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My "Maybe-Modded" Xbox 360 (Or, why I can no longer get on Xbox Live)

Juice

Member
This weekend when I was planning on playing Madden with a friend. To my surprise, the system logged me into Live and then suddenly reported that "Your console can't connect to Xbox Live".

Without realizing the interesting semantics of that error message, I repeatedly ran the test utility only to see that even though the console could very quickly get online, it failed at the "Xbox Live" step; I looked up every source I could and not only is a failure at that step hardly-at-all documented by Microsoft, I couldn't find the specific error and status codes anywhere.

So I finally gave in and called support. I explained my situation to Dude #1 and he at first treated me like a member of the typical "what's a router?" crowd, until I gave him my status code. He explained that the hex positions can tell you exactly what the problem was, and mid-sentence I heard a slight gasp followed by a clawing about. Something like:

"Right, so I can see here that you're connected to..*gasp*, uhh, woah, uhh, hold please"

I was then shuffled to four different people and eventually the lead supervisor of the department. What was really jarring about this experience was that everyone I talked to drilled me with questions about whether I'd modded or run illegal software on my 360. For once in my life, I actually hadn't done anything worthy of raising suspicions when asked a question of this nature, so I adamantly denied the accusation, but was at a loss as to why they'd be asking me in the first place.

As for the supervisor, I'll spare you the twenty minutes of typical support-jargon I had to grope through to get some answers as to why I was being kicked out of live, and he gave me the following explanation that offered me with quite a tickle. His explanation was something like this:

"Yes, well, every time you start up your 360 it does a self-diagnostic to check to see if it's been modded or not. Now, when you actually go to log into Live, it'll report the result to the gateway and Live will of course allow access if the console is not modded. The Xbox always reports 'yes' or 'no' as to whether or not it's been modified, but this is the first time that any of us know of that this has happened: your Xbox 360 is reporting 'maybe'. We're going to spend a lot of time investigating how this happened and if the problem doesn't fix itself, call us back in 2 business days"

I just discovered I can't still get online. If I have to send back my 360 over this, I'll be furious. The console works perfectly fine, and I hate to think that I'd send it back only to get a piece of shit refurb box that's doomed to fail. Argh.
 
They probably don't know what they are talking about. Just call back and talk to someone else. I don't think definitely modded 360's have problems connecting to Live
 
maybe? haha

modded boxes can get on no problem. well, ones that have a firmware hack. is there even a chip for 360s yet? i thought it was all done via firmware for now
 
sangreal said:
They probably don't know what they are talking about. Just call back and talk to someone else. I don't think definitely modded 360's have problems connecting to Live

I don't doubt the 360 has said diagnostic, but the reality is that there's no well known detectable mod. Just because the diagnostic can't read the reflashed firmware of the DVD drive (thus meaning those consoles can still get onto Live), doesn't mean their isn't some haywire diagnostic preventing me from getting online legitimately.

Great to think of all those pirates getting on just fine, but me getting ****ed by it. Windows Genuine Advantage FTL.
 
The Xbox always reports 'yes' or 'no' as to whether or not it's been modified, but this is the first time that any of us know of that this has happened: your Xbox 360 is reporting 'maybe'. We're going to spend a lot of time investigating how this happened and if the problem doesn't fix itself, call us back in 2 business days"

That's retarded. If the Xbox is reporting "maybe", someone obviously programmed that into the system as well as the conditions for it appearing, it didn't just become self-aware and pick it itself.
 
So it's not sending a 0 or a 1, but a half? Sounds like your 360 just enabled quantum computing mode, which gives it a slight edge over the PS3. I'm not certain yet, though; I have to check how this affects the potential spark output.
 
_leech_ said:
That's retarded. If the Xbox is reporting "maybe", someone obviously programmed that into the system as well as the conditions for it appearing, it didn't just become self-aware and pick it itself.

Like I said, the dvd firmware hack isn't known to be detectable by the system, so I doubt they get a whole lot (if any) "yes" answers, either. Obviously (since I'm in this position), "maybe" is a response an Xbox can give to the auth server, but that doesn't mean that any 360s have actually reported it before--until now *dun dun dun*
 
So your 360 is being coy. Haven't you dated or been married? There is a problem but the 360 won't tell you until you make up for whatever you've done. Buy it a nice new game, a webcam, or whatever.
 
I am sure it is reporting for whatever reason some of the conditions for a modded console.. so they translate that into maybe.. I guess.. perhaps..
 
Blackace said:
I am sure it is reporting for whatever reason some of the conditions for a modded console.. so they translate that into maybe.. I guess.. perhaps..

Yeah, I'm obviously up against a black box here. Hopefully they stop treating me like a criminal on the phone and deal with it.

I really got the impression while on the phone that they would almost just like to have me ship my 360 to them so they can dissect it and figure out what the **** happened.
 
