June 9th 2009 7:00 am PT

So here’s a problem I have with this. Netflix streaming is dependent upon you being a Gold subscriber. So I won’t be able to stream Netflix while Live is down, correct? Same thing will be the case with the other services being added, like Last.fm. Perhaps these features need to work like premium content. They should be linked to my gamertag and to my console so that I can use them even if Live is down.

Long time without maintenance.. I guess it’s time. Just hoping that things will go smooth this time.. but the records show me otherwise.

If this speeds up the dashboard and overall makes Live a more pleasent experience, then more power to this! It would be nice to use the dash board without 15-30 second loads or having the system freeze up completely.

will 1 vs. 100 Extended Play be available on 06/09 still?

the same day that Ghostbusters and Guitar Hero Smash Hits, those will hold me over until Live comes back on. Just any achiemements I acquire will not have a date by them.

What new update in NXE…. Just kidding

I had to make a sign-in just to tell Shafnitz he might need to go outside every once in a while.

FIX THE (LAGGY) DASHBOARD!!!

Fix the guide freezing PLEASE

Yes, please fix the …………………………. guide freezing issues when I’m trying to ……………………. scroll through my friends list and ………………… see what they are playing. Thanks!

I just had to sign in with my existing account so I could say I laughed at CIStoll’s comment, and say if I could “vote it up”, I would.

Great…so about the time I get my XBox back from it’s 2nd E74…I won’t be able to get on Live.

Hooray for maintenance that coincides with vacations!

A scheduled maintenance is better than unscheduled problems we have every day. So hopefully everything will get better after it and HOPEFULLY LIVE WILL BE down fpr 24 hours and not 2-3 days like the last time.

Details for this week’s XBLA games from AceyBongos: “6 classic SEGA games hitting LIVE Arcade tom: Altered Beast, Phantasy Star II, Comix Zone, Shinobi, Sonic 3 and Gunstar Heroes. 400MSP each” http://twitter.com/AceyBongos/status/2089510746
As far as the first five go, I’d suggest just saving your money and getting Sonic’s UGC instead, since all of those games are on it plus a LOT more and it would be cheaper. As for Gunstar Heroes, it’s definitely worth the 400 points! I already have it from the Wii VC, but since it’s not on Sonic’s UGC and this version is going to have achievements AND online co-op, I’ll probably get it again.
If it’s the achievements that you really want though, then I guess it’d be worth it to get all of them. However the only other games that have online co-op are Altered Beast and Sonic 3. http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/calendar/default.htm

When will we actually get an update? The laggy guide is unbelievably slow. Want proof? Heres my own personal footage to prove it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu-xdFYxgOI

No LIVE for up to 24 hours? *twitch twitch*

Never had that problem. could be your internet.

Dude thanks for making that video Arsenic13. Please Major look at the video because mine is like that to. This needs fixing.
I do have a question. To the ones that have this problem do you have a HDD that is almost full? I was wondering because I have a 120GB HDD that has about 20GB left. My two friends that have a 20GB dont have this problem and they both dont use there HDD to much.
I am wondering if loading all my games on mine has made it slow. When the NXE came out it was fine for weeks until I started adding all my games to the HDD.
Just a idea.

No yolarrydabomb, I seriously doubt it’s his internet that’s causing the lag problem. I have the same problem with mine too as have many others on here and other xbox communities (although mine isn’t quite as bad as Arsenic13′s).

@ bUbbALoUmCc: Yeah I’m in the same situation. I have an Elite with about 10GB left on my 120GB HDD after installing games on it, but my lag still isn’t quite as bad as Arsenic13′s. So to Arsenic13, what was the state of your system and HDD when you shot that video?

