Games for Windows Live users have been experiencing problems connecting to the service's servers, leaving some unable to access their online profiles. It's an unusual situation, because the much-loved GfW Live is normally so reliable, and definitely not something we recently described as "one of the most ill-conceived and poorly executed pieces of software it is possible to install on your PC."
...Is how I might begin this story if we were in a parallel universe. Instead, all I can do is offer a resigned shrug and urge publishers to stop putting the bloody thing in their games.
It's not entirely clear which games are affected, although complaints on the Games for Windows Xbox forums seem to span the full range of Live enabled titles, including Dark Souls, Age of Empires Online and Super Street Fighter IV. Aside from barring access to the online portion of games, the error also blocks players from loading saves for games with encrypted files, such as Dark Souls and Arkham City.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue last Friday, saying that users may be experiencing the following issues:
- Cannot connect on their account on a game that worked previously
- Other users can use their account on the same PC without issues
- In the Games for Windows Marketplace, under view game keys may be getting "An unknown error has occurred."
Yesterday, Microsoft posted a possible fix, but admit that they are still looking to resolve the error for all users.
"Some users are reporting success by running the following four commands in an admininstrator command prompt (right click on the command propt and select run as administrator)
- bitsadmin /reset
- ipconfig /flushdns
- netsh int ip reset
- netsh winsock reset
then restarting their computers, starting their game up and selecting "Sign-in with another account" and re-entering their log-in information."
Thanks, VG247 .
