I’m looking very forward to the new Xbox One Experience. Mostly, it’s because the Xbox One’s current User Interface is a giant pile of junk; a completely unintuitive set of menus and apps that are barely connected to each other. Navigating the Xbox One is more troublesome than it ought to be – and that’s exactly what the November update seeks to fix.
I’d be running it right now, save for some perhaps serendipitous timing. The new experience is live for Xbox preview members – and I’d be in that select group of individuals who get to beta test updates were it not for me being invited to the program juuuuuuuuuuust around the time Microsoft stopped accepting new participants. I say serendipitous, because it seems that the preview is a little broken right now.
Microsoft is aware of, and currently trying to a fix a list of issues with the new experience that’s longer than a Tolstoy novel. Here’s what’s currently wrong:
Games and Apps: The following are known issues with specific titles on the initial New Xbox One Experience updates.
Games Failing to Launch: The following games may fail to launch:
- Guacamelee: SCTE
- Unmechanical
- Elite: Dangerous
- Pool Nation FX
- D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die
- Xbox Fitness
- Skylanders
- Destiny: The Taken King
- Game Compilation Discs (ex. Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, Saints Row IV).
Forza 6: You may encounter graphical errors (screen turns a blue or purple hue) when participating in races.
Assassin’s Creed Unity: Installing Assassin’s Creed Unity DLC while the game is open will cause it to crash when the DLC finishes downloading.
Elder Scrolls Online: Logging into an existing character will cause an error indicating you do not have network connectivity and prevent you from connecting to the server.
Titles with DLC installation issues: You will be unable to install DLC from game collection as no manage UI is present. Simply download the DLC and bundled title from the stall.
Apps Failing to Launch: The following apps may fail to launch:
- ABC News
- VUDU
- SlingTV
- WWE
- Showtime Anytime
- Every Street United
- Overdog
- BlinkBox
- ReddX
- TWC TV
Apps with video issues: The following apps will launch but videos or streams will not play:
- SyFy
- USA Now
- BravoNow
- TED
- MLB
General System Errors
- System Update Errors: If you encounter an update error screen while downloading a system update and the console freezes, please wait 3 minutes before rebooting the console to ensure crash data is captured. Crash data is submitted automatically; no action required on your part.
- Party Chat: When entering connected standby with a party chat session open, after resuming from connected standby party chat may no longer function. Workaround: Hard reset the console (press and hold the power button on front of the Xbox One console to perform a hard reset).
- Xbox Button: While holding down a button on the controller or plugging in a racing wheel and pressing the Xbox button, the power menu may pop up after which the Xbox button will fail to recognise input. Workaround: Hard reset the console.
- Automatic Downloads: Content purchased from Xbox.com will not automatically download to the Xbox One console. This feature is planned to come later.
- Browser: You will be unable to use voice commands in the browser; using voice commands in the browser will likely cause the console to hang and require a hard reset to resolve the issue.
- My games & apps: After downloading a system update ‘My games & apps’ may fail to populate. Workaround: Hard reset the console.
- Games stuck in the queue: You may find games are unexpectedly remaining in the download queue.
- Notifications: Friends do not receive game toast notifications.
Live TV: The following issues affect the Live TV experience.
- Cable/Satellite set top box compatibility is not yet at parity with the current Xbox One experience. Please continue to report video playback and audio issues using the Report a problem app to help us improve the experience. HDMI troubleshooting steps: 1. Go Home and press the menu button on the OneGuide app to quite, then restart it. 2. Unplug and re-plug the HDMI-in cable from the Xbox, ensuring it’s seated securely in the port. 3. With the Xbox One turned on, pull the power cord on the cable/satellite box, wait a few seconds, and plug it back in. 4. Press and hold the power button on the front of the Xbox One to perform a hard reboot of the console.
- Dolby Digital surround sound will not work for Live TV.
- App channels cannot be set as a Favourite.
- The “Xbox Snap TV” voice command does not work. You can snap TV via voice commands by saying “Xbox Snap OneGuide” or choosing OneGuide from the Snap Centre.
- The OneGuide pin doesn’t function. You can launch OneGuide using the app, voice commands, or from the OneGuide twist.
- You may experience a stuck frame streaming TV to the Xbox App. You can enter OneGuide or resize your window to restore video playback.
- The media transport controls do not work when streaming TV to SmartGlass and Xbox app clients.
- When resuming from connected standby the Xbox One media remote may fail to send commands. Workaround: Hard reset your console.
