The Freezing is a GLOBAL Problem in the 2K Sports 360 Line!

[SkateZilla]

For those that havent ventured to anything else other than MLB 2K6..

its Problem with all 2K sports 360 Titles,

The Main Factor Being the Harddisk, and the Fact that All the Games are the same Oringal Xbox 1 Codes with higher polygon modelsm high res textures and a few nifty bump and specular mappings.. As a Result of the Games Being Ported from the Origninal Xbox Code... certain things may not have translated correctly..

A Major Workaround would be to purchase A Memory Card and Save All Data On it, Remove the HArddisk COmpletly from teh System, Import Your Live Account to the Memory Card... and Use the MEMORY CARD ONLY and not the Harddisk..

Some People have also Reported, Making an "Offline Profile" Works as well, meaning you sign out of live, and login with the Offline Profile..

It Seems that the Tester(s), Whomever they are Only tested the games with core systems and didnt fully test teh titles with the Harddisks and stuff...


I Personally dont feel like i should have to Spend another $40 to play a game which obviously hasnt been debugged...

The 2K Sports Titles I've played both seem to have Issues and Bugs when Acessing the Xbox 360 Harddisk ... In some instances The Game wont check the Harddisk (you know the "Checking Harddisk" message wont show, and the game will display all saves As "DAMAGED" which is not true... after rebooting the system or dropping it down to dashbord and re-launching it... All Files Are Intact (unless you try and save/load of course)

I've Emailed 2K, Kush, Visual Concepts, Microsoft.. everyone, and Microsoft was the only one that replied stating its definately not a Problem with the 360 Itself..

From what I've read over the last 3 months is people that did email 2k/Kush got the "call 1-800-4-my-xbox" speech or the "Re-formatt your harddisk" Speech or "We Are aware fo the issue" speech...

REFORMATTING DOESNT DO ANYTHING BUT DELETE THE HARDDISK CONTENTS.. SOME STUFF YOU WONT GET BACK (ie Hexic HD)

My Suggestion, if you really wanna play, Get a Memory Card...

If you dont feel you have to get a Memory Card.. your out of luck.. the Interface with the harddisk is prolly the same coding for each title... and they all ahve hte same problem..,,

I Repeat.. The Lockups Are a REsult of the HDD Interface Coding... The Title Seems to Lose Access To teh Harddisk at un related times.... random times... after than trying to save or load any saves from teh HDD would put the sysm in a hard lock.. requiring the user to cycle the power (ie Turn unit off let HDD Spin down, Turn unit On)

SO For Everyone that hasnt Bought hte Games From 2K Sports.. DONT... Wait Until they Release Patches That Fix their Harddisk Coding..

[Ty71]

I haven't had any freezing at all and I have a hdd.

So....what now?

[SkateZilla]

bump,

i'd just like to say this is the real problem,

1. there was no dirt on the disc when they were made,

2. your xbox 360 hdd is fine

3. You Xbox 360 as a whole is fine

4. the Problem is as I Said in all 2K sports Titles on the 360 and all of them are witht he HDD connected

5. Remove the Harddisk, .... if it dont lock up.. Buy a Memory Card, leave HDD Disconnected.. Import you live accoun to Memcard. and save all yoru setting s on the mem, card.. and ALWAYS remove the HDD before Playing any 2K sports title... The Programming in all 2K Sports Games pertaining to HDD access is what has the bug...

[Ty71]

And as I said....

Am I just special seeing that I have the HDD and have not had any freezing.

Also, I believe that you don't have any special knowledge above anyone elses, so that lends me to think that you know not of what you speak but instead are just putting forth your theory as fact.

[indiansin06]

REFORMATTING DOESNT DO ANYTHING BUT DELETE THE HARDDISK CONTENTS.. SOME STUFF YOU WONT GET BACK (ie Hexic HD)



EXACTLY, people that are reformatting are just unnecessarily deleting all their stuff, THIS WILL NOT FIX IT! You can never use your harddrive again even if it does work.

[SkateZilla]

And as I said....

Am I just special seeing that I have the HDD and have not had any freezing.

Also, I believe that you don't have any special knowledge above anyone elses, so that lends me to think that you know not of what you speak but instead are just putting forth your theory as fact.


then your lucky for now, alot of people didnt start having problems right away...


as for questioning my knowledge.. you have a right to.. but i'd like to say..

