Just to keep everyone up to date on what's going on with Live, let's post the problems we are having with live here. Do not use this thread for arguing as it will be locked like the other one. I, for one, am still having problems with COD 4 locking up and being unable to find games. Also my blades still take a long time to come up. Anyone else still experiencing these issues?

As of last night texas hold em games were dropping and gamer info on the blades was slow to load.

in Colorado here.

Good idea for a thread. Some may think its pointless and I know it wont get anything resolved, but I appreciate knowing that Im not the only one having issues.

East Coast, Rhode Island. Still buggy on COD4 as of last night. Blades and Friends lists loaded ok. Will try again today and update.

last night i couldnt play a cod4 online game

Cod4 worked good today, Midwest.

east coast (NY metro area)- can't recover gamertag

The problems really seem to happen at certain times and at different locations. I'll play for a couple hours with no problems, then around 9 or 10 it goes to shi*.

COD4 taking forever to find a game (about 2 minutes at times). Other than that, works like a champ.

Played me some H3 at around 11:30 last night here in New York City. I played some social rumble pit and didn't have any problems except for maybe taking a little longer than usual finding a game.

Still having problems w/ Madden 08. connection to the EA servers is flaky and the actual 360 will freeze on occasion trying to search for a game.

COD4 seems a little shaky still. Got a bit of lag last night online, and was quite difficult at times to find games. Vancouver here.

Still having problems w/ Madden 08. connection to the EA servers is flaky and the actual 360 will freeze on occasion trying to search for a game.

Try telling us where you're from so we know your location. :)

I live in RI and I know I was having issues checking messages, checking friends..

Having the same two issues as the poster, being blade issues (two of the blades are blank and as such I can't even see my game library unless I log out of xbox live) and COD4 performance is very poor. Sometimes I cannot find games, and when I can, it will time out, drop me when the game is starting, or say the lobby has closed.

Once I'm able to get into games it works fine for a while for the most part.

I'm in Texas and have minimal problems playing COD4 by myself. An occasional lobby closed. The real problems start when I try to invite my friends or join them by invite. We all get booted and dropped out of the party. The only way that has been successful is to chose the "join session" option. The problems seem to get a little better after that.

P.S. My dashboard is slow when connected to Live as well. I did find a way to unfreeze it 90% of the time though. Unplug the battery and then reconnect the controller.

1/7/08: 12:30p to 1:15p central in N. Texas, played COD4 without issue. I'll try getting on this evening.

I'm in PA and have been having problems with Madden for several days now including:

Not being able to play a friend
Online search freezing the xbox
Finding a quick match opponent but not seeing anything other than a gamertag
Major lag when actually playing a game

I just got this for xmas, and in a word other than maybe 1 day it has sucked, it seems way worse over the weekend as I assume gamer taffic was peaking.....

It's obviously a traffic problem as my buddy and I used his all fall and experienced no problems.....

Pacific Northwest. Approximately 1 hour ago. Had problems getting LIVE connection. 10 minutes later got on and into some COD4 matches.

*update* 12:30 and it went to hell again. Sigh. This is getting beyond old fast...

I am in RI and just finished playing COD4. Played for about 3.5/4 hours with no issues at all. Didnt even see the 'downloading settings' screen in the beginning. Looking for another good night tonight.

Im in baltimore and my blades are still loading slow and couldn't play COD4 online..... was searching for game and never found one. this was around 4pm est

I'm in NC and Live is sucking at the moment..... taking forever for blades to load and I've played ONE game of COD4 in the last 90 minutes.:confused::mad:

why do you guys even bother trying anymore? Just give up already. We'll know when it is back and functioning. **shakes fist in air*** why microsoft why damn you

Its been working fine for me for a long time...

tucson, arizona. live is jacked! in a bad way. so is trying to surf the avsforums.

edit: it's not my internet connection, btw. it's live and as far as avs is concerned, must be some good amount of traffic here of late.

Its been working fine for me for a long time...

same here

same here

Where are you located?

Denver here, CoD4 worked nice for me the whole night.

COD4 worked great for me last night... no problems and played halo 3 as well

First full COD 4 night in about 3 weeks last night. Let's pray we are through this mess

New Jersey here, only problem my buddies and I are having is when you first get on xbox live from the COD4 main menu and where it has to "Download settings" at times it will just sit there for at least 15 minutes. We have to keep backing out and hope for the best. Usually after we do get in, its lag central - playing 1-2 games if that in an hour span is unacceptable.

MICROSOFT JUST BRING THE WHOLE THING DOWN FOR A DAY AND FIX IT!

Where are you located?

New York

New Jersey here, only problem my buddies and I are having is when you first get on xbox live from the COD4 main menu and where it has to "Download settings" at times it will just sit there for at least 15 minutes. We have to keep backing out and hope for the best. Usually after we do get in, its lag central - playing 1-2 games if that in an hour span is unacceptable.