Community Twist
- Currently this area is not fully populated with content and is missing large sections of the user experience. Activity feed content also may not be actionable and items on the trending items second level screen have not been fully tuned. As Preview moves forward content and features in this area will light up.
Xbox App/SmartGlass
- SmartGlass and Xbox App Live TV/OneGuide: You may experience issues connecting to Live TV or OneGuide when connecting to the console with SmartGlass. Workaround: Set you SmartGlass connection to auto connect, quit the app, and restart. If the issue persists, hard reset the console.
- Basic SmartGlass functionality is available including gamepad navigation, touch navigation, remote text entry, media playback control, and companions for apps and games. Other features such as two-finger touch panning, media companions, and power on/off will not function in this build.
Accessories
- Xbox One Media Remote: When resuming from connected standby the Xbox One media remote may fail to send commands. Workaround: Hard reset the console.
- Xbox One Media Remote: The buttons for media playback will not work (rewind, play, pause, fast forward, skip back, stop, skip forward). The directional and centre “select” button will function as normal.
- USB Tuner: If you have a USB TV Tuner plugged into your Threshold Xbox One console, Windows and Windows Phone SmartGlass devieces will crash when attempting to connect to the console. To avoid this, you can switch to the Xbox App on Windows 10 to reset your TV settings and avoid setting up the USB TV Tuner.
- Third Party Steering Wheels: Using a third party steering wheel will work in games, however, it may cause instability to the console after attempting to use the Xbox button to return to the dashboard. Workaround: Hard reset the console.
The biggest issue, game wise, is obviously that Destiny’s Taken King expansion doesn’t work if you’re running the preview – which is rather compelling reason to not be running it. The new Xbox One Experience looks like it’s klargely based around the rather spifffing Xbox app that comes as part of Windows 10 – and will make PCs and Xbox Ones more connected parts of the same ecosystem. It already does that to a large degree thanks to some rather impressive Xbox to PC streaming.
Last Updated: September 18, 2015
HairyEwok
September 18, 2015 at 09:11
So technically speaking the list will be way shorter if you summed up what wasn’t wrong with the system.
Alien Emperor Trevor
September 18, 2015 at 09:12
*snort*
Pariah
September 18, 2015 at 09:19
It’d probably only have One item on it.
HairyEwok
September 18, 2015 at 09:25
The fact that the Xbone still starts up would be that one item XD
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:25
HAHAHAH!
Generic ZA
September 18, 2015 at 09:37
clicking the accept button did come with a warning lable, basically stating “abandon all hope of gaming ye who enter here”
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:15
http://i.imgur.com/zI3gn4x.gif “I’m looking very forward to the new Xbox One Experience” What are you? Indian?!
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:25
I cast Pieter at thee!
Jonah Cash
September 18, 2015 at 09:33
Hope he isn’t in the preview program?! But then again he will put a positive spin on this, maybe something like at least they are innovating not like the SamsungStation and it’s stagnant OS… Booyah, just channeled my inner Pieter and I am still here. (Was worried I went to far over to the dark side…)
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:35
Close call man, close call 0_O
Alien Emperor Trevor
September 18, 2015 at 09:36
Let the pony not cast the first stone in his glass house while stirring the black pot!
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 09:38
And that is why we do not stow glass thrones in grass huts.
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:39
I prefer the adage ‘GET IN THE SEA!’
Alien Emperor Trevor
September 18, 2015 at 09:41
It only really works if you don’t like getting in the sea.
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:42
You like getting into freezing water? I suppose it does support the usual excuse you use *RUNS
Alien Emperor Trevor
September 18, 2015 at 09:43
It’s a TWO-FER!
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:48
http://media.giphy.com/media/nikY87FA5tRew/giphy.gif
HairyEwok
September 18, 2015 at 09:44
He must be from Cape Town then if he likes freezing water.
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:47
He is. But so am I and I hate freezing water!
RinceThis
September 18, 2015 at 09:28
Thank goodness no one on the Xbox One wants to play The Taken King hey?
Jonah Cash
September 18, 2015 at 09:31
That is a very long error list right there!!! WOW
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 09:33
Yes, but that is the reason fr testing and preview programs.
I actually approve of the long list, it means someone is working hard on this. I hope. Um.
Jonah Cash
September 18, 2015 at 09:33
I don’t want to preview anything if you give it to me this broken to be honest!