I've Beta Tested Multiple.. Dozens of Games.. PC and Xbox And 360... I have experience in harddisk accessing programming, I have experience in 3d Modeling ... I've Done about 7 years of PC trouble shooting, consisting of O/S Issues, Harddisk Corruption/ File System Issues, etc etc..

I've played with every 2K6 Title I have.. and they all seem to do the same thing, after a while the game decides its not improtant to have exclusive access to the harddisk, wether its a sideeffect of having the game utilize 360 music player playlists for music/ditties or not im not sure.. i'd have to play with stuff some more...

the fact remains that there is a Harddisk access problem.. and that is causing lockups and saved files for that game to show as "Damaged" when they arent...

I have Friends with Core systems ... they can bring their Game disc, which they dont have lockups on their system... and it will lock up on mine.. fact.. if i remove my harddisk and use his memorycard for his franchise/settings saves... i can play endlessly.... antoher friend of mine had the extra $40 to spend and he plus about 20 people from NHL 2K6 confirmed that removing the 360 Harddisk and starting fresh on a memory card solves locking up cuased by teh HDD access coding..

there are other reasons for lockups as well, (ie incomplete rosters etc etc )

Still, I find it hard to ignore people across about 40+ FOrums and message boards that have purchsed or use memory cards as their primary storage device have No save/load/lockup problems.. and people that do use the harddisk do have lockups and "Damaged" Saves.. I have more than one Harddisk and both lockup on 2K sports Titles...

[CrazyCougar]

bump,

i'd just like to say this is the real problem,

1. there was no dirt on the disc when they were made,



Dont rule something like that out. Its happened in music discs, computer discs, and even console games, and it doesnt take much to screw up a microscopic section of a pressed disc. Most of the time its caught in QA tesing and not so much the visual inspection tables, but things have been known to slip through the cracks. Thousands of discs are run for each title, and not every one gets QA'ed. They select from certain locations in the run to ensure quality and conformity.

[SkateZilla]

Dont rule something like that out. Its happened in music discs, computer discs, and even console games, and it doesnt take much to screw up a microscopic section of a pressed disc. Most of the time its caught in QA tesing and not so much the visual inspection tables, but things have been known to slip through the cracks. Thousands of discs are run for each title, and not every one gets QA'ed. They select from certain locations in the run to ensure quality and conformity.


If Parts of the disc were unreadable then it would prompt erroc Correction on fhte optic drive to either correct ro report CRC Check fail.. which would result in a "Dirty Disc Error"

[CrazyCougar]

Not necesarily. It all depends on where the "fault" in the disc information was at. And to what extent the "damage" was. Just because the disc may have a fault doesnt mean it would be unreadable.

[SkateZilla]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/701/701506p1.html

2K Sports promptly issued a statement today, saying, "For those customers experiencing technical issues with Major League Baseball 2K6 on Xbox 360, 2K Sports is aware of the 'freeze' problem some customers are experiencing and is working on a solution. This appears to occur for owners of Xbox 360 with HDD and a solution will be available in the very near future. For updates on this issue, please visit

[CrazyCougar]

Which makes it look like a hardware/coding conflict. Chances are this is in fact the issue.

I agree with many things you have said, but also stated that there is a slight chance that it could be faulty discs and not to rule it out. Some people do actually have the game working with an HDD, which tends to throw a loop in the HDD theory.

Not trying to argue with you and definitely not questioning your knowledge of the technology. Just throwing out another possibility.

[HOmega]

All good points, but I tried to test this theory earlier tonight by removing the HDD and playing a few games. Notice I said "tried", I made it through 8 innings of one game before the game decided to lock up between innings... I did notice that it occured after tapping "A" on the way to first, I guess in my haste I was still pressing "A" after the out had been recorded and the inning ending animations were supposed to start, this is when the lockup occured. If I didnt press anything between innings, it would load fine. If I tried to skip through the cutscenes, 6/10 times it locked up... As for the reformatting helping some people, If it works for them, great. But I don't think that is the end all fix for the freezing issues. We just might be dealing with more than one thing that triggers the game to lock up. If this is the case and there are others that have tried what I have, it may defenitly point directly at a disc manufacturing error or general poor coding or porting over of Xbox code... Just some thoughts.

[Wasted420]

I have a question about your HDD theory? Is is possible that people that got a later batch of XBOX 360's have this HDD problem fixed? I have a launch 360 and have been having this freezing problem. However, two of my friends who got their premiums in Feb. the game works fine on it. Also, I can play online fine (knock on wood) this only happens when I play single player.