Are we complaining or giving suggestions? IF we are giving suggestions, I’d like it if I am playing a game of Too Human, I can talk to my co-op partner, okay, my SFIV friends are having a party, I can excuse myself and go to the Party Chat and alternate between the PARTY CHAT and the GAME CHAT CHANNELS, and hold for a moment, Private Chat request, a friend needs help with a game and it is best I chat with him and not text message. My previous experience had my Private Chat canceled out by the Party Chat after a few moments. Sounds complicated, but it is not. No rush to fix it, but an issue that should be addressed eventually.

This happens far too often and never really improves performance.

It will be another delayed update…

Or will it…

PLEASE, MS, READ THIS:

http://forums.xbox.com/25722128/ShowPost.aspx

@Arsenic13
If that is all the time, “Ewieee, bro”.

I thought the whole idea of being able to take down sections of Live was to avoid this?

Did all you guys complaining about the guide/friends freezing actually go read the link in the post or just start complaining?
To quote: “the entire Xbox LIVE service is being upgraded for improved performance including better guide and friends access.”
So yes, it is being fixed and actually read posts in future!

Yes, it’s being fixed, but not NOW. Whitten even Twittered the other day about how guide lag is fixed, meaning for the update that this is not bringing.
The guide lag’s only been around since, oh, November.

@giantdave7

haha that’s one of the biggest fails i’ve seen in a while. You yell at us for not reading it, yet it was clearly you that didn’t read it. The post you reference says that “the entire Xbox LIVE service is being upgraded for improved performance including better guide and friends access.” IN THE FALL!!!

We are complainging beacuse we want it fixed now. $50 a year and we have to wait for fall to use our consoles properly? BOGUS!

Mine is also exactly like this 50% of the time

and no its not my net i have 20mbit
and yes i know what im doing
i have been on the net for longer than alot of people here have
been alive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu-xdFYxgOI

For the Guide freezing, I found something that worked for me twice :
deleting some installed games of my HDD.

I have a 120GB HDD and I installed 13-14 games on it and then I had freezes almost every time I used the Guide, some last up to 30 seconds, so I were often kicked from games.

Now I have 8-9 games installed on my HDD, and I do not freeze anymore.

I think it’s linked to the Quick Start option that scans every games on the HDD.

I just noticed this on that video

mcdevitt1985 (2 hours ago) Show Hide

Oh? I wouldnt complain on major nelsons site in the comments section. I’ve been blacklisted as in I cannot post any comments on there after complaining over and over again about the dashboard lag. Big suprise that microsoft hushes up people who complain about their products instead of fixing it.

its a bit bad banning the guy

I have 150 ish games on my hd
all paid for so wont be deleting them

No I’m talking about retail games, not the Arcade ones, I have more tha 60 Arcades games on my HDD.

Just try with less retail games installed on your HDD, it can solve the problem.

Just checked i have 9 installed

clearing cache seems to make it not quite as bad
but only for a few hours

was 8 even 1 was the disk in the drive

just deleted the 2 that i have 1000′d in the last few days

I read an Microsoft article (or was it the live forums?) thats it do with the NXE structure and that having a load of marketplace stuff (on your hdd?) slows the media guide down.
(may be wrong).

regradless, I wander if theres an ETA for the updates? Once the media guide is fixed I should be killed less (yes i got killed alot when using the media guide during CODmw and w@w).

Will each region get a different date (i.e the UK needs the sky update but not the netflix)?

Cool,an update,this must mean they are finally fixing the laggy guide and friends list lockup problems that this “new” dashboard has been plagued with since day one.Geez,it’s about time.Also,if you unplug for a certain amount of hours,that clears the cache too right?I did that for like twenty hours the other day and still lag in the guide.

no unplugging the hd doesnt remove the cache

I wouldnt be waving the flag’s just yet
i dont think we are getting a laggy guide fix until november

@shonk, aye i dont think we will see the update till october-november time too, which is kinda disgusting, as it will be a whole year of this bugged being left unpatched…

Yes, I will be on vacation during that time so it dosent effect me.

roger!
my xbox’s currently@m$ waiting for a replacement, so it does no infulence on me