MICROSOFT JUST BRING THE WHOLE THING DOWN FOR A DAY AND FIX IT!
NJ here as well (NYC metro area), had very few problems late afternoon yesterday or late last night. Only one or two matches signed out during match startup, but everything else was pretty much back to normal.

COD4 was much better last night around 11:00pm PST, but less people online could explain that. Even the blade worked normally after I tried the remove and replace battery trick in this thread.

played CoD4 last night for a few hours....5:30 central to around 8:30 central. had several random drops and lobby closures but it was the most stable evening i've had in a few weeks.

COD4 worked great for me last night... no problems and played halo 3 as well

Man you sold us out!! It was me, Game Colts, and 2 other TWW guys. And I sent you like 2 game invites tryin to get our clan together.

Anyways.. he's right though. COD4 was working great for me. NYC area. Played between 8pm and 10pm.
Only problem I ran into was people getting dropped from the Clan Party every couple of games..

another issue that a friend of mine in Cali had yesterday...... he was playing DIRT (single player) and went over 1000 miles driven which earned him a 25 point achievement.

Well guess what? It was never applied to his gamer score. :confused: He told me that he had read stories where this was happening to others during this problem period with Live, but hadnt worried about it much until it happend to him.

Just FYI...... be carefull with your single player stuff also.

I'm having the same issues with the blades loading slowly, but I also have the problem that "Messenger can't login" It's acting like it has the wrong password, but I have NO IDEA where to change this password or reset this.
Any idea's? The XBOX Live is working fine.

Thanks for any help.

I'm in New England.

I played COD last night and only got the error for lobby closed twice. Almost fixed.

Man you sold us out!! It was me, Game Colts, and 2 other TWW guys. And I sent you like 2 game invites tryin to get our clan together.

Anyways.. he's right though. COD4 was working great for me. NYC area. Played between 8pm and 10pm.
Only problem I ran into was people getting dropped from the Clan Party every couple of games..

sold you out.... at the moment you sent me the invites i was playing i think Domination and i had a 12 streak.... once i saw your invite, i looked and before you know it, i got a knife in my back

sold you out.... at the moment you sent me the invites i was playing i think Domination and i had a 12 streak.... once i saw your invite, i looked and before you know it, i got a knife in my back

I hope it hurt!! And what did that teach you?

Never take your eyes OFF your target.. lol

Seriously though.. next time you get a chance hopefully we all can roll together. I know youre a pretty decent player.. and its so much more satisifying playing with people who are pretty good and communicate well. Makes the game 10x more fun the way you can dominate your opponent.

no problem... i will even change my clan tag if so but what games do you play...last time we played i think it was a team deathmatch. I am more a headquarters and sabotage...

I can't believe live is still down!!!

worked great all day until just now.

I am still having problems with Call of Duty 4... what a pile of crap. It's going on what, 3 weeks with these problems? And Microsoft can't figure it out? Give me a break!

Yeah, Live tottally screwed today. No Gamercards pull up. xbox.com zune.net all screwed up.
I'm still interested what the heck really went wrong, it's not because there are too many people on Live either.

I am still having problems with Call of Duty 4... what a pile of crap. It's going on what, 3 weeks with these problems? And Microsoft can't figure it out? Give me a break!

The PS3 is having issues as well. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=972365

I have a feeling that the problem is really Infinity Ward's. Honestly, I think that the game's ranking functions aren't terribly well designed. They seem to place a large burden on the servers.

Played this afternoon with no issues at all. Just tried to go back on and no luck at all. Looks like I am Rock Banding it tonight.

Played COD4 this afternoon. Lagged in every game and lost conenction to a few.

In Mass.

Memphis TN... can get on live..., But can't get into any COD4 or Halo3 Matches... it just keeps searching and searching and searching, I finally gave up trying.

My brother just called me says that he has been waiting in the lobby for about 15 minutes with some friends on COD4. I told him that COD 4 has had problems with online play since it came out. I don't think the problems with COD 4 are live related so much anymore.


In Maryland.

My brother just called me says that he has been waiting in the lobby for about 15 minutes with some friends on COD4. I told him that COD 4 has had problems with online play since it came out. I don't think the problems with COD 4 are live related so much anymore.


In Maryland.

I remember when COD2 came out and it had similar issues.

I remember when COD2 came out and it had similar issues.

COD2 was a launch game. I got it when I got my 360 at launch and signed up to Live the same day, had 0 problems.

COD 4 has been fine up until 3 weeks ago..... I've had it since release and had no problems playing online initially.

Also had issues with both Live and COD 4 tonight. Couldnt get anything to load up in Marketplace and got in to a total of 3 mercenary team death matches (two were in progress joins) between 6:30 and 8:15 PM tonight.

I did talk to a dude that also was complaining from Georgia and his last statement was perfect- "Well at least I have an excuse to play my PS3 more."