[SkateZilla]

that doenst explain why only people not locking up dont have harddisks and use an Offline Profile on the dashboard and not a Gamertag XBL GOLD/SILVER Profile..

That doesnt explain why EVERY 2K SPORTS 360 Title Locks Up....

[Tbagz]

SkateZilla, knock on wood, I have not had any in game freezes. It froze one trying to connect to live with a VIP name same as my gamertag. I was wondering if I do choose to buy a memory card can I not just leave the drive hooked up and only save to the memory card? I really don't want to start connecting/disconnecting my HDD for games. this I think will eventually break as well.

[CrazyCougar]

I havent had issue with 2K games locking up yet. Played the NBA Basketball and had no issues. Oblivion I have yet to have an issue (although not a sports title). The only one I didnt play was NHL 2k6. But I have several friends that have recently got a 360 and have NHL and havent had a problem.

The point about this being a launch system issue may be more valid than anything else.

[Garrett67]

I have had the other 2k6 titles since they came out and haven't had one single problem with any of them, not even a hiccup or stutter and the same holds true for my copy of MLB 2k6. So your theory that the problem is with 2k games and the hard drive just doesn't hold water.

[SkateZilla]

Im Still playing around with All my 2K 6 Titles,


First Up NHK 2K6, Locks up and HDD Displays "Damaged" after a game..


I jjust created an Offline Profile (Not XBL Silver Or Gold..) copied my saves to it,

played part of a game and quit and it still worked,


i did notice one thing, when playing with XBL Profile (Dashboard Profile) I dont get any "XXXX is Online" Popups Or anything..

SO the HDD access Problem is Prolly Linked to the XBL Profiles on the Harddisk, But still its a harddisk access problem... and 2K is prolly reading this thinking to them selves "i wish this skate zilla dude would just stfu and let us fix the problem instead of ranting on about hdd access"

edit : even with an offline profile NHL2K6 loses access to teh HDD and lists everything as damaged

[risky buisness]

EXACTLY, people that are reformatting are just unnecessarily deleting all their stuff, THIS WILL NOT FIX IT! You can never use your harddrive again even if it does work.


You must be on drugs. I reformatted, and it works fine, i have been able to play all day with out any problems. By the way i can also use my hard drive so you dont know what your talking about. Ps i could care less bout hexic.

[slammerxt]

Not I or any of my friends have had the issue with the 2k sports yet, and 2 of them got launch systems. Granted, we havent got MLB yet.

[tpp]

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/701/701506p1.html

Cool. How about addressing the problems with OTHER 2K games at the same time?

[2005NYYanks]

O.K., Everyone in here seems to be treating this as a fact:

“A Major Workaround would be to purchase A Memory Card and Save All Data On it, Remove the HArddisk COmpletly from teh System, Import Your Live Account to the Memory Card... and Use the MEMORY CARD ONLY and not the Harddisk..”

This is not always true.
I own a Hard Drive and a Memory Card and owned both of them prior to purchasing MLB 2K6.
I did not have the Memory Card plugged into the X-BOX 360 and when I read these threads I did exactly what is suggested about taking the game out of the tray and then moving the data from the HDD to the Card and then turning off the system and detaching the HDD and using the Memory Card only and not the Hard Disk.
That solved the freezing problem for about 3 games and then it was freezing again WITHOUT the HDD being attached and running off of just the Memory Card.
This problem is more than just a HDD problem.

Also, I own NBA 2K6 and have had NO problems with anything it whatsoever and have played it extensively and always used the HDD and had no glitches or freezes.

The other issue is that of reformatting…

I had read that if I transferred all my saved game files from the HDD to the Memory Unit and then re-formatted the HDD, that would solve the problem.

I did that and it did not help for more time than switching to the Memory Unit did.
It helped for a few games and that’s it…

Then another poster in this forum says that:

“EXACTLY, people that are reformatting are just unnecessarily deleting all their stuff, THIS WILL NOT FIX IT! You can never use your harddrive again even if it does work.”

It did not work, but what do you mean that if you reformat that you never use your hard drive again, even if it does work?

That’s absolutely not true at all.

I’m using my HDD after the unnecessary reformat that I did and other than missing files that I erased unnecessarily, it works fine.

