Xbox Live not working for you on Xbox One? Here’s Microsoft’s potential fix

Yesterday was Xbox One’s big day. The anticipated sci-fi shooter Titanfall finally debuted, and it is running well. Xbox Live, however, is not so problem-free, but you can fix it by simply pulling a plug.

People reported issues logging into Xbox Live on Xbox One for much of last night. This prevented people from playing Titanfall, watching Netflix, or accessing the Xbox Store — although players that logged into the system before the problems started did not have any issues. Microsoft eventually posted a fix, but the problems are continuing for some. Microsoft’s Xbox Live Status site is reporting that the Xbox One is continuing to have sign-in issues. If you’re one of those affected, try unplugging the unit.

“Microsoft is investigating an issue that may interrupt customer access to some Microsoft online services. This is unrelated to the launch of Titanfall and the Xbox Live service is up and running,” a Microsoft spokesperson told GamesBeat. “The issue on Xbox is resolved, but unfortunately a small percentage of Xbox One owners may still experience a sign-in issue on Xbox Live, which can be fixed with a cold reboot of the Xbox One by powering down, unplugging, waiting 10 seconds, plugging back in, and powering back on.”

In addition to the log-in problems, Microsoft is reporting persistent issues with Netflix on Xbox One as well as YouTube for Xbox One and Xbox 360. Netflix users are having trouble connecting to the application while YouTube is experiencing issues with streaming quality.

Yesterday was potentially a big sales day for Microsoft. The company started selling a bundle that includes the system and Titanfall for $500. Industry observers already expected the shooter to move Xbox Ones, and the reduced price likely helped with that. The influx of new owners combined with the number of people hopping on to play games is likely putting a strain on the Xbox Live system.

Prolonged outages like this are not a big deal for physical games that work offline, but Microsoft was once going to require an online connection for Xbox One. That would have made even “offline” single-player games unplayable in situations like this.