I told him to email that to MS...... he said he would if he thought they'd care. :o

COD2 was a launch game

Duh your point? I bought it too at launch

I got it when I got my 360 at launch and signed up to Live the same day, had 0 problems

Great(hand clap for you) At the time it was well documented it had some online problems they later fixed with a patch.

Duh your point? I bought it too at launch

Great(hand clap for you) At the time it was well documented it had some online problems they later fixed with a patch.

They were game related issues that can be patched.
The current problems right now aren't problems with the game itself, but with Xbox Live and server related issues.

I've only experienced lag and disconnections in CoD 4.

In Georgia.

maybe somehow cod4 is CAUSING xbox live issues.

gosh at this point im kind of rooting for the problems to keep going! its getting fun!!!

I rarely bash MS but even my friends and I were having problems last night doing customs. Customs!

In case you don't know, the person who starts the room is the host and, theoretically, as long as this person has a decent upload speed, you shouldn't have any problems.

Well, our host has FIOS (15 mb up/2 mb down). The lag was awful. We were dropping from the game and from the lobby, post game, and some of us were getting closed NAT error messages even though all of our NATS are open!

Just checking since I know XBL has admitted to issues but, it definitely seems COD4-centric.

Can anyone who plays any other kind of online game aside from COD4 (Halo 3, TF2, whatever) confirm that it is not a Live issue? Have other MP games had laggy matches, problems connecting,etc?

I guess I really havent touched Halo since COD4 came out and the last time I tried playing TF2, there werent that many people on.

I tried to palay some COD4 last night, but I could get nothign going. I ended up playing some PGR4 single player and even then I had issues as it calls home whenever you start an event. Several times I got booted back to the sign in screen due to it not being able to connect and at the end of the race, I either got no leaderboard at all or it was very slow and incomplete. Luckily, nothing screwed up beyond that as far as gameplay.

I tried to palay some COD4 last night, but I could get nothign going.

Yep, I tried 5 different times to get into a multiplayer game last night and it kept freezing at the lobby.

Just checking since I know XBL has admitted to issues but, it definitely seems COD4-centric.

Can anyone who plays any other kind of online game aside from COD4 (Halo 3, TF2, whatever) confirm that it is not a Live issue? Have other MP games had laggy matches, problems connecting,etc?

I guess I really havent touched Halo since COD4 came out and the last time I tried playing TF2, there werent that many people on.

I tried to renew my subscription yesterday evening around 6:00 central and i kept getting "cannot connect to service" issues. took me about a half hour just to renew through adding a credit card. So it seems there are problems service wide not just with games.

Just checking since I know XBL has admitted to issues but, it definitely seems COD4-centric.

Can anyone who plays any other kind of online game aside from COD4 (Halo 3, TF2, whatever) confirm that it is not a Live issue? Have other MP games had laggy matches, problems connecting,etc?

I guess I really havent touched Halo since COD4 came out and the last time I tried playing TF2, there werent that many people on.

I played Gears in a player match last night and had zero issues.

No problems with Forza and Texas Hold'em here in NY. The only issues I had were over that last weekend of 2007. Everything good now.

I tried to renew my subscription yesterday evening around 6:00 central and i kept getting "cannot connect to service" issues. took me about a half hour just to renew through adding a credit card. So it seems there are problems service wide not just with games.

I played Gears in a player match last night and had zero issues.

Strange. So erratic and there really is no rhyme or reason at this point.

I, like others here, also work in the IT world. I know for a fact that if one of our user data or app servers had been processing sporadically for the past 3 weeks(:eek:) with intermittent downtime and high latent performance, it would be a MAJOR issue. Our clients would be threatening murder on conference calls every hour until the thing was back steady.

I know its two completely different realms of IT and I dont pretend to know more about theirs than mine. But I guess, ultimately, thats why its still so hard for me to understand.

Yeah, last night COD 4 was unplayable. Frozen lobbies galore.

Tried playing some Halo 3 last night. Initially I had some difficulties with matchmaking, it took a good 30 minutes to find my first game. After about 10 PM EDT, I had no issues.

Yeah, last night COD 4 was unplayable. Frozen lobbies galore.

Ditto. I was forced to play Battlefield 2 and realized how awesome COD4 is (when it works) :mad:
Battlefield 2 was working fairly well though, maybe because EA has dedicated servers.

this afternoon it seems to be on the fritz. Got 2 games in, then I can't even log into Live.

Playing COD4 last night, everything was fine once the game started, but getting into matches was 5-10 minute waits. Finally got sick of waiting and turned it off.

Here is an idea... don't read a thread titled 'Xbox Live Status' if you are not interested in it.

Knock on wood, last night after 10 pm AZ time, the sign-in/blade/etc was 'normal'. Similarly I played CoD4 for ~3 hours with 3 friends and had no issues. Hopefully it is getting better. The question is if this has something to do with the fall update? I do not think you can be on live without it, but perhaps deleting it, and then trying to reload it? But then after deleting the update, if you still have issues, then you might get stuck even worse.....

