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

[PyroMenace]

I'm going through yet another problem with this piece of shit console, and from what Ive looked up about it, this problem is completely isolated and totally unique to me cause I've heard of no one else with the problem. The deal is I can't download any, ANY media thats media rights protected. I get this error that says "Media Usage Rights could not be downloaded blah blah blah...". Now the error itself isnt that rare, it was more prevalent in Canada last month when the amount of users for Xbox Live increased a lot, and it had something to do with ISP companies. My problem is different. This error is not connected to my ISP, not my Xbox Live account, and not even to my hard drive, but to the console itself. This puzzles me as I assumed a console without a hard drive was just like any other 360 console, apparently not. I took it over to K-Mans place and we switched hard drives on our consoles and discovered I was able to download content just fine with my hard drive on his console, but he wasn't able to download videos at all with this hard drive on mine. According to my dashboard version its completely up to date. Once again, I'm completely fucked. I'm going to call the support line and curse some Indians out.

[Xessive]

He has seen the liiiight...

I know I'd be pretty ticked off if I were going through all that. Wish you the best of luck man.

[Pugnate]

I'm going to call the support line and curse some Indians out.

hahahaha.... hahaha... I really laughed out hard at that one.

Pyro: I see a fucking red circle again!

Indian tech support girl: Where sir? On your Xbox 360?

Pyro: No, on your fucking forehead! OF COURSE THE 360!

[Xessive]

hahahaha.... hahaha... I really laughed out hard at that one.

Pyro: I see a fucking red circle again!

Indian tech support girl: Where sir? On your Xbox 360?

Pyro: No, on your fucking forehead! OF COURSE THE 360!

Hahahaha Oh man Imagine! hehehe

[Pugnate]

For those who don't get the red circle reference, search for "Indian girl red dot forehead" on google images.

[MysterD]

Sheesh, no wonder I stick w/ PC gaming....

Damn, Pyro -- that really sucks.

Lawsuit, Pyro!

[Cobra951]

Don't make this about PC vs consoles, D.  There's enough of that here already.

Pyro, that makes no sense.  My 360 started as a core system, no HDD.  I added one later.  I've not had any problems.  Is the box you have now the same one you started with?  I know there can be issues if your box dies and gets replaced with a different one.  Protected content is tied to both your account *and* your individual console, so when you take your HDD and move it to another box, you can only use content you bought by being logged into Live.  The only other thing I can think of is that XBL identified your box as modded.  There have been stories of users getting shut out unfairly because of errors in the system that identifies modded consoles.  I wonder if it's even possible that some people got repaired units which were modded, and the repair techs didn't catch it.  (You don't get your own box back when you send it in, but one from a pool of already serviced units.)

You had to send yours in, right?  I know someone here did.  If you got back a different unit from the one you sent in, and it's definitely the cause of your woes, I'd call up and get it taken care of.  Just be sure it isn't the problem I mentioned (about having to be logged into Live to use downloaded content) because that one everyone with a replaced 360 has to deal with.

It's a bunch of shit.  No doubt.  I'm definitely not defending them.  Good luck, man.

[Xessive]

I was tempted to turn this into a PC vs Console battle, but that wouldn't do anyone any good. It doesn't fix Pyro's situation. I will say however that one of the strengths of consoles is that such problems are supposed to be minimal to non-existent.

Honetsly with all the problems Pyro's been having a replacement is what should have been done on behalf of the manufacturer.

[MysterD]

I was tempted to turn this into a PC vs Console battle, but that wouldn't do anyone any good. It doesn't fix Pyro's situation. I will say however that one of the strengths of consoles is that such problems are supposed to be minimal to non-existent.

Yeah, keyword is "supposed to."

Really, though -- WTF is Microsoft doing here??? First the red circle issues, now this crap???

It's not like the X360 is an unpopular console, either....this thing shouldn't be having *that* many issues...

Honetsly with all the problems Pyro's been having a replacement is what should have been done on behalf of the manufacturer.

And then some.
This is ridiculous.

[Cobra951]

The 360 situation is an absolute clusterfuck, and I hope MS loses another few billion on the deal, some of it to lawsuits.  Put together the poor hardware design with their obsession about controlling every bit and byte that goes through the pipe, and it's a wonder anyone has an easy time with it.  I guess enough XBL users haven't been screwed yet.  Every time I turn mine on, I wonder if that's the day my nightmare starts.  I've never had that kind of trepidation handling any other console.  I jumped in with both feet, though, and at this point I'd lose way too much if I told MS to shove it all up their ass, where I guess it came from in the first place.

Pyro, how old are you, man?  I know we have at least one teen around here.  XBL now blocks minors from getting any M content.  It's based on your account stats, and there's nothing you can do other than creating a new account.  Just a passing thought . . .

[PyroMenace]

Don't make this about PC vs consoles, D.  There's enough of that here already.

