Not The Red Rings But Another Xbox Prob.

[Stewart]

Amazingly my 360 is still going strong on the hardware front, even after a dose of the red rings of death, but now I have the following problem.

Got my 360 with a months free Xbox Live use, used it, it ran out, I decided to play a bit of single player Halo. Anyway, I've done everything you can offline now apart from Legendary, so I thought time to get back on Live.

Went to buy a months worth for £5.99 with my card, which I know works, has plenty of money on it, and is the card I've used to buy 6 or 7 Xbox Live arcade games... cue typical 'lets make everything complicated and broken' Microsoft stuff.

'Can't retrieve information from Xbox Live, please try again later'

Error code - 80169d94

So I try again later - nowt. Again - nowt.

Googled it, and other people have had this problem, and its summat to do with Xbox Live and Windows ID details not matching. So I've checked, and obviously they do match. Perfectly.

So its another problem that shouldn't happen, but because Microsoft are about as slick an outfit as the Chuckle Brothers Romanian tribute act, I've got to waste yet more of my time ringing these cretins up and seeing if they can sort out the latest mess their dodgy hardware\software has thrown up.

Anyone else had this?

Apparently they suggest getting a complete new gamer tag - if I have to do this, they can stick it.

Microsoft, you are less competent than Jade Goody doing a spot of air traffic control.

[Stewart]

Just got off the phone to Microsoft, first time the woman said it was because the card I was using (VISA Electron) wasn't a valid card to use. I said it was valid when I was buying Xbox Live arcade games the other week, but she wasn't having none of it.

Rang again, and this time the polite but impossible to hear monkey said there shouldn't be a problem with the card. I now have a reference number and am supposed to wait 3-4 days for a call back.

A call which everyone in the world already knows will never come.

Hardware - melts on contact with life.

Software - stops working for no reason.

Call staff - whisper at you down a phoneline, whilst not being able to agree between themselves what the problem might be.

Top marks all round!1!!11!11

[Trash Man]

Maybe they have stopped accepting Electron cards? I never thought they did anyway as when my brother got his Xbox I had to let him use my debit card to set his account up because it would not accept his Electron.

I've got no idea has to why it worked to allow you to buy XBLA games though, maybe it's something to do with the subscription being a regular payment and the games are just one off's? Can you set up card payment on an Electron card like you can on a debit card?

[Tom Scott]

Xbox Live 80169d94 status Code

This dreaded error hit my system recently. Xbox on line support did not shed any light, while a quick google on this code revealed that this problem had become quite common recently. Users complained that Xbox phone support was not effective. Here is the fix. The error indicates that you xbox live purchasing functions have been “locked”. To unlock ensure that your personal details, name, address, etc precisely match your credit card deteils in terms of both content and capitalisation. Call xbox phone support and advise you have made this change and ask them to kick the problem to the credit department. Wait 24-48hours and miracle your account works. Happy “xbox live-ing”.

Hope that helps

[Stewart]

Cheers mate, I'll give that a try.