I do have many games installed on the HDD. But when I had the small 20GB and it was full of other junk it wasn’t slow. Idk how it could be my HDD fault. Please post video responses or spread this video. This issue NEEDS TO BE FIXED.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu-xdFYxgOI

@Arsenic13 : I had a 20GB before too, and I did not had those freezes, it just happened with many games installed.
Maybe it depends on the size those games takes, I have 9 games and 34GB left on my 120GB, and it does not freeze.
With one more game, it freezes up to 10 seconds.
One month ago I had 14 games and 5GB left, and it was freezing all the time.

Just try with less and less games installed (try 5), it just take some time to try, but until this is fixed it’s the only way I’ve found to stop the Guide from freezing.

I think the number of games installed is the major thing that makes the Guide to freeze, as the Dashboard scans all the content when it’s launched (console startup and back to dashbord), and the Guide scans every time you launch it for its “Quick Launch” option.

not to be rude… but wasnt e trying to make it so that this kind of thing wouldnt be needed??

Ah well… its not like i cant play Xmen Wolverine a little more

Did anyone actually find out when the new features will be arriving? I’d like to get to using them asap and I didn’t find out anything from e3.

@everyone

The answer is NO!

Now STFU!

@ XxLightkunxX: Nothing more specific than “this fall” has been announced so far.

i hate that you chose to fix xbox live on the day ghostbusters comes out i mean it could be 2 hours but if its too long i wont be able to play it online on tuesday

I can tell all of you having problems two things:

* Guide lag can be caused by what Xcell says. I had like 2 minutes lag everytime I pressed guide, and do whatever thing I wanted (like sending a message or trying to invite someone). A friend told me to delete some installed games, and I haven´t had that problem again (just a bit laggy).

* If your marketplace goes really slow, that´s because it´s currently checking your entire download history everytime you press anything. That has been proved too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6X73X0kgNU&feature=channel_page

This is a video about the laggy marketplace. First Gamertag has almost nothing purchased on the marketplace and the second on, my main account, about 700 items in total.

This Video is to all the people who want to tell us over and over that it is all about the connection speed and/or the free space on the HDD.

damm hope it all fixed before cod waw map pack 2 gets here

@ KMetalmind ….

Exactly right… what amazes me though is that we, as a community, had to figure out the causes for the issues, with no official help/word from microsoft. Big thumbs up to the community and a big thumbs down to MS for that!
As far as I know there’s still been no official acknowledgment of the issues has there? Maybe there has been in some little corner of the web, tucked away in the shadows somewhere, but nothing public!
I feel sorry for the average xbox 360 gamer that doesn’t spend a great deal of time on the internet/forums… to them it’ll seem like the 360 is just, well, poor! They may even think that’s the way the machine is supposed to work.
I know it doesn’t make good business sense to acknowledge your product has faults, but to blatantly ignore the issues (from a public perspective) is pretty rude.
I’m assuming/hoping the problems will see some kind of fix in the Fall (that’s Autumn to the rest on the world) update, but these issues shouldn’t have to wait til then to be resolved, it should of been done by now…. after all, we are paying (well, most of us are) for this service.

The fact that Microsoft must be losing money through lost sales due to the painfully slow marketplace must bother them… well, it’d bother me in their shoes.

I could go on, but this will end up as a wall of text… which is never nice…. lol.

Does this mean that Xbox Gold members get an extra day (24 hours) added to their account duration?

Wow now I know what causes the problem, I am amazed.

Why on earth would it need to read your ENTIRE history just to check if a few items listed on screen have been purchased? Anyone with a modest knowledge of databases knows thats really poor design. It should be indexed accordingly so you only have to ask for results for what is relevant on the page.