NY here. Just played 2 games of Team DeathMatch. Tried to play Headquarters...no chance. It kicked me right out of the lobby.

DeathDealerB

got a few games in before it locked up again today. I'll take anything at this point.

max lomax, next time try stirred, not shaken.

I am going out to buy COD 4 on the PS3 this weekend. My live subscription is up in a couple of weeks. Cya M$, two hardware failures and now three weeks of Live being trashed. I am also in IT and there is no excuse for this, none.

I am going out to buy COD 4 on the PS3 this weekend. My live subscription is up in a couple of weeks. Cya M$, two hardware failures and now three weeks of Live being trashed. I am also in IT and there is no excuse for this, none.

Maybe you should visit the PS3 thread to know the game is having issues on that console too.

Max Lomax... I expected better from you.

What gets me is that there doesn't seem to be any official acknowledgement of the problem by Microsoft, maybe something along the lines of a message sent to all Live subscribers admitting there is a problem, apologizing for it, and stating that they're doing everything within their power to remedy the situation. Something, anything, from Microsoft would go a long way towards appeasing the mob.

Oh, and dude with the size 100 font: chill out. Posting in forums you have no interest in is just too damn confusing :(

When you guys are playing COD4 and it starts to mess up, do you experience the entire console freezing up? I start to find a match and then all of a sudden nothing works for around 30 secs. to 1 min. I just hope this isn't my console doing this.

What gets me is that there doesn't seem to be any official acknowledgement of the problem by Microsoft, maybe something along the lines of a message sent to all Live subscribers admitting there is a problem, apologizing for it, and stating that they're doing everything within their power to remedy the situation. Something, anything, from Microsoft would go a long way towards appeasing the mob.

Oh, and dude with the size 100 font: chill out. Posting in forums you have no interest in is just too damn confusing :(


This gets on my nerves as well. The status page just says "up and running" like everything is just fine and dandy.

What gets me is that there doesn't seem to be any official acknowledgement of the problem by Microsoft, maybe something along the lines of a message sent to all Live subscribers admitting there is a problem, apologizing for it, and stating that they're doing everything within their power to remedy the situation. Something, anything, from Microsoft would go a long way towards appeasing the mob.

Oh, and dude with the size 100 font: chill out. Posting in forums you have no interest in is just too damn confusing :(

Agreed 100%. That is the part that gets me also. They have to know some people are freaking out, but it just seems like they really don’t care too much. I could be wrong, there could be people running around at microsoft like chickens with their heads cut off, but it sure doesn't seem like it. There just seems to be no hurry to fix it. Maybe it can't be fixed in a 2 week period, but if it isn't LET US KNOW you are aware and are working on it.

My brother in law is older (40) and got a 360 for Christmas. I sent him a 12 month card so we can play together. Anyway, he called me last week asked if his xbox was broken because, like someone said, it kept freezing and he could not get online. He spent over an hour messing with his router, modem, ect. My point is, people that got a 360 for Christmas have no idea what is going on and it is a shame.

Before someone tells me to:
1) Go outside
2) Everything isn't guaranteed to work 100% of the time
3) Play single player
4) Blah blah blah
I have been a live subscriber since the very beginning and very happy with the service. It is just frustrating when I want to sit down at night and play COD4 and can't. I am going outside now :)

When you guys are playing COD4 and it starts to mess up, do you experience the entire console freezing up? I start to find a match and then all of a sudden nothing works for around 30 secs. to 1 min. I just hope this isn't my console doing this.


Yes, this is normal (well, not suppose to be normal) I thought my box was about to die the first few times it happened, but it seems to be happening to everyone.

When you guys are playing COD4 and it starts to mess up, do you experience the entire console freezing up? I start to find a match and then all of a sudden nothing works for around 30 secs. to 1 min. I just hope this isn't my console doing this.

Not to worry. Same thing is happening to me. This just reinforces how a press release in the form of a Live message is so sorely needed. When my 360 kept freezing and stuttering during COD MP, I was able to deduce that the issue was with Live and not my console, but I can understand how this type of issue could confuse many people into believing their 360s are about to die.

Unless Microsoft makes the public more aware of the situation with Live, this is just going to further undermine consumers' faith in the long-term reliability of the 360.

Last night from 10-11 central time I was able to play with no lag or trouble getting in matches on COD. From WI, by the way, but it feels good to be able to play because I could recover my gamertag for a week prior to this

Yeah, I'm in WI and played pretty lag free from 8pm to 11pm last night...

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Microsoft Says Xbox Live Outage Due To Server Strain
The weeks long connection troubles many Xbox Live users have experienced since the holidays was due, according to Microsoft, to heavy Xbox Live server load brought on by a record number of users attempting to access the service. Xbox group marketing manager Albert Penello told us that "It's wasn't a malicious thing." He explained "We had the biggest concurrent day we've ever had on Live. We had more people than ever signing up on Live, it was 9 million, then 10 million, and it literally was that a lot more people were trying to get on, sign up and play than we had expected over Christmas."

