FFXI 360 Problem... Again >.<

so i just got my 360 back from microsoft for fixing the red ring... idk if that has anything to do with this but anyway, i was doing a campaign for an hour, which is too long on 360 lol... so it froze, nothing im not used to, i turn it off then a few hours later i feel like turning it back on and when i put the XI disk in it sais its unreadable... all my other game disk work fine and my XI disk is as clean as it was when i bought it, anyone know whats going on? i read about this happening because the game was corrupt or something (i tried to remove the HDD and it started up fine... well better than before, since it NEEDS the HDD) if that is the problem i cant really delete and reinstall the game without being able to run the disk... so yea, anyone have expirience with this? ; ;

k... now im really at a loss, i borrowed a friends disk and it worked, and NOW my disk works but only after i used the otherone.. lolwtflol...

Wow Patrik, I am having this same exact problem as well. I just got a replacement 360 from microsoft because suddenly all the ports in my 360 stopped working. So it didn't detect my wireless adapter etc.. so I couldn't get on.

Well, when i got 360 back, I put disc in~ and it said it was unreadable. Checked disc over, and there was a few scratches, but it didn't look like enough not to still play. Worked fine before. Later that day, I was a little desperate so i went out and bought a new FF disc, lol. Put it in, and it still didn't read. Well, I heard from someone too that a file might be corrupted, so I decided to reformat the 360. Well, that did resolve the issue. I've now reformatted the HD 2 times. So I'm guessing the problem is the HD maybe? Once I DL the game again, it reads fine. It'll work all the way up until I turn off the 360, and turn it back on.. <___<;

I can't leave 360 on 24/7 or else I would, lol. I also don't want to wait 6 hours every time to be able to play the game. If you do find out how to fix this, please let me know! I'm still trying to figure this out.

Oh, well a few things. when I reformat HD, i have 13.9 GB on 360. I guess that's the usual amount. Well, the space is about .6 GB short of DL'ing both FF and PoL. Before this mess, I didn't have to DL PoL to my 360.. but if I could I think it'd work. Might just end up having to buy a new HD with a little more space. I think that'll fix it, but I am tired of spending money, lol. I now have 4 FFXI game discs for 360, and 2 for PC.

So.. yeah. I'm glad I'm not only one with this problem. If anyone has info on how to resolve this, please let us know^^

Well, hopefully it will continue to work, because I thought mine was fixed when I re-downloaded the game, it read the disc fine. It wasn't until the next morning I tried to turn it on again, and it didn't read again. >_<

I called Microsoft again, and they think its my discs, even though I just told them I bought it about 12 hours before I called them.. lol. there are no scratches! I don't know in and outs of 360, but it looks like it may be the HD. Liek I said before, once I reformatted the HD, it read the disc fine.. Somehow file gets corrupted everytime I turn it off. :/

I have this from time to time myself. If I use my regular FFXI cd, it works fine, but my WotG cd says unreadable. Every now and then, it reverses and I have to use the WotG cd for awhile. No clue what the cause is; my games don't have a single scratch on them.

I now have a WoTG disc and a VanaCollection disc. It won't read either, no matter how many times I take disc out, put back in. Restart 360, take out HD, etc etc. The only solution I found so far is deleting all content on 360.. but it's way too much of a bother to do that everyday. I just want to play. v__v; Last 2 days I re-DL'd FF just because I am that desperate..

ok so i had this problem w/ a brand new xbox 360 elite. there is an easy solution even if the disc say unreadable. Download it directly onto your harddrive so you only put the disc in go to game library and click play from harddrive, since i've done that i've had no problems and i was even able to download the game to the harddrive altho the game wouldn't play off the disc

Well that was what I thought to do, but the thign is, I don't have enough space on HD. Even when I deleted everything off HD, I still only had 13.9 GB. I need like 14.5 GB to DL both Pol and FF.. >_<

I haven't had this problem before, dunno why its acting up now..

I've had a problem similar to this. It could be some magnet that helps engage the the spinning mechanism to your CD.

When the 360 heats up it melts the glue on the magnet.
The magnet gets stuck, you get lucky and games will load sometimes.
I did the different games thing and it seemed like it was FFXI but the problem got worse and eventually the 360 stopped playing games period and said unreadable all the time.

If you listen closely you can hear it attempting to spin the disk and fail.

This seems late for this to still be happening but could be your issue.

My advice send it back and prey.

360 # 3 left it on for 2 weeks straight when I got it back.
I seemed to be lucky enough to have gotten a good 1.

Good Luck
Pjohn

My wife has this same exact problem, crash > restart > disk unreadable. We've been dealing with this for months now and Microsoft knows of this issue. After spending many hours on the phone looking for help, they're yet to find a solution. This has happened to her now more than 5 times since December 2008.

Currently there is no solution that we know of, she’s had to delete and reinstall (seriously) every single time. After a lot of trail and error we discovered the problem lies with POL viewer. Essentially you can't just /shutdown, you have to go back to POL viewer and logout properly or the game counts it as a crash and your files get corrupted.