It also makes sense that if this is indeed a database issue that they do have to take Live down to fix it. You can’t really alter the structure of a database while its live plus they may need to do a lot OF processing on it to generate new relationships in your download history, so you can be more selective about which parts of it you ask for instead of asking for everything every single time.

i hope they will clear the cache too…the new update will come this fall

Same laggy guide for me…
The more you have on your HDD, the laggier the guide becomes. So ppl wo actually buy stuff from MS are the screwed ones…

+1 for Computerdude103′s use of the word bogus!, lol. Paying for a service we haven’t been able to properly use for months is indeed bogus. And what’s worse is the people like me who’ve spent the most on DLC and Marketplace content are the ones worst affected by the lag.

Off topic but where is this weeks top ten Live stats?. I know Major Nelson is away and stuff but isn’t e or someone standing in to update this blog?.

Wow, 24 hours downtime so that my Avatar can pole dance? Seriously ‘e’?

Maybe it’s time to change the infrastructure setup to avoid downtime, like you’ve been saying you’ll implement for over two years.

XBOX.com is v.slow for me right now.

It takes a v.long time for anything to load – i just get a loading icon & a white page.

& its not my Internet, as every other page is fine.

hey major, good to hear that the laggy dash is being worked on. When abouts are we to get the facebook update? Looking forward to that! This summer or fall? Cheers

@K1ILLER HORNET… i’m having the same problem with xbox.com as well!!

Also the market place is REALLY slow since yesterday (when i try to click on an item for info/purchase)

Signing in on my 360 is ok…. just the MP is slow!!?? also xbox.com!!?

I get the feeling that the guide slowdown is due to any number of factors, be it too many games installed on your hard drive, a long download history, or something new. regardless it sure would be nice for MS to step up and fix the issue and let everyone know that it is going to be fixed instead of sticking their heads in the sand and banning people who bring it up.

does this mean that there is no spring update this year? or does this count as it, even though nothing new is being added, except preparing for useless features like Twitter and Facebook (although the Lastfm thing should be interesting)

I’m not really excited about the new update. There is nothing really special there. But they really need fix performance. The guide button is ridiculously slow. Waiting for a list of items when you go to specific game on gaming marketplace is SLOW. Add a Change Status option in the My Xbox selection. And for god sakes add preview for themes and gamerpics on Xbox Marketplace. It is so annoying having no idea what your being sold.

go play some disc golf. write a poem. visit your grandma. the possibilities are endless.

Hmmm no wonder Xbox.com is one heck of a lag fest.

That’s pretty much why I stopped looking for and buying content etc. on there because it takes to f________ long to find what I want.If that’s how they want to do business then that’s fine .Let the fool who wants to wait on the lag to buy their stuff,but I won’t buy any more till this gets fixed!That’s how this will get fixed if a bunch of people do not buy squat until this crap is repaired.The problem is their is always that sucker willing to suck up the lag and still fork over money to this bad joke.Unfortunately i’ve been guilty of that myself.

I long for the day when people are able to understand the concept of “routine maintenance” and didn’t have to be reminded, every single time, that nothing new is coming.

Starting Fall 2008 I will be playing Xbox 360 offline because I do not use any premium Xbox Live services with the exception of online multiplayer. I will return playing on Xbox Live when Online Multiplayer is free or is part of a smaller, “basic” package of Xbox Live. This may never happen, so until then my Xbox 360 will only get connected to the internet when I want to download a demo, video or other dlc, or when I want to update my gamertag status. As for now, there isn’t even an RJ45 connector in the back of my console.

Hey, at least I don’t have to worry about when Xbox Live Maintenance.

@ RidinSlow

that’s just stupid imo,
just keep your console connected to the internet – you don’t have anything to loose, but much to gain even if you don’t play online.

i personally don’t like gaming when offline, even in single player games.

Wow it takes 5 minutes to open up a Thread in Xbox.com, jeez lag to the max MS!

there will be new features that the live will be available again?

Good to hear that the service is being prepared for the new features.

Do we get an extra day added to our accounts?