Pyro, that makes no sense.  My 360 started as a core system, no HDD.  I added one later.  I've not had any problems.  Is the box you have now the same one you started with?  I know there can be issues if your box dies and gets replaced with a different one.  Protected content is tied to both your account *and* your individual console, so when you take your HDD and move it to another box, you can only use content you bought by being logged into Live.  The only other thing I can think of is that XBL identified your box as modded.  There have been stories of users getting shut out unfairly because of errors in the system that identifies modded consoles.  I wonder if it's even possible that some people got repaired units which were modded, and the repair techs didn't catch it.  (You don't get your own box back when you send it in, but one from a pool of already serviced units.)

You had to send yours in, right?  I know someone here did.  If you got back a different unit from the one you sent in, and it's definitely the cause of your woes, I'd call up and get it taken care of.  Just be sure it isn't the problem I mentioned (about having to be logged into Live to use downloaded content) because that one everyone with a replaced 360 has to deal with.

It's a bunch of shit.  No doubt.  I'm definitely not defending them.  Good luck, man.

Yea I can't make any sense of it either. And yea, I sent it in and got it back just last week. They gave me the same one back since it had the same serial number, and I know some parts were replaced since I took note of what kind of optical drive I had in there before I sent it out. I had a Samsung drive, then I got it back with a Phillips drive, I was able to know by this picture.



But what you say about it perhaps being identified as modded sounds interesting, I didn't think of that. When I switched my hard drive over on K-Man's console, I logged into my account and was able to download stuff normally, so its not linked to my account or the hard drive. We isolated it down to the console.

Cobra: I'm 25, there should no restrictions on my account, and Ive looked through the control options on the console to make sure all content is set on allowed.

[Cobra951]

Then maybe whatever they did to it internally triggered an overly sensitive banning mechanism.  If there's any other explanation, I can't think of it off the cuff.

Edit:  Interesting picture.  The Hitachi tray just popped out on mine. 

[MysterD]

Ewww @ Phillips!

I had so many issues w/ them, for optical drives in my previous PC -- namely, CD-Burner drives. I had so many of those burn-out, for no reason what-so-ever under my old PC's warranty; and replace. Around 3 or 4, if I recall correctly; in a matter of no time, too. They're crap.

Man, seriously -- Microsoft really owes you a new X360, HDD, free subscription for XB Live for some good amount of time (like forever!), and then some for all the crap you're putting up w/ them.....

Bleh at this mess!

[PyroMenace]

Im on the line with them right now. This guy is a little more competent than the last guy I talked to a couple days ago, but he's in way over his head on this one.

[PyroMenace]

They couldn't do anything, or at least the guy I talked to was an utter fuck wit.

[Pugnate]

Is he Indian?

[PyroMenace]

From what I could tell he was. They all are and half the time your trying to decipher broken english.

[Xessive]

From what I could tell he was. They all are and half the time your trying to decipher broken english.

I can imagine the frustration man. I have to deal with a printshop here (sending artwork for prints etc.) and they just barely speak English so it's difficult to explain things to them. Fortunately what I can't explain in words I can sometimes draw for them to see.

I don't get why won't they just replace the console though?

[Quemaqua]

The audacity of these companies to ship their customer service overseas... it infuriates me more than I can tell you.  I've had to deal with it before, and if I had to deal with it again, somebody would probably die.

Anyway, this sucks man.  The Samsung drive just popped out of my unit, interesting picture.  I've not had good luck with Philips in the past... I wonder if their drives are anything to worry about.  I'd guess not in the grand scheme of things, but who knows.  Wish I had some good advice for you.  Did they give you any kind of hope at all?  Did they tell you that you could send it in again and maybe get it fixed with a new unit or something?

[Pugnate]

I have to say, of those three, I'd rather have Phillips purely because I have no experience with them. 

I've bought two Samsungs, and they both crapped out within a year, which is incredible. The LGs my cousins had, all came with heating issues. Meanwhile my 1999 Creative DVD drive is still in perfect functional order.

[Ghandi]

[Quemaqua]

I would totally laugh at that, but I think Pyro is going to kill Ghandi as soon as he gets back from work.  And I don't want to die today.

[MysterD]

I have to say, of those three, I'd rather have Phillips purely because I have no experience with them.

Ewwww...you're crazy!

I've bought two Samsungs, and they both crapped out within a year, which is incredible.

Oh yuh -- that's basically what happened with my Phillips CD-Burner, on my old PC.

And worst of all, the Phillips CD-Burner was VERY picky on what CD's I'd use to burn CD's onto, too -- some types, just wouldn't allow for burning, for some reason.

Never had that problem once I switched to Lite-On.

My DVD drive also was a Phillips on that PC, and that burnt out, too. And that had to be replaced, too -- luckily that got replace (under its warranty) with a Sony DVD-ROM; and that hasn't crapped out since.

The LGs my cousins had, all came with heating issues.

Bleh.

Meanwhile my 1999 Creative DVD drive is still in perfect functional order.

Really???
Wow!

I bet you got a lot of use out of that drive, eh?

[Ghandi]

I would totally laugh at that, but I think Pyro is going to kill Ghandi as soon as he gets back from work.  And I don't want to die today.

