There were multiple service issues with Xbox Live on Wednesday, said Microsoft. Players around the globe experienced error messages, failed game updates and log-in problems on Xbox One and Xbox One ‘X’ consoles.

According to the official status webpage, Xbox Live services halted at 1:12 PM. Another website, Down Detector, showed an increasing number of reports which started pouring in around 12:46 PM. But the service was back up and running again in the afternoon.

Xbox support staff stated on Twitter they were investigating the cause of the problems and would share information with every fix.

The issues surrounding Xbox One console startup, sign-in, title update errors, and our status page have now been resolved. Thank you for sticking with us while our teams addressed these issues and we appreciate the reports. As always, we’re here and we’re listening.

— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) January 30, 2019

As for the problem itself, users reported being greeted by a black screen when attempting to log into their Xbox consoles. While there were some users that could not update applications.

Once the problem was resolved, the Xbox support team notified its users on Twitter.

Our teams have identified the cause for our earlier issues and are continuing to address these now. Thank you for your patience, we’ll update again when we know of any other changes.

— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) January 30, 2019

While this fiasco was taking place, there were those that panicked thinking their consoles were broken. Some users, unfortunately, performed a factory reset, wiping out their entire library of games.

R.I.P My beloved Xbox One…. gone but never forgotten

I’ve put you through some rough times over the years.

You’ve served us well pic.twitter.com/XAaIxr8y4Q

— Broontango #TeamTango (@broontangoGta5) January 30, 2019

The problem seemed to be a hardware issue, but it was purely a software and Xbox Live issue – a bad one at that.

To fix this problem, some users reported that unplugging their console from the Ethernet allowed it to boot up normally again. But the fix did not work for users that had their consoles connected to a Wi-Fi network.

It goes without saying this situation serves as a reminder as to how Xbox Live is deeply woven into Xbox consoles. If something is wrong with Xbox Live, it will automatically cause the entire system to go haywire. Phil Spencer, chief of Xbox, previously went on record to acknowledge that a few aspects of the Xbox were too dependent on Microsoft’s Xbox Live working smoothly at all times.

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