@Shafnitz
Good point as that was one of my many questions BEFORE NXE. Well, Xbox Live Service Maintenance is needed and I’m glad it is on a work day for me. If it were on a day (like Sat, Sun or a holiday none work day), THEN it would be a bad thing. Netflix can be seen on your PC along with Hulu. The only REAL thing that bites is dates on your achievements gained ‘offline’.

@CompactDstrxion
Can I get the time I ‘wasted’ at a broken stop light? . . . . .(sigh)

Just in case any one missed it. This is video proof of the Xbox Guide lag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu-xdFYxgOI

Last time they did this in Septemeber 2008, my Xbox got faster and especially the performance of live. I hope it does this time too. Oh and some of the features announced are coming this August like Avatar marketplace,music marketplace, games on demand, 1 vs 100 and probably guide lag fixes. Was said so by Notwen.

Maintenance is no biggie. Only bummer is I can’t play my arcade games, or DLC, since I’m on my 10th console, and I already did the DRM transfer, so no dice. Ah well. Small inconvenience, I probably won’t even be able to play that day anyways. Hope the maintenace results in some big service and guide improvements down the road. I would put up with a week’s interruption in service if it did that.

@ Surly x Duff: Have you tried just manually re-downloading the licenses for your Arcade games and DLC individually? That’s what I did after I got my replacement console, since I don’t trust them to do the DRM transfer at the service center. After doing that, I haven’t had any problems playing my Arcade games and DLC offline.

Thanks for the heads up.

@CompactDstrxion

Yes, you do. Contact customer support.

You Xbox Guide lagged like that because you hadn’t been signed into Xbox Live yet. DURRRRR

e/litheon/Major, if you love Canada, you’ll fix the guide.

@CRAZYBROS
Nah mate… I can be signed in all day long and marketplace still acts that way when I try to access it…

xbox.com still slow as h3ell!!

and MP on my 360s is also slow to the point of being unusable!!

Being a gold member sure does have its privileges!!

Wow the lag fest continues today, jeez i can’t use Xbox.com.

@K1LLER HORNET – what benefits do I get for having my Xbox 360 connected to the internet if I am not using any of the online features? I really don’t understand how you consider what I am doing “stupid.”

The way I see it, I don’t have anything to loose by keeping the console disconnected.

I’ve never noticed any lag on the dashboard for me. Maybe it has to do with older 360′s vs. newer 360′s or maybe many people don’t know how to clear their cache? Not sure and I know it probably isn’t fun experiencing this.

@ RiotGrrl1988: Clearing the cache only gives you a brief decrease in lag, if at all.

@ RidinSlow

maybe to keep your games updated? title updates?

do you seriously not use the inside XBOX feature? it’s really good.

@MACPH1ST0
Decepticon at your house?

@K1LLER HORNET

I guess I don’t think of title updates. I usually watch out for when they come along so I can update. I may have missed a few, but I also haven’t gotten any new titles for Xbox 360 since December last year, so most of my games are probably up-to-date.

No. I don’t use the inside Xbox feature. Not since shortly after the NXE was deployed. I didn’t use it that much before then either.

fix the guide

will netflix still work

no netflix needs to be connected to xbl to work. just use your computer

Xbox Live Maintenance = Service of Xbox Live Down
Test all of of your arcade games you might be playing during this downtime and make sure they work offline (without being connected to Xbox Live). This will eliminate any headache in that area.

Now’s a good time to hit up your favorite gaming forum (besides here) and open of your ‘contacts’ to continue to talk to friends from Xbox Live. (it’s only a day sheesh)

Look at it as improving on what we already have.

Happy Xbox Live Down for Maintenance Day

my netflix has been running slow on xbox but not on my pc. hopefully you fix that

5 of my friends r having the same promblem.please help

-_- I was playing a Tournament Challenge on Tiger Woods 10 and when live went down the game kicked me to the title screen without saving, just as I was winning the challenge… that sucks !