The continued problems were a result of not simply too many people trying to connect and play on Live, but also that too few Xbox Live team members were in the office to react. "It's easy when we're all the office in November, but on December 25th, it's harder to get a hold of everybody," Penello said, later adding "I hope people feel like [giving away a free Live Arcade game] is a fair make good for the inconvenience."

Penello also came to the Live team's defense, noting that "I'd also say in seven years, this has happened maybe zero other times, but I can't remember a time when, other than the slow downloads we had when we launched Video Marketplace, we have had a service outage that wasn't planned."

While Microsoft's Penello and Jeff Bell gave us the impression that the problem is largely addressed when we asked at CES, some of us at Kotaku are still having connection issues, specifically gamertag recovery unresponsiveness. Unfortunately, I'm away from my Xbox 360 and can't report on my own successes or failures with the service. We've heard fewer complaints from readers over the past few days, but still want to hear from you if you're having troubles.

I was able to login yesterday but it ran so slow, might as well been down.

cod 4 this morning was fine. Last game I played had some lag, but it appears to be pretty much back to normal. Suicide watch has ended :p

Its probably not over yet. I put COD4 down when this stuff started. I tried to play the other night with a buddy, and we got a few games in before it stopped letting us into rooms. I've had good fun picking up some of my older games and playing them. Still have to beat C & C 3, Saints Row, and Splinter Cell: DA. Plus, I just borrowed Mass Effect from a friend. I bet it will all be resolved by the time I get done with Mass Effect. After All, the xbox live team has probably only been back in full-strength action for about 5 business days now. I bet they'll get it fixed in the next week.

Let me retract my business days comment. I bet they've been working around the clock. I know we would be if our servers weren't cutting it.

I get the occasional 30 second lock up even playing arcade games or just moving around the blades.

I have been playing over the past week. The delays and problems seem to be getting less. Last night I had very few problems.

Just for everyone's info when I start to have problems I have myself and everyone in my party back out to the dashboard and reenter and reestablish the party. This takes about 30 seconds or so, but it tends to clear a lot of the problems, at least for a little while.

When you guys are playing COD4 and it starts to mess up, do you experience the entire console freezing up? I start to find a match and then all of a sudden nothing works for around 30 secs. to 1 min. I just hope this isn't my console doing this.

I have had the same thing happen to my console more than once... I'll bet it has to do with the LIVE issue.

Bryan

I get the occasional 30 second lock up even playing arcade games or just moving around the blades.


+1

Let me retract my business days comment. I bet they've been working around the clock. I know we would be if our servers weren't cutting it.

Shouldn't it be fixed quicker though? This is a company that put out Windows 2K. They should be used to things breaking down.

Not to worry. Same thing is happening to me. This just reinforces how a press release in the form of a Live message is so sorely needed. When my 360 kept freezing and stuttering during COD MP, I was able to deduce that the issue was with Live and not my console, but I can understand how this type of issue could confuse many people into believing their 360s are about to die.

Unless Microsoft makes the public more aware of the situation with Live, this is just going to further undermine consumers' faith in the long-term reliability of the 360.

I keep getting the "server closed" message after the players are selected, right after it says it's attempting to balance the teams. The other day it kicked me out of my fave map after going nuts.

Flip side is more time for H3, since that's working flawlessly.

Still having problems w/ Madden 08. connection to the EA servers is flaky and the actual 360 will freeze on occasion trying to search for a game.

Same problem with Tiger Woods 08

But, Tiger Woods 07 is fine...

I have had to go back to playing on-line with TW 07 because TW 08 is so bad right now.
I setup a match and when submitting it, freezes my 360.
If I'm lucky I can get it to work 1 in 5 times.
TW 07 has no issues at all so I know my 360 is not the cause.

bumpetty bump, bump. just making sure i'm not the only one who can't get on cod4 AT ALL...

seems to be working ok in COD4 both last night (around midnight) and this morning (between 9 and 10 AM EST).

I had severe blade loading issues last night though..... took about 10 minutes for the blades to populate on SEVERAL occasions.

So while they seem to be making progress, there's still work to be done.

Yeah, it definitely is getting better but i still have the occasional problem. Not sure if it is cod4 or xbox live that is continuing to mess up. If it is live, then cod4 seems to be very sensitive to the issues.

Shouldn't it be fixed quicker though? This is a company that put out Windows 2K. They should be used to things breaking down.

you mean winME, winCE, and Vista? Win2k was awesome.

you mean winME, winCE, and Vista? Win2k was awesome.


God, Win ME was a big steaming pile of crap.....

I'm in Massachusetts, problems with logging on - very slow to complete and drops off regularly. Also very slow Forza 2 Scoreboards and downloads of car setups. So slow that I figure multi-player would be a lost cause, so I have not tried.