I transferred all the stuff from the Memory Unit back to the HDD and I took out MLB 2K6 and put in Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and loaded up my saved games from the HDD that I had transferred there from the Memory Card Unit after the re-format and it worked just fine.

And I had the Memory Card Unit unplugged so I know that it was pulling from the HDD…..

[kmass]

I haven't had any freezing at all and I have a hdd.

So....what now?


I did not have a problem the first night after I purchased it either. Last night, though was a big problem. Freezing after the first inning.

[CrashOverrid3]

I did get freezing in nba 2k6 when playing street mode (i just shrugged it off and played again). I also get slow-down in the franchise mode, but I can make it through games so I live with it.

I do get freezing on mlb, and if i don't get a repsonse that sounds resonable then I'm returning the game and getting something else.

Removing the HDD is not a valid answer for me as I am in a wheelchair and cant be removing the drive everytime I want to play (I broke my neck but can still play games it's just to hard for me to lift the xbox remove the drive etc.)

[THE1969ER]

I have a question………..do you import your 360 stuff to the memory card, and then turn off the 360, remove the HD, and then turn it back on with the MC in it?

[SkateZilla]

just lettign you know, after 10 hours of tinkering today, turning stuff off and on and changing the settings etc.. no luck..

MLB is gone, i gave it to a friend, .. NHL 2K is locking up more than usual so i guess Im Putting it on "Coaster" status until a patch

[SkateZilla]

I'd Just want to bump..


and specify by "GLOBAL" I mean ALL 2K 3670 Tittles .. lmao.. Not world Wide..

[ikejenkins21]

I took ou my hard drive because I was one of the unlucky souls who had to buy the core system.It worked no freezing.

[bronxboy]

bump,

...

5. Remove the Harddisk, .... if it dont lock up.. Buy a Memory Card, leave HDD Disconnected.. Import you live accoun to Memcard. and save all yoru setting s on the mem, card.. and ALWAYS remove the HDD before Playing any 2K sports title... The Programming in all 2K Sports Games pertaining to HDD access is what has the bug...

Hey Skate, I never use a memory card for my 360 (not even on XBOX 1) so I am not familiar with how to import my Live account to the mem card. Does this mean that I will always have to access XBOX Live by using the card or will I still be able to get online with my HDD for times when I'm playing non-2KSports titles? Any info on this is appreciated.

[Brewskie]

I know 3 friends who have the game, along with myself, and it has never froze on any of us yet.

[SkateZilla]

Hey Skate, I never use a memory card for my 360 (not even on XBOX 1) so I am not familiar with how to import my Live account to the mem card. Does this mean that I will always have to access XBOX Live by using the card or will I still be able to get online with my HDD for times when I'm playing non-2KSports titles? Any info on this is appreciated.


AFAIK, You can Have your Live Profile on the Xbox 360 HDD and Memcard...



Steps.
1a. Power Down (unplug the PSU from the wall and unit) (to avoid shorting anything)
1b. Remove HDD
2. Insert Memory Card
3. Bootup
4. Import using the "Join Xbox Live" screen and input your MSN stuff to import your Gamertag", or just make an Offline Profile...
5. Adjust all system settings and stuff... download system updates (360 system updates..)
6. shutdown, bootup from Memcard w/ No HDD Attached
7. Launch Game...


not sure but i think you can transfer your game saves to the Memory card as well..

but as long as the HDD is Attached to the system, the game detects and uses it for cache or something, and it locks up all the 2K titles.. and I can play an Hockey game go back to teh save/load menu and it says everything is corrupted (when its not)... the game just loses exclusive access to the HDD

im actually thinking of Buying a NEW HDD... and REFORMATTING it outta the box.. to see if maybe the problems are cuased by another games saved file or Oblivions Large CACHE file

[bronxboy]

Thanks for the detailed response. Someone else in these forums said that they followed this procedure and his game still froze up. I despise the fact that I might have to spend money on a memory card just so that I MIGHT be able to play the game I purchased. I know that I shouldn't do this on principle, but unfortunately like many others here, I am hopelessly addicted to baseball video gaming and I need my fix. I will hold out as long as I can to see if they release a patch, but if it takes too long I'm afraid I'll cave in and buy the card. Perhaps I'd be better off spending the $40 on "MLB '06: The Show" for the PS2. I have heard that this game has some issues also, but nothing can be as bad as this Fuster Cluck.

[SkateZilla]

Clearign the Cache DId fix my NHL 2K6 so...