Hahaha...

I'm glad that I decided against drawing tears.

[PyroMenace]

No actually that really made my day, that was hilarious.

[gpw11]

For some reason this comes to mind.

[Pugnate]

D, I guess Phillips is out as well. They all suck then.

I got a lot of use out of my Creative for sure.

[scottws]

I have to say, of those three, I'd rather have Phillips purely because I have no experience with them. 

I've bought two Samsungs, and they both crapped out within a year, which is incredible. The LGs my cousins had, all came with heating issues. Meanwhile my 1999 Creative DVD drive is still in perfect functional order.

Samsung makes some good stuff, but their optical equipment is most certainly excluded from that.  Their optical drives are - by far - the worst I've ever dealt with.  They are utter pieces of shit.

[PyroMenace]

I just got an email back from support, they are telling me to call the support line... god help me.

I fail to see what they can do by phone, they can't do by email. Details are much more clear and better explained by email. Fucking hell.

[Pugnate]

Man that sounds so frustrating.

[scottws]

Here's the way I look at it.  Microsoft is a large corporation that employs a lot of people.  It's quite possible lots of those people don't know the true function of other departments in Microsoft or don't know where something should go that isn't handled directly by their department.

It happens all the time where I work.  You know what you and your department don't do, but if it's like a special case or request, no one in any department knows what to do because it doesn't fall in that explicit realm of what you do.

[Cobra951]

I've had my own frustration with it for a good year.  Since I don't care about multiplayer generally, it doesn't bother me very much, but it's just wrong, and even more wrong that no one steps up to make it go away.  I can almost never connect to game servers.  I've tried opening specific ports on the router, and even DMZ'ing the 360's IP address.  One out of, oh, 10 times it connects.  The rest of the time, attempts result in a frozen screen until a timeout minutes later (or an exit to the dashboard in disgust).  Last night, replying to an invite to multiplayer in Burnout Paradise ended up with me having to exit the game entirely.  The Start and Back buttons stopped responding.  Is that weird or what?  Turns out I was visible to my Friends list, and was able to get the invite, but I was not connected to the game servers.  That I guess sent the game to some altered reality, and eventually to one of those interminably long waits on the "connecting to servers" screen.

No one seems to be able to answer this, and all I ever get in response to official queries about it is the runaround.  "Check with the other guys" or "it must be your fault", basically is what the answers boil down to.

[scottws]

That sounds unusual.  I never had such a problem.  Did you run the network test and it all came back ok?

[Pugnate]

It being a special case makes sense. I guess they'd rather bounce you around than try to handle it individually. I think once you are bounced around enough on record, you will get help from a higher up.

[Cobra951]

Yes, the 360's network test always comes back OK ("NAT Open" in particular).  Let me ask you a quick question, Scott.  What's the deal with UPnP?  The EA support page mentions it would be desirable to set up the router to support it, but I see absolutely nothing on UPnP on the router's config app, or over at Linksys (WRT54GS).

I've not pushed very hard for answers because of my general lack of interest in online contests.  XBL works without a hitch for everything else.  It's just that being compulsive, it bugs me.  Last night's failure to launch only brought the annoyance to the forefront again.

[scottws]

I turn off UPnP and use discreetly opened ports.  UPnP is a stupid service that auto-opens ports on your router (if it's enabled).  What's to stop some virus or trojan on your PC from using UPnP?  As far as I can tell:  nothing.  Anyway if you know what ports to open, UPnP is not necessary.  I believe Xbox Live uses UDP port 88 and TCP/UDP port 3074.

As far as your issue enabling UPnP, I'm not sure how much I can help.  I have a Linksys WRT54GL, but I use the Tomato firmware.  I know it supports UPnP, but I'm not sure if the default Linksys firmware does or not.  I thought it did, but I couldn't tell you where in the interface you enable it.

[Cobra951]

Yes, those ports are open to the 360's IP.  I got them from the EA support page.  Thing is I can connect occasionally.  If I connect once and it works right once, then it seems to me I've done everything right, even if it fails every other time.     Or . . . I don't know or what.  If it works once it should work always, if the rules stay the same.  I think they suck, but I can't prove it.  Maybe they only suck with some people on some ISPs with some routers that run some firmware.  If there's no workable answer, fuck it.  The problem is not widespread enough for them to care, and online gaming is too low of a priority for me to care enough.

I definitely don't want ports opened by some unknown mechanism behind my back.  No UPnP for me, thanks.

[Cobra951]

Scott, more network madness.  EA support sent me a link to the Ultima Online Trace Utility and told me to do a trace route to easo.ea.com.  [snip]

Edit:  Never mind.  I'm an idiot.  I'm going to open a path for this app in my software firewall and get back with results then.  Duh.

Edit 2:  Interesting.  Do all those dead-looking hops create problems?  I also got a "max hops exceeded" message when it traced to #19 on the list.  It's an EA address, though, so I assumed it made it all the way?  I wish I understood all this stuff better.

[Pugnate]

Scottws: Master of networking.

[scottws]

Well, it is my major.