It's not my ISP - I have two ISPs and both have same problems. This has been going on for weeks

It's working on and off for me. It's been much better as of late, but if it doesn't log in right away, and sits clocking waiting for the blade contents to come up, then I know it'll be a lousy night for Live.

I must stick up for Vista. The thing is rock solid for me, it never freezes, and the amount of programs that I open up and close would kill most other OSes.

I have a pretty beastly machine though, and that may have something to do with it.

On topic:

Am I the only one that gets a knot in his throat with fear when the xbox freezes up trying to find a game in CoD? How can it still be THIS ****** this many weeks after Christmas?

CoD 4 is impossible, Halo 3 nearly impossible, EA servers spotty at best but according to MS, XBox LIVE is... "Up and Running" http://www.tralfazxmg.com/rotflmao.gif

i had no problems last night on xbox live... played any game

Played H3 for about 3 hours last night. From 10PM - 1AM. Mostly Team Slayer Social and Heroic MM. No problems whatsoever.

last night was good for me in COD4 and blades also. Played a good hour or so of COD4 on Live with no drops or issues.:eek:

I also have had little to no issues with COD4 or Live as of the past 4-5 days. Ive even played during "peak" EST hours(6-9pm Eastern) which was giving me the most issues before and its still doing well.

I also have had little to no issues with COD4 or Live as of the past 4-5 days. Ive even played during "peak" EST hours(6-9pm Eastern) which was giving me the most issues before and its still doing well.


Agree. I played Friday night, all day saturday, sunday night till 1:00AM ET, and last night till 1:00 AM ET. Not a single problem on COD4 at all. I assumed they had fixed everything.

I did have a drop late saturday night, about 2:30AM, but my modem somehow reset itself. Wierd because I never noticed it doing that before.

Live has been fine for me over the past several days...Playing COD4.

Is any of this related to the Chicago offices closing for Activision or was that EA Chicago that was closing at the end of the year?

It has been better each day and it was nice to see over 300,000 people online playing COD4. Not quite the Million plus we saw on H3 when it first came out but it is a start.

Live has been fine for me over the past several days...Playing COD4.

me too...
a week ago, though, was another story.
I played several times this past weekend (Halo 3 & COD4), and some yesterday, and didn't have any issues.

The only thing that I have noticed is that in both games it is taking longer to get a match going. It will search for other players for about a minute before it fills the players list. Before Christmas I could get into a match within 20 seconds.

I'm just wondering when MS is going to announce what it is they plan to do for us. It's been close to the few weeks they promised, and I'm curious. I also won't buy any XBLA games until I find out what the options will be.

XBL has been fine for me for the past few nights.

past few days was spotty. but not too bad. tonight i cannot get on live at all!!!

ive been without my xbox for about 2 weeks now since its being repaired. Is xbox live still acting up???? It will be here tomorrow, hope I can recover my GT at the very least.....

Live is really acting up for me this evening. I can't stay logged in for very long and my blades won't even come up. I wanted to play some Texas Hold 'em but it doesn't look like I will be able to.

i couldn't get the blades to load for since X-mas. I'mma throw my name on the classaction lawsuit. I talked to MS customer service, they won't refunded me my money and they don't even return my emails.

i couldn't get the blades to load for since X-mas. I'mma throw my name on the classaction lawsuit. I talked to MS customer service, they won't refunded me my money and they don't even return my emails.

I hope you worded that to be funny. Anyways, sell the thing already, your just letting it distress you far too much for a videogame console.

Xbox Live works for me.

I'm quite serious. I haven't been able to load the blade in over a month, unacceptable. I paid good money for services they can't not provide. I have invested way too much money in this POS hardware to give sell it. IN the future all the games will be bought in ps3 however.

I'm quite serious. I haven't been able to load the blade in over a month, unacceptable.

This has started to happen to me today. I never had problems with live before today. :mad:

was home from work yesterday for MLK day and there were connection issues and games dropped to lobby in CoD4 from about 1:30 central until i stopped playing at about 4:30. was the worst day for me in the last few weeks.

Live is really acting up for me this evening. I can't stay logged in for very long and my blades won't even come up. I wanted to play some Texas Hold 'em but it doesn't look like I will be able to.

Xbox Live was very slow and unreliable for me yesterday. It was very difficult getting a game going in Tiger Woods 08.

It was dodgy for me yesterday also. Must be because of the US holiday and increased server loads. Pretty weak.

Was fine for me when I was on over the weekend, but when I tried to squeeze in an hour or so around 4pm EST Monday, I was having some odd connection issues. Got back on around 10:30pm and it seemed OK again.

It was a holiday yesterday alot of people including the military was off work.

Let's sue a company because we can't play games... geez.

Let's sue a company because we can't play games... geez.

I'm not saying sue, but people are upset because they invested a fair amount of money in the system + games + Live, so they have every right to expect that it works as advertised.

Yeah, this has gotten pretty weak. It's been a month since I've been able to get on Live w/ a solid connection. It's just hit or miss for me right now.