Pariah
September 18, 2015 at 09:35
Well, to be fair – it’s not a final release. And previews are for people who expect stuff to be broken, that’s why they exist in the first place. To test. As per @bradymiaau:disqus
Jonah Cash
September 18, 2015 at 09:39
I understand what you both are saying, but I don’t think anyone expects that many errors even in a preview program. Games not running is just a big no no to me! Surely someone would have tested it internally or are the previewers now the testers? I might understand previewers wrong…
HairyEwok
September 18, 2015 at 09:41
I wonder if there’s a roll back for the people who don’t want to test the experience anymore.
Jonah Cash
September 18, 2015 at 09:42
I would definitely not preview anything in the future if there isn’t a roll back! This just seems very wrong to me, some of those issues are truly straight forward any internal testing would have seen them!
Pariah
September 18, 2015 at 09:44
I think the % of games not playable vs the % playable would be a good indicator. If this was 15% of the games on the Xbone, then I’d say you’re right. But nobody can test every game before they release the preview. Some games are bound to slip through.
Honestly, with a complete revamp, having so few errors is actually quite the accomplishment. And yes, this is comparatively few errors, compared to how many could possibly be here.
Jonah Cash
September 18, 2015 at 12:40
The fact that Destiny is not working is probably my biggest moan. I would have flipped!
HairyEwok
September 18, 2015 at 09:34
You would think that they have a team that at least tests the system before releasing it to the public to test.
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 09:36
I am sure they do. I have a small team of testers. As hard as we try, they still sometimes miss things that are picked up during actual field trials.
BUT, this list is damn long. I suspect, thought, that some of the actual faults roll up into one actual cause, such as the games that will not load might have one common cause.
HairyEwok
September 18, 2015 at 09:38
Yes, some things to slip the initial testing but this, this is entirely something different. With all those errors one would think the testers didn’t even touch it.
Pariah
September 18, 2015 at 09:33
I bet the error list for the BontOS is longer. 😛
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 09:54
Hi. I have seen projects smaller than the Xbox One OS, with a team of 13 quality developers and a good team of beta testers product more errors when in Beta mode. Sometimes small stupid errors that take literally a few minutes to correct, but still an error.
I also think this is not too bad.
K1FF J1MB0B (sizzle edition)
September 18, 2015 at 09:32
MS = Kings of Software! lulz..
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 09:34
Financially, yes.
And Exchange Server. Wow. In the year 2000, with Active Directory brought in. That product, coupled with outlook was just so much more than the Groupwise or Lotus notes or whatever could offer. Man, it great. The company can do great software, they can also do Vista, for example.
K1FF J1MB0B (sizzle edition)
September 18, 2015 at 09:39
I’d say they are pretty hit and miss.. companies like Apple and Google make software that shits all over them though.
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 09:52
Apple yes/ Google, Android, not my favourite. Google Chrome, yes, google web apps, I love. Yeah.
I think both Google and MS are hit and miss.
K1FF J1MB0B (sizzle edition)
September 18, 2015 at 10:17
Yes, Google not so much for Android but their web apps.
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 10:23
Hmm. I hate the adverty nature of Android or something. I especially hate the fact that Apple and MS on smartphones can do SO much more on so much less hardware. (yes, yes, Apple especially develped for hardware, but MS Windows Phone is more processor friendly and is still damn fast on comparatively low specs.
Also, Android, as installed by the phone and telecoms people, is bloatware, massively so.
I find it interesting that a lot of the things that made MS hated in 2005 are now ok in Android, as deployed by headset makers..
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 09:39
I just saw now: TED will not work.
not acceptable. Fix it. Now.
Geoffrey Tim
September 18, 2015 at 09:58
I have. I prefer reading error logs.
Pariah
September 18, 2015 at 10:05
Bit awkward reading your own biography though I’d imagine.
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 10:18
Me too. And Dickens. And Dostoevsky (spelling?).
In fact,, if someone says read this, it is a classic, I will push them in the sea. My gran got me to read a whole bunch of these growing up.
I read Lord of the Rings at age 9 and she wanted something a bit more “proper”. Of course, she loved Dune so much as well. So it was proper too.
Spidy Duz It
September 18, 2015 at 10:05
i have the xbone, its complete garbage wont recomend anyone to buy it even if they do update it.
Brady miaau
September 18, 2015 at 10:19
I have one. We use it a lot. Netflix, Hulu, TED, some games, Youtube. some more games.
AND I love the voice commands. Very well worked.
Craig Hugerich
September 18, 2015 at 17:26
Its articles/posts like this that hurt the concept of beta testing and previews.
Your click-bait headline leads someone to believe that Microsoft is putting out a crappy end product.