I took my second Xbox up to a work location with another network and tried to log that one on to the network with the DLC installed. It still locked up. I did not uninstall the DLC to test that as well as I figured the same work around would not affect it, but I have reconsidered that diagnostically it was important to make it login and go into multiplayer as perhaps that would have synced my account.
Either way my issue is still unresolved and I am still booting into Mass Effect 3 from two different Xboxes with the same procedure of having the DLC on a flash drive that I plug in after it checks for content. This is the only way it will not lock up on me.
I have to either host a game or quick join to join anything. If I want to join a friend then they have to setup some obscure public game with a private setting and then set it public while I am searching to force me to join the game. Of course, I ended up having other difficulties after joining the game the last time because I was disconnected from EA servers (imagine that) and then subsequently my Xbox locked up again and I have not tried this method again to verify if this works consistently. I just had the pleasure of wasting 20 minutes, not receiving any points toward my challenges because EA doesn't update the information until the game ends, and losing several pieces of gear.
Edit: I would also like to note that the EA chat support has no audible cues to let me know a technician is there, but I should sit there and watch the screen until they get back. If I am waiting while I am at work I have other things to do and may not see it come up. I just waited 30 minutes waiting for someone who disconnected fairly quickly. Now I am going through the process again. It's sad, too, because this seems to be a common enough problem for people on Live to already be aware of it happening to other people. I have mentioned it to a few people with whom I have played and they already knew about it and had suggestions. This support is awful.
Edit: I finally talked with someone on chat. I will try not to be disparaging, but they advised me to clear my cache after I asked them to read this post. I have already cleared my cache, but even if that wasn't clear I didn't see how that could be a likely issue with more than one Xbox. He or she clearly had no reasonable suggestions and was copying and pasting answers. Now I am being referred to "have someone call" me back. Maybe I can get someone competent on the phone and not a seat warmer.
Just an update. I never got a callback. The link the associate gave me was useless. I took my Xbox to yet another network (actually my other Xbox this time) and tried it with my retaliation trick to get the game load and connected completely to multiplayer.
I dashboarded and tried to boot Mass Effect with Retaliation and of course it froze on me again. There is still no resolution to my problem.
There is no customer available solution, it was explained to me that it was a bug that BIOWARE themselves has to fix and they pulled the ME3 team to work on ME4 and some unknown project. What this tells me is they've taken on the standard EA bug fixing approach, where they used to fix things with patches (Jade Empire got patches when a bug was found up to two years after they had finished it) they now just move on to the next project.
I wish you luck X-Box guy, I've abandoned ship.
Yeah, that is pretty much what I have gathered too. Some friends have said they have had it or know someone who had it and it just took time to fix itself. About 2 months from what I have gathered so maybe my prison sentence is soon to be over.
So, just another update. I still have the problem, but I have some more hope for those experiencing a similar issue.
A friend of mine was also familiar with this issue and I advised him I could not join friends' games because of it. I had to host. He told me try joining a game from the main menu after plugging the Retaliation back in and I should be able to accept a request to join a game. It worked!
However, I locked up the first time I tried to do it because I went to the main menu from multiplayer and that probably made it check my DLC again and connect again. I had to restart my Xbox before attempting it. I should have just dashboarded. I would have had to take out the DLC again before loading up but it would have prevented the freeze.
Either way if anyone is searching for help on this matter this is what I have so far. It's unfortunate that Bioware isn't devoting any time to this game any more.