I'm not saying sue, but people are upset because they invested a fair amount of money in the system + games + Live, so they have every right to expect that it works as advertised.

I'm part of the people who are upset. I had to wait minutes for most of the blades to come up and had issues staying connected. But I don't think suing the company is anything more then a waste of time. EVERY computer system has problems now and then. While I do think MS was not prepared for this, I think suing them is, and I don't mean this as an insult to you, stupid. After all, you get a free arcade game out of it.

Do you sue your cable company when cable goes out for the night? Do you sue the electric company when you lose power for a while? Nope. It's not like MS wanted to cause problems for people.

And I invested money for the system, games and Live as well. I even bought a HDTV so the thing would look real nice.

Lives were not lost, no one was hurt, you just couldn't play online.

I'm part of the people who are upset. I had to wait minutes for most of the blades to come up and had issues staying connected. But I don't think suing the company is anything more then a waste of time. EVERY computer system has problems now and then. While I do think MS was not prepared for this, I think suing them is, and I don't mean this as an insult to you, stupid. After all, you get a free arcade game out of it.

Do you sue your cable company when cable goes out for the night? Do you sue the electric company when you lose power for a while? Nope. It's not like MS wanted to cause problems for people.

And I invested money for the system, games and Live as well. I even bought a HDTV so the thing would look real nice.

Lives were not lost, no one was hurt, you just couldn't play online.

I agree with your sentiment. However, I disagree with your analogy. A more appropriate question would be - "If your cable company dropped your TV stations at random, for an entire month, and offered no form of credit on your account, would you be ok with that?"

That is the killer thing here. I understand network issues happen, server load happens, in general, sh*t happens. I don't condone people who want to sue MS. But there is more than meets the eye going on here and it simply IS NOT a capacity issue. I had issues yesterday for a little while. COD4 showed 54,000 or so users online. I have played fine when that number was in the hundreds of thousands.

MS broke their infrastructure when they switched to MS Windows Live for authentication. In my heart, I truly believe MS is getting DDoS'ed on their Windows Live infrastructure and just can't stop it yet.

However, feeding us garbage about capacity issues due to the huge amount of new users is not right. Giving us a free game, I congratulate them for that. They really didn't owe us anything other than an apology and to fix it. In my humble opinion, it still isn't fixed.

Just my two cents.

worked perfectly for me last night playing COD4 live

I had tons of problems last night trying to download The Club and navigate blades. Lots of "can't display" errors or whatever. Xbox Live is not fixed yet.

I heard people are getting those errors trying to download Undertow today. What the hell? People are having problems getting the free game they are getting because of the problems.

I can understand a few glitches on the 25th and maybe for a few days afterwards. But jeez, apologists, its been almost a MONTH. That is effing ridiculous and unacceptable. It doesn't matter what it is, gaming service or not, a month of problems is unacceptable and MS' customer service and outreach has been predictably garbage.

I agree with your sentiment. However, I disagree with your analogy. A more appropriate question would be - "If your cable company dropped your TV stations at random, for an entire month, and offered no form of credit on your account, would you be ok with that?"

That is the killer thing here. I understand network issues happen, server load happens, in general, sh*t happens. I don't condone people who want to sue MS. But there is more than meets the eye going on here and it simply IS NOT a capacity issue. I had issues yesterday for a little while. COD4 showed 54,000 or so users online. I have played fine when that number was in the hundreds of thousands.

MS broke their infrastructure when they switched to MS Windows Live for authentication. In my heart, I truly believe MS is getting DDoS'ed on their Windows Live infrastructure and just can't stop it yet.

However, feeding us garbage about capacity issues due to the huge amount of new users is not right. Giving us a free game, I congratulate them for that. They really didn't owe us anything other than an apology and to fix it. In my humble opinion, it still isn't fixed.

Just my two cents.

First, I'd like to thank you for discussing this like an adult. In too many places online, things run into pure arguments within seconds. :)

Anyway, yes, MS had capacity problems. The way I see it is that they knew they sold a boatload of 360's for Christmas, and should have thought about it. But I think there's a chance they did, and weren't able to jump on the case in time. But no matter what anyone could say, I think it's obvious that they were ill-prepared, and should have thought about this.

I thought about a credit, and I think that's a great idea. Perhaps a credit for a month of service or something like that? It's fair, considering how long the problems have been around. Even a few nights ago, I had a few issues. It's been mostly smooth now for a few weeks for me. In any case, I think that they tried to do something that would have the least effect on future issues. For instance, my gf just got an announcement in e-mail yesterday saying her account is due to be renewed in 1 month. That could stir the bit bucket a bit and make more problems. A free game is great, but I also think they could have handled that better... For instance, a choice of one of 3 or 4 games would have made people happier, and would cause fewer people to need to put their support staff to work.

I'm not sure about the Windows Live thing, though. I've had my 360 for at least 4-5 months now, and had to use the Windows Live email info and such to make my XBL account, and it went for such a long time without issues that I don't know how that would have effected it. Could you elaborate?