We tested it a few times over a couple of weeks, every time she would join a heavy campaign she would deliberately try to crash and see the result, we then used the /shutdown option (type or menu) and the game files would corrupt and the disk would be unreadable. We went out and bought different FFXI disks to test with also.

Only through logging from the POL screen did we get the game to start properly on the next try. We tested it in outside areas and it seems that as long as you use /logout and not /shutdown or crash the game works.

This is a really horrible bug and I feel for anyone who gets it since it means 4-5 hours of reinstall, someone finds a better fix for this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, we've sent the machine back with no improvment.

Guess I'll just DL 3rd time this week.. lol. Hopefully that /logout idea will work for me too. ^^

Yeah I would say it's PoL too, once I reformat HD, it seems to read disc fine. DL FF just fine. I did notice yesterday after leaving Xbox on for about 8 hours, when I /shutdown, it didn't go back to game menu. Instead, it just froze on a blank screen. Left it there for abotu 2 min, and nothing. I ended up just pressing power button on system. Well, this is actually common for me, when I leave Xbox on for 8-16+ hours..lol, it usually does this. Never had a problem with loading disc next time I got on though, until this week. I guess to be on the safe side, /logout for now. Worth going through a few extra steps than having to reDL the game everytime. >___<

Just remember to back up your macros often, writing macros for 8+ jobs is the real pain of this ridiculous process.

Oh shoot, forgot all about that! >___<

lol, I've been adding so many macro's lately, it's tiring. ;_;

Edit: Alright, I just tried Formatting my 360 again~ and after I DL'd PoL this time, it had to exit PoL so i can recover gamertag. When I went to game again there was an error. I'm gonna have to send it in I guess. Won't play at all I suppose.. sad. Left my character in a WoTG area, and my laptop doesnt have WoTG expansion.. XD

Could be both of these things really imo.
If the disk fails in the middle of reading the files and POL shuts down do to the magnet issue Pjohn mentioned, you could be inadvertantly corrupting the files on your HDD. So when your 360 goes to read those .dat files and such, they are now corrupt. You could always attempt with a friends 360 and your HDD, no worries about the disk right now so having a friend who has FFXI would be prime but; take your HDD to their place. Swap their's with your's and see what happens. If you get the same issue it's not the disk it'll be your HDD.

Still won't fix the drive issue if what PJohn says is true unless you can replace it. There are ways to get yourself a new 360 with out spending the cash, by swapping the new one with the old one but ... that'll be a decision you make and I'm not telling or implying that you do so.

Good luck and I'll check back if you try the swapping of the HDD.

I just spoke with someone from PoL service. They said ever since new dashboard in Nov.08, this has been an issue. He pretty much told me.. PoL is highly sensitive. You have to shutdown game properly, or it will become corrupted. A common issue with me though, when I leave Xbox on too long, it seems to freeze when I /shutdown, and never makes it back to the Xbox page. Just stops at a black screen~ so I end up just pressing power button. Which happened last night, which I guess explains why my disc is unreadable again.

He also said I shouldn't be using a wireless adapter.. which I don't have a choice. Then he said something about port forwarding, which I'll have to learn about that, lol. Either way, I didn't think that bit really pertained to this issue.

Hmm, so I guess all i got from him was.. Don't ever just press power button. On the safe side, I'm gonna /logout and go through PoL to get out of game. Just so I have less chance of freezing and corrupting a file.. somehow. That was pretty much it.. Was kinda hoping he'd tell me to buy a part or send 360 in or something. Guess I'm gonna have to live with this problem for now..

Forwarding ports makes a HUUUUUUUGE difference, especially with Xbox Live. At least, it did for me. I used to have such a *** of a time joining pretty much every multiplayer game out there until I did it...

Port forwarding in a quick way is nothing more then opening a port "direct connection" from your device to the port you are trying to connect to on ther otherside. Great for Bit Torrents and online games and FTP Servers and other stuff. It's just a direct comm from you to them no one else on the line kind of thing. Make sense?

But it's not your problem and POL isn't going to help you cause they are going, "Don't care, not our problem just give us your money so we can ban you when you change your CC# and call you a RMT. Kthx." Oooppss wrong post....no seriously, they don't care.

Your issue is the 360. Not your router, modem, or ISP. You really need to get the 360 fixed or replaced or just go to PC. The CDs are cheap enough to just set it up on a PC and no worries about over heating so...just some thoughts. Good luck.

Me and my Husband have the exact same problems as mentioned by everyone else.

The problems only started when we each had to get a new xbox, as the old ones broke. When our games crashed on the old xboxes it would be fine, we could log in again no problem. Ever since we downloaded onto the new xboxes, when we crash we get the "disc is unreadable message".

After many hours of fiddling around, the only way we can fix it is to switch our hard drives. When we do this we get a message saying the game needs downloading again. When we switch our hard drives back, they both work, and we can log in like normal.

Its quite worrying, as im sure this method is eventually gonna screw our 360's up.

