Since my initial post on the Xbox 360 freeze issues, I’ve managed to render my Xbox 360 unusable, again. Granted, it was crashing and freezing horribly right after I took it out of the box.
I thought I had managed to fix it, but it was only a temporary fix. I manged to get my xbox 360 to function properly by applying a dashboard update. I simply gave my 360 an internet connection and it downloaded and installed an update. Upon reboot all was fine for weeks. That is, until I tried playing Halo 2 for original Xbox.
I popped Halo 2 into my Xbox 360 and was asked to install an update for the game. I let it download and install the update, all seemed fine. When Halo 2 came back up, it froze immediately. So, I powered down my Xbox 360 for about 10 minutes then turned it back on. It sure didn’t get very far booting up at that point. After being on for roughly 3 seconds, I saw the dreaded 3 red lights appear on the ring of light. Not good.
Unfortunately, that’s all the further I’ve been able to get. My power supply isn’t overheating. The light on the power supply is green like it should be when the Xbox 360 is powered up. When the 360 is turned off, the light on the power supply is amber/orange. All normal there.
I have emailed Microsoft support, but haven’t received a reply yet. I will call them tomorrow if I don’t hear anything back by morning. I’ve tried everything they mention in their support and troubleshooting documents, to no avail. I fear they won’t be able to help me via phone/email. I’ll most likely end up having to send my Xbox 360 in to Microsoft for repair.
Microsoft has definitely taken notice of all the problems. They’ve increased the factory warranty on the Xbox 360 from 90 days to a full year. I received the notification email the day before Ashley and I left for vacation, a good note to leave for vacation on at least. Jason has a little snippet from the email for those who are interested. You can also check out the Xbox 360 FAQ, which covers the warranty pretty extensively.
If Microsoft is able to offer me any solutions other than sending my Xbox 360 in for repair, I will relay the solution here. I’m not holding my breath though.
Popularity: 45% [?]
Unwakeable 1.2 will be released shortly after January 1, 2007. I haven’t had much time the last two weeks to do much work on it. I could release it now, but I haven’t written the php to convert the old K2 options over to the new Unwakeable-specific options.
Some changes in 1.2 will include displaying post ratings, post views, and Digg Integrator on pages instead of only on posts. I’ve also added some css for displaying a changelog like the one I have on the Unwakeable page. Also, I need to test out Gregarious and get support for that plugin built in, if there’s any need to build support for it at all. Gregarious replaces Digg This Reloaded, it also makes use of the new Digg API.
I’ve been incredibly busy at work the last two weeks, we’ve migrated from Access to Microsoft SQL Server. It’s so much nicer to work with. Also, Ashley and I are going to Wisconsin on Friday to visit my dad and step-mom. I’m really hoping nothing goes wrong at work while I’m away. I can work remotely no problem, but I don’t know if I’ll have internet access for the entire week I’m gone. Luckily we’ve got some pretty good contacts that are willing to help out in my absence. They’re all people who’ve proven very trustworthy over the past year.
Popularity: 7% [?]
The WordPress folks have a limited amount of WordPress and WordCamp t-shirts available for sale. These t-shirts are the first edition. They’re planning on coming up with different styles in the future to represent specific times in WordPress history. The t-shirts they have available are the first style available.
Part of the idea is once we print a style, we never do it again, so each shirt will be representative of a certain time in WordPress history. Since these are the very first, they make a great gift for yourself or that special blogging geek in you life.
You can go to the store to get your WordPress or WordCamp t-shirts, providing there’s still some available. Mine should be here by Tuesday.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Some notable changes have been made in WordPress 2.1 in they way developers interact with the database. There’s a post over at the WordPress development blog that discusses some variables that have been removed, and the addition of a “future” value for the post_status field for posts that are to be published in the future. Also, the posts table has a field called post_type that distinguishes between posts and pages.
See the WordPress Development Blog for more.
Popularity: 7% [?]
After making this post, I submitted a support ticket to Dreamhost. Justin at Dreamhost replied back with a pretty solid sounding solution:
I did notice a few busy sites on the apaches for 2 of your domains. I started a move to another IP/apache which should complete in a few hours, and we can see if that apache turns out to be more stable. Since the server-status page for the old 2 showed an uptime of about 1 hour, likely the sites were causing that apache instance to time out and need to be restarted, resulting in a bit of downtime. Give it a try for a day and if you still have problems, let me know!
Perfect. Switch my domains over to a new httpd process with less activity. Makes sense. Well, after that was done, not much of an improvement was seen, as you can probably tell.
Today, I received another email from Justin saying he noticed longren.org was still slow to respond. He offered to move me to another server, assuming I was willing to have some downtime. He even asked if there was a time I’d prefer the move to be made. I asked him if 10:00 PST would work, and it did. So, this site is going to be offline for a few hours tonight while it’s being moved to a new server. The actual switch won’t take very long, I’ll just have to wait a few hours for the DNS to start pointing to the new IP.
Hopefully everything will be up and running along nice and smoothly tomorrow morning. Also, Justin at Dreamhost is awesome. He’s been very attentive and always offers possible solutions. Thanks again Justin!
Popularity: 8% [?]
I had tons of problems with my Xbox 360 after I got it setup. First I had three red lights on the Ring of Light. After getting that fixed, my screen would freeze before the Xbox 360 dashboard would fully load. Eventually I got into Need For Speed: Carbon, but the Xbox 360 would freeze after a minute or less of gameplay. I also witnessed the E71 error message a couple times, fun fun. Microsoft has a page dedicated to freeze issues, although it didn’t prove to be much help in my situation. There are some good troubleshooting tips in there though.
Eventually, I was able to get my Xbox 360 to download an update from Microsoft. After the update was downloaded and applied, I had a totally stable Xbox 360. Downloading the update didn’t seem to work for everyone though. This guy claims his Xbox 360 started freezing after he downloaded the update.
I neglected to discuss the most popular method for fixing Xbox 360 freeze issues. There’s a very simple solution to prevent your xbox power supply from overheating. All you have to do is ensure your Xbox 360 power supply has proper ventilation. Don’t tuck it away back in a corner under a pile of dirty clothes or anything. Keep it out in the open, and let it see as much air as possible. Some people have turned to setting their Xbox 360 power supplies on top of an open box, that way there’s very little surface area touching anything. Setting the power supply on top of an open box will allow better air movement and will ensure air is able to move under the power supply, an area air wouldn’t normally reach if your power supply is just sitting on the ground. There’s some pictures of this method at the GameSpot forums, along with some other Xbox 360 Fixes. Unlimited Gamer has some more information on this method also. Blogcritics has a pretty good post covering a couple different solutions to fixing your Xbox 360 freeze problems.
One of the methods mentioned at the GameSpot forums that you should have your Xbox 360 plugged directly into a wall, not into a power strip or anything. Even if it is in the wall already, it might help to unplug your power supply from the wall for a few seconds and then plug it back in.
Popularity: 41% [?]