Battersea Power Station said:
So it's not sending a 0 or a 1, but a half? Sounds like your 360 just enabled quantum computing mode, which gives it a slight edge over the PS3. I'm not certain yet, though; I have to check how this affects the potential spark output.

Now this is true 4D gaming. Quantum sparks are infinitely > than normal sparks.
 
adg1034 said:
Yes- arne! I was wondering when a representative from the Empire itself would come in to explain.

150px-Tarkin.jpg


I think it is time we demonstrated the FULL power of this station. :lol
 
Alien Bob said:
So, if "maybe" results in the same action as "yes", isn't it just the same as "yes"?

My hope is that it means it'll be less of a security hole for them to write some silly exception like,

Code:
IF gamertag == 'SirJuiceALot' && modded == 'maybe'
    ALLOW
 
Alien Bob said:
So, if "maybe" results in the same action as "yes", isn't it just the same as "yes"?

there is most likely a pure yes... like 3 questions.. yes, yes, yes...then boom modded! (just an example of course) but I most likely if any one of those questions come back yes they just shut it down
 
arne said:
150px-Tarkin.jpg


I think it is time we demonstrated the FULL power of this station. :lol

Sir JuiceALot, before your execution, I would like you to be my guest at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

Wow- fall update includes 1080p support and quantum mode. Thanks, ATI and IBM!
 
Ugh, another side-effect of this: (they really didn't flesh out the Dashboard UI for this type of contigency). After it fails to connect, it also unselects my profile, meaning I have to physically disconnect my 360 from the network just to access my profile. Ugh.
 
Juice said:
Ugh, another side-effect of this: (they really didn't flesh out the Dashboard UI for this type of contigency). After it fails to connect, it also unselects my profile, meaning I have to physically disconnect my 360 from the network just to access my profile. Ugh.

while i have no idea on the ins and outs of the security features, this makes sense. if it thinks you shouldn't be on live, there's no reason why it should let you connect to your profile while keeping an internet connection active.
 
Juice said:
Ugh, another side-effect of this: (they really didn't flesh out the Dashboard UI for this type of contigency). After it fails to connect, it also unselects my profile, meaning I have to physically disconnect my 360 from the network just to access my profile. Ugh.

Code:
switch(XBL_Status)
{
     case STATUS_YES: XBL_Connect(); break;
     case STATUS_NO: XBL_Disconnect(); break;
     default: XBL_QuestionMarks(); MS_Profit(); break;
}
 
arne said:
while i have no idea on the ins and outs of the security features, this makes sense. if it thinks you shouldn't be on live, there's no reason why it should let you connect to your profile while keeping an internet connection active.

Yeah, I know. Still a pain in my not-a-modder ass.

f_elz said:
is your xbox modded though?

Sigh.
 
I'd imagine a series of flags get hit upon some firmware magic button and yours is only hitting a few.

Like "can I write to the firmware" = yes, but "is the firmware changed?" = no.
Maybe something happened that a modder would use to his advantage, but close up later.

Or hell, it could be a corrupted block of flash memory.
 
A week later and I'm still having this problem intermittently (for hours on end at a time).

I've just eaten up about 70 minutes on my cell phone trying to troubleshoot it. (shouldda used skype, dammit).

Turns out they have no ****ing idea what's wrong with this thing. They've gone up and down the wall with the typical "it's your router", "it's your hard drive", "it's your gamertag", "it's a Live glitch".

So I switch HDD's with my housemate. Amazingly, my HD works fine in his box and his can't get online with mine.

Xbots am stumped. I've literally talked to three technicians now who said "wow. uhhh. wow. yeah. that's weird. uhhh...yeah"

Arne.... anyone? Save me.
 
there's a 'restore to factory default' command you can to at boot time, it will clean up the hd and restore the settings, look it up online and try again
 
:lol Whoa, it sounds like your 360 is giving some serious attitude to all by saying "Maybe". At least. your's a female one, then. :lol

Seriously, just send it back and get it replaced... :)
 
Juice said:
So I switch HDD's with my housemate. Amazingly, my HD works fine in his box and his can't get online with mine.
I can't offer much more insight, but your buddy can't get online with your Xbox because the machine itself is banned from Live, not any of your profiles. Back in the day when demi hopped on Live with his modded box, he had to go out and buy another one just to play Phantom Dust online, but he was able to retain his Xbox Live subscription and GamerTag since only the machines themselves get banned.
 
BuddyC said:
I can't offer much more insight, but your buddy can't get online with your Xbox because the machine itself is banned from Live, not any of your profiles. Back in the day when demi hopped on Live with his modded box, he had to go out and buy another one just to play Phantom Dust online, but he was able to retain his Xbox Live subscription and GamerTag since only the machines themselves get banned.

Yeah, except now they're all claiming that my xbox isn't banned that it isn't modded and that it must be something wrong with me and my router. It isn't.
 
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