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360 Lockup Observation

Dave Long

Banned
OK, so if you have a 360, you have probably experienced the dreaded Guide Button lockup. You know the one. Some dude you never met in your life but you played a single time in Dead or Alive 4 wants to be your friend. So you get all ragey and hit the guide button to give his Friend Request the heave-ho and then that fucker gets his shot in by locking up your entire 360 because your dumb ass hit the Guide Button while a match was going on...in all your ragey rage. BASTARD!

I've had this happen at least ten times and I think I have a clue what's happening. Basically, when you hit the guide button, you have to WAIT until the machine can get all the information it's trying to retrieve to appear on the slide-out screen thingy. If you hit a button to go to your Friends List before it can bring up your GamerCard and your Gs, it's gonna lock up, buddy.

It's not foolproof. Sometimes the machine just decides that you deserve your medicine for either standing in line like a moron or lucking into a console too easily. Either way, this is Microsoft's way of coding Karma and it's a bitch when it forces you to get up off the couch and do a hard reset.

I'm lazy dammit. You made it so I can turn off the console from the controller for a reason. When you lock on me, you're questioning my manhood... or something. *sigh*

Anyway, Patience Grasshopper, and you can usually keep your slothy ass planted in the seat where it belongs.
 
I've had it happen ONCE and that was while PGR3 was loading a track.

I can check on messages, friend requests and online notifications with no problem at all.
 
Couldn't you just not touch the Guide button when those requests pop up and wait until you're done playing your game? :)
 
Jerkface said:
I've had it happen ONCE and that was while PGR3 was loading a track.

And by posting this simple sentence, you have told me you have few friends, or people that want to be your friends... or you ignore them, Jerkface. :)
 
john tv said:
Couldn't you just not touch the Guide button when those requests pop up and wait until you're done playing your game? :)

It's all about the ragey rage, John. Those guys can't get my negatory on the companionship thing fast enough. ;)
 
I haven't had my 360 lockup forever. The guide button deal happened to me about 4 times within the first two weeks of the launch. Hasn't happened since.
 
Dave Long said:
it's a bitch when it forces you to get up off the couch and do a hard reset.

You can still turn it off using the remote, but yeah, those lock ups are a pain in the ass.
 
I've been hit several times in DOA4 as well. Besides the whole patience thing Dave is talking about, I usually also wait until the next match has started before closing the guide down, I can't prove that actually helps, but it's just an extra layer of comfort that has worked well for me lately.

That guide button is sweet though, really lessens the impact of loadtimes being able to dork around with it.
 
My systems has never locked up, guide button or otherwise.. but...
john tv said:
Couldn't you just not touch the Guide button when those requests pop up and wait until you're done playing your game? :)
I do just that. Leave friend requests 'till the end of the level or whatever.

Actually, come to think of it I also tend to manually pause the game and then hit guide even though it auto pauses. I also always quit out to the main game menu/start screen before "guide-ing" out to the dashboard. Never had a freeze up doing that either.

Good theory though, I wouldn't be surprised if trying to do something before the guide fully loads up lead to lockups.
 
I've been having lockups the past few days when I try to send somebody a message through the guide button(even if I'm in the dashboard). I'll hit send message and the little dots whil twirl around the 360 to show that it is sending...and then it'll just freeze.
 
The fact that it happens in like every game is what leads me to believe it's something in the dashboard software and not in the games. Either that or every game developer was told to code for it somehow and that turns out to be the root of the issue.

You guys that have never seen the problem are both lucky and probably lonely. ;)

Brandon and I had problems with it the day DoA4 launched. That was when I first saw it. Then it happened to me in PGR3 the other night. Grrrr...
 
TTP said:
You can still turn it off using the remote, but yeah, those lock ups are a pain in the ass.

I never thought about that. I guess I need to keep the remote handy? That will keep my ass rooted to the chair at least. Thanks!
 
I've had a handful of freezes since the launch. Every single time it occured when I tried to access the guide while a game was loading. As long as I avoid that I doubt i'll ever have a freeze again. I still do it on occasion though and it seems pretty random and rare for the most part.


I think the reason some people never get freezes is because they likely never pull up the guide while a game is loading.
 
I've had it happen to me too. It sucks cause you can see that the game itself is loading fine, just the damn guide won't get out of the way.
 
i've had at least 20 DOA4 related lockups... i guess that's what happens when the game is rushed out to meen their quarterly financials... i just try to avoid the guide button until i'm not actually playing...
 
LakeEarth said:
I've had it happen to me too. It sucks cause you can see that the game itself is loading fine, just the damn guide won't get out of the way.

Yeah, that's the worst part, especially when playing online. You're still in the chat, game's still fine in the background, but the damn thing won't budge!
 
yes yes yes, i am right there with ya.

happens on PGR3 all the freekin time.

send a friends request, or an invite and FREEZE i can still talk to everyone in the room, i just can not get back into only the room.

a royal pain and hopefully something that will be patched at some point

MS must know about this by now?
 
Someone should point out this thread to Major Nelson perhaps he can tell the right people.

It also has been happening to me in DOA4 but thats the only game I seem to have the issue in, it did happen in PGR3 around launch time but it hasnt happened to me recently.
 
My X360 locked up exactly once, and that was PDZ, actually, not the system. Nothing to do with the Guide button either.

I hit it all the time while playing (online and off), in order to check messages, change the music that's streaming from my PC, etc.
 
That's why I'm always with the remote control at my side. When the system lockups, you can still turn it off and then on using the remote control.
 
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