rest goes just as smoothly (except for well-hidden important paperwork).

One funny bit to the story.  I walk into the UPS store and tell the kid behind the counter that it's a warranty return, so there's a label on it already.  He said "oh yeah, we get about 3 of those a day".  I asked if he knew what it was.  "Xbox", he answered on the spot.  Give that man a cigar.

[PyroMenace]

Well I got mine back, and its still not working... just a big waste of fucking time this has been.

[scottws]

Amazing, did they not test it or something?

[K-man]

Amazing, did they not test it or something?

They probably didn't do a damn thing.  They probably turned it on, saw it didn't rrod, and boxed it back up.

Pyro seriously needs to compile everything he's done, edit it to where it presents really well, and then send it to a couple of video game news outlets.

[Pugnate]

Pyro seriously needs to compile everything he's done, edit it to where it presents really well, and then send it to a couple of video game news outlets.

Exactly...

[Cobra951]

I thought he had gotten the RRoD fixed.  I thought the problem now is that it won't download anything with media-rights restrictions, no?