I also have this game on the xbox among everything else. I have had this same problem. I have been able to DL FFXI to my hard drive and still have 3g left over (out of the 13.9 it allows)

Heres how i finally was able to make it work:

Step1: Reformat HD

Step2: DL FFXI to HD- BUT heres the most important part. DL to HD using the WotG expansion disk. Cannot use Vanadiel Collections '08 or '09. It puts the important info it needs to run on but using much less memory

Step3: Download PoL and updates using the WotG disk. Now exit and save. Do not exit by turning power off. Must logout of PolViewer.

Step4: (this part may be tricky) Start the game from HD with the Vanadiel Collections disk in tray (if it wont start, start using WotG disk) if the vanadiel collections disk worked continue with installation via PolViewer.
if starting with WotG disk once on the PolViewer take disk out and insert Vanadiel Collections disk and proceed with the FFXI DL.

Step5: after DL is complete proceed to do the long process of updating FFXI files. If you had no errors during the update process CONGRATULATIONS you can now play with no problems and no more disk read errors.
(if you did receive HDD errors you need to connect an Ethernet cable directly from your modem to your console. routers, switches, and wireless connections really foul the Xbox during big DL's. If this doesnt solve your errors then reset modem and try again, and after all that if you continue having issues you may have to do the DL from a different location like i had to do.)

I really hope this method works for you guys, ive had to do it 3 times now on 3 different xboxs. Every time i also had to do the last step of updates from a friends house, idk why but something about my DSL/Modem kept giving it HDD errors.

Lastly don't forget need a copy of Wotg (Wings of the Goddess) even if your Vanadiel Collections disk has that expansion.

CONGRATULATIONS on getting back up and runnin on FFXI.

((if these didn't work for you there i'm sorry. try tweaking orders of DL))

Oh i forgot to mention the cause of why this is happening in the first place (well the 2 main reasons, but there are more)

#1 The NXE update. Yup Microsoft gave us this problem with the "New Xbox Experience" update that was suppose to make Xbox better. Well overall it did Except for it does not communicate well with PolViewer programs. Basically it becomes a program running a program or to be more precise an Internet program running an internet program. By DL'ing game to HD it gets around the problems it created. (ya have to DL the game twice to HDD hahahaha Microsoft FTW)

#2 This is the main reason why after playing and then turning off the next time you try to play it says "unreadable disk" OR "disk read error".

-ok lemme back up a lil. Ever read that message when starting up PolViewer that says something along the lines of "PoL was not correctly shutdown, Errors may have occurred" (something along those lines)
and then it gives you the 3 options-- 1-logout 2-start pol 3-install/un-install-

Ok that being said it actually does create an Error in your HDD if you fail to shutdown PolViewer properly.

Proper shutdown method is:

1- Logout of FFXI all way back to the PolViewer
2- Logout of PolViewer using logout. (sometimes it shuts down console and sometimes it'll take you back to the NXE xbox screen

Note* After DownLoading FFXI from disk to HDD (see post above 20G. HDD users) you no longer need be worried about how you log out as the game now will fire right up.

****in case anyone is wondering why this is, well here it is. the NXE among other things made it so you can DL a game disk straight onto HDD. This feature makes it so games run faster, smoother, and have much less load times. Also the game doesn't need to continue spinning "reading" in order to play (great feature for FFXI) however the disk is still needed for coding verification "Anti-Fraud" basically ensuring you own the game your playing from HDD

But heres why the HDD gets the error. You have to DL PolViewer to HDD, and FFXI is DL'd to HDD but FFXI runs via PolViewer. So if you logout incorrectly NXE makes your HDD think you have the "Disk booting commands" already saved to the HDD even tho the correct booting commands needed for the disk to startup has been
corrupted "not saved". Hence you get the Disk read error or unable to read disk.

Maybe someday microsoft will patch this error. But i highly doubt it.

Anyhow's hope i have been of some help or atleast shed a little light on the problem. Happy Gaming

Well I just went out and bought a 60GB, I am tired or waiting, lol. I'm sure this will solve the problem.

After the new xbox live experience crap was overwith i had to deal with a 360 that wouldnt play FFXI at all lol, So around that time i had to go buy a elite and downloaded the game onto that hard-drive. Got to love Microsoft.

I've had this problem on and off with both an original 360 and the Elite.

Crashing in Campaign or Besieged seemed to bring it on a lot. Those two things make my FFXI crash on 360. Not anything else.

My solution was to have some sort of cooling running over the 360 when I play. I use an air purifier (the HEPA filter thingies) with the filter removed and I sit the 360 on top of it.

It's not 100% in preventing crashes but I can actually get through most Besieged and about 2 hrs in campaign...

When it does crash I have to unplug the power supply and wait a few then start everything back up.

Eventually I bought an entirely new PC to play FFXI. spent a little under $1k and I can play it in 1080p at faster framerates and with higher texture resolutions than the 360.

I'm also religious about saving macros to the FFXI server so luckily I didn't lose any. However now that I'm PC I have to rewrite them anyway... you know why...