14 DAY TRIAL // On June 16th, Microsoft took Xbox LIVE, the network built around the Xbox consoles, offline and started implementing a complex update designed to bump the services available to the community up a notch. June 17th found Microsoft validating the implementation of the update across its datacenters. A member of the Xbox Live Operations team, identified only as Derek, acknowledged that the update had introduced what he referred to as “a couple of bumps here and there” at 8 PM Redmond time. At 3:16 AM, Derek noted that all the glitches reported had been resolved. Not the case; in fact, even on June 18, Microsoft continues to hammer away at the problems introduced to Xbox LIVE by the update rolled out a couple of days ago.
“We are tracking and in the process of resolving an interesting issue around Marketplace. As a part of the work we did yesterday, there were some updates to the tools we use to load content onto the service, and there are some unexpected failures with those new tools that affect new content added to the service in the previous 12-24 hours leading up to the downtime. That is the only issue of significance we are tracking at this time,” Derek stated, admitting that Microsoft has failed to be flawless with the Xbox LIVE refresh.
Not until today, June 18th, did Microsoft reveal that it had indeed identified the problem affecting Xbox LIVE Marketplace, but that a resolve was still in the distance, as the situation was deemed to be “complicated.” In addition, the Redmond company indicated that the issue impacting Xbox LIVE Marketplace content and tools was accompanied by two others.
“Double Purchase - the poor experience related to attempts to re-download these new pieces of content is resolved. Once issue 1 is fixed, when you attempt to download again, it should show the item as purchased and the option to download again. Achievements comparison between friends on xbox.com - this issue is understood and a fix will be going in tomorrow,” Derek promised.
By today at 8:20 PM in Redmond, the Marketplace glitch had been resolved, and the company was moving on to take care of the remaining problems. The software giant indicated that all the content should be in place by tonight, or June 19th at the latest.
“We are in the process of reloading around 150 pieces of content - this includes the Sega arcade games, Rockband DLC, etc. Because of how our caching works and replication out to CDNs, this could take somewhere between 1 and 4 hours to appear in your specific location. We realize this is not optimal and are working on making this process far more robust. The content for Ghostbusters has been reloaded, however we are still having a problem with token redemption (codes) that I wouldn't reasonably expect will be resolved until morning,” Derek said.