Forum Discussion
I am having this issue on the Xbox 360. I will go through what I have had so far.
Three days ago I was playing in the afternoon and I got disconnected from a game. I just turned my Xbox off out of frustration.
I came back that evening at around 11 pm and turned my Xbox on. I loaded Mass Effect 3 until it got to the menu and within 2 seconds the game froze. I repeated this process several times in different ways and with both discs with the same result. I even started off by deleting my hard drive install of ME 3 to see if perhaps there was some form of corruption, because it was very similar to a read error on a hard drive the way it froze at exactly the same spot Here is where it gets interesting for me. I have two Xbox 360s due to my obsession with Mass Effect 3. My other one has a bad optical drive that basically failed a little over a year ago, but I was able to get it to work somewhat toward the end of last year and I was able to get it to install ME3 on the hard drive which, in turn, allows me to load the game so long as the disc is initially recognized. This allowed me to load up Mass Effect on my second Xbox360. Here is the funny part: it did the same thing on my second box. It locked up again at the menu screen.
I went and played another game for a few hours (which also led me to further determine that there was nothing wrong with my Xbox) until my internet connection had a problem at 3 am. I called and confirmed and Mediacom was doing maintenance in the area. More problems for troubleshooting because now it could have been a network issue because they said it had been ongoing for a few hours and I could only assume that perhaps it wasn't just an acute problem with my network. I decided to give it a rest until the next day.
The next day I went back out during the afternoon to see if it would load. Sometimes problems do resolve themselves. It didn't. It still froze on startup. I decided to get online and look for solutions. I tried several things like unplugging the network cable. This did allow me to load into Mass Effect 3 and go into the options to look for things, but it didn't solve my problem (I did everything in the Mass Effect 3 - Freezing on "Checking Downloadable Content" Xbox 360 -
I got online and went to my N7HQ profile and found a note:
Your EA/Origin account needs to be updated. Re-sync your online profile(s) to fix this problem.
I found this to be odd. Perhaps the disconnect from EA initially caused this. Perhaps the network maintenance from Mediacom caused this. Either way if I click re-sync your online profile(s) it does nothing. The error is still there. Considering the game froze every time at the moment the game is validating and syncing the DLC and EA profile seems to indicate that perhaps the synchronization is the problem. I believe the Retaliation pack is also related to the N7HQ as it brought it about from what I read. The workaround I have at this point is to have a completely separate flash drive with Retaliation installed on it and I load up and then plug the flash drive in after it verifies the DLC. This works, but it still presents me with a problem. I still have to host or quick join games.
I've tried a few different things to try to get the Xbox to re-sync and get rid of the error on my profile. Nothing has been successful yet, but I feel that would fix my problem. I have heard from a friend that he had a similar problem (after I already diagnosed everything) and he just said it went away after a couple of months.
If anyone has some insight into synchronizing my account I will give it a try. I will probably open a support ticket soon, because it is a pain to put this flash drive in the front of my Xbox every time. It's also a pain to limit my options for joining games.
unfortunately I was selected by this glorious glitch yesterday, before that I was all good for over a year..
maybe time is the only fix to it, which means I cannot join friends' lobbies for weeks/months/years..
- Anonymous10 years ago
I'm surprised they would allow this game breaking bug to keep away customers and adversely affect playerbase and word of mouth.
That said, it rarely does auto resolve itself. Don't count on it however.
>>> For PC, the workaround is:
1] Go offline in Origin.
2] Start Mass Effect 3. Get to the main menu. It will fail to connect because offline
3] Manually click connect. It will fail again because offline
4] Then, and only then, go online in Origin.
5] Click connect again in Me3 main menu. It should work and multiplayer should be fine
>>> For consoles, there are workarounds posted in some older threads somewhere on the internet that involve swapping out memory sticks with the Retaliation DLC on it or somewhat; I don't have a console so you can go look it up yourself. Happy hunting 🙂