And I have to admit I think I may have found a fault in what you wrote, in that many more people have been online with CoD4 with no issues. A capacity issue would range over all the users online playing games, not just CoD4.

I can't imagine what's going on with MS and Live, but I think an apology is a great place to start. They acknowledged the problem, are trying to fix it, and offered some compensation. Granted, I don't really want Undertow that much, but it's something.

So all in all, I don't think that MS should be sued for this. The previous paragraph tells my why's on that best.

Couldn't get into a game of CoD4 today. People hurrying to get their free game, I guess. Hope to get in a game or two later this afternoon.

First, I'd like to thank you for discussing this like an adult. In too many places online, things run into pure arguments within seconds. :)

All too true. Many times I have seen civil conversations turned to drivel when they drop down to yelling and screaming. I thank you for responding not only in a positive tone, but offering information I had not considered.


Anyway, yes, MS had capacity problems. The way I see it is that they knew they sold a boatload of 360's for Christmas, and should have thought about it. But I think there's a chance they did, and weren't able to jump on the case in time. But no matter what anyone could say, I think it's obvious that they were ill-prepared, and should have thought about this.


I agree with you here 100 percent. I just think we are at a point now where capacity can't possibly be an issue. I don't know anything from anyone else, my comment about something else going on is purely a gut feeling. I just can't imagine that a company like MS would have any issues at all in doubling their server or network infrastructure at the drop of a hat - they have way too much money and their reputation is at stake in the online gaming community.

I thought about a credit, and I think that's a great idea. Perhaps a credit for a month of service or something like that? It's fair, considering how long the problems have been around. Even a few nights ago, I had a few issues. It's been mostly smooth now for a few weeks for me. In any case, I think that they tried to do something that would have the least effect on future issues.

I would only have suggested a credit if it went too long. I don't know what the line in sand would be, but my guess is at a month it has been crossed. I think a free month of live would have been very generous of them. I also think it would have smoothed things over a lot more than any individual game.


I'm not sure about the Windows Live thing, though. I've had my 360 for at least 4-5 months now, and had to use the Windows Live email info and such to make my XBL account, and it went for such a long time without issues that I don't know how that would have effected it. Could you elaborate?

That is true, they have been using Windows Live ID for account setup for a long time. However, it is my understanding that with the fall update, this was switched on for everything, including the microtransactions. This was needed as now the Zune and other MS products are all using the points system and a central authentication and payment system was needed. This is where the Windows Live came in.


And I have to admit I think I may have found a fault in what you wrote, in that many more people have been online with CoD4 with no issues. A capacity issue would range over all the users online playing games, not just CoD4.

I can't imagine what's going on with MS and Live, but I think an apology is a great place to start. They acknowledged the problem, are trying to fix it, and offered some compensation. Granted, I don't really want Undertow that much, but it's something.

So all in all, I don't think that MS should be sued for this. The previous paragraph tells my why's on that best.

It is very difficult to be able to pinpoint where issues can occur because MS infrastructure for Live is a pretty guarded secret. I agree that a lot of people are experiencing issues. And a good portion of users are having no problem at all. That is the specific thing that makes me think it's not capacity, but something else. When network banwidth or server capacity is crunched, everyone would be slow. That is certainly not the case here though.

I thought it was brave of them to apologize. Most companies don't now because of the threat of lawsuits. I congratulate them for that.

I also agree MS should in no way be sued. I can empathize with those that are frustrated. I shake my head at those who act as if their world came to an end :)

Thanks to you for the interesting and thought-provoking exchange. I look forward to more.

Internet = Cause for frivolous lawsuits.

Do the math. 95-today; far more crapsuits than ever before.

Well my biggest issue right now is my download speeds. And it only started about a week ago. When Xbox Live was at it's "worst" a few weeks back, at least my download speeds were affected very little....if at all.

Now they have had a few weeks to "fix" Xbox Live and ironically from a download perspective it's far worse then it was at it's supposed "worst".

Example: I went to download the Too Human Video Diary 2 which is 397MB. After 2 1/2 hours I was only at 26%. So I thought maybe it was my IP. So I decided to do a speed test (been almost a year since I last did one). I have Road Runner Turbo which was 8Mb down/512Kb up. But to my great surprise, my speed was now 15Mb down/1Mb up!!! Turns out Road Runner Turbo was recently upgraded to this new higher speed and I didn't get the memo somehow!! :o Finding that out was the only silver lining in all this!

So now I know it's not my connection, it's definitely Xbox Live! I've been very understanding and patient with Microsoft on the Live issues over the last few weeks, but with my download speeds actually getting slower (like molasses now) then they were only a week ago, my understanding is starting to wear thin....very thin!

They aren't even giving us satisfactory updates on how the process is progressing. It's like we are being ignored at times.

Come on Microsoft....step up!!:mad: