New Ban Wave

phily2002

yep I got banned as well
didn't play early or anything like that, don't know how they got me
at least I have my Ps3 for online games

Axwell

Its starting to look more and more like they can detect firmware now.
Its the only common link between people that got banned. Some played games early, some didnt, some use agbx, some dont although. Ive read where people got banned, went and got another new console a few days later and flashed it and then just got banned again.

1. <+c4eva> fw itself not detectable
2. <+c4eva> suspect they are going hard on warez releases and incorrect use of abgx!
4. He also added the following:
6. <+c4eva> just to let you know that im looking into the current ban wave. I am currently running several brand new xboxs on live! These xboxs are in various configs. All are running ixtreme 1.61
7. <+c4eva> One is running original discs, another is running on xbl (no discs) , another is running a backup from my region!
8. <+c4eva> until tests are completed, no eta on liteon fw!

They haven't been able to detect Firmware in years so i doubt they can all of a sudden, they seem to be more strict on any sort of mismatch of a backup.

Axwell

There are apparently people who got banned, bought a new console and flashed it without putting any games into it and when they went online got banned. If this is true then its not down to agbx and other issues and is related to the firmware. Also the guy you are quoting is the guy who put up the firmware releases for 1.61 which havent been confirmed to be secure so hes bound to say its not the FW or else he will have a lot of people blaming him for getting banned. No one knows for sure so he could be as right or wrong as anyone else but going on the bans there is no pattern to suggest its agbx or bad rips alone and points more to something like them being able to see a firmware change.

docentore

Axwell wrote: »

There are apparently people who got banned, bought a new console and flashed it without putting any games into it and when they went online got banned. If this is true then its not down to agbx and other issues and is related to the firmware. Also the guy you are quoting is the guy who put up the firmware releases for 1.61 which havent been confirmed to be secure so hes bound to say its not the FW or else he will have a lot of people blaming him for getting banned. No one knows for sure so he could be as right or wrong as anyone else but going on the bans there is no pattern to suggest its agbx or bad rips alone and points more to something like them being able to see a firmware change.

The Guy cisk quoted (c4eva) is the guy who is The Boss of all Bosses in terms of Xbox 360 modding. He invented most of the firmwares. So if anyone will find out that gonna be him.

Axwell

Possibly but right now like i said its looking like FW is being caught so that means they can ban anyone they want at this point its just a matter of time. When people go and buy a new console and flash it without sticking any games in then plug it in and get banned it points to FW detection no matter what way you look at it.

GO'S

if you get banned can ypu still play the games offline? im considering gettin my xbox flashed and im just wondering

Dr4gul4

havent taken the two box's here online in a week or two now, altho i was tricking with mw2 offline.

I guess we shall have to wait and see nxt week

both box's are running 1.6

Axwell

Well if you were playing MW2 then you can be pretty sure you are facing a ban when you go back on live, there was no proper release of it out so thats gonne flag straight away.

To the person above yes you can play games offline still you just cant get on to live on the console once banned.

GO'S

Axwell wrote: »

Well if you were playing MW2 then you can be pretty sure you are facing a ban when you go back on live, there was no proper release of it out so thats gonne flag straight away.

To the person above yes you can play games offline still you just cant get on to live on the console once banned.

is it worth the gamble? my parents wont hand out money for another xbox but is it worth losing online?

Axwell

Well if you arent to bothered with live and playing multiplayer then it shouldnt bother you and is worth it. If you like the multiplayer then you take the risk of getting banned from live and having to get another console. At the minute with the ban wave going on you are probably better off to wait a few weeks before you flash your 360 anyways to be honest.

agriffin

I wonder how many people that got banned ran their disc back through ABGX
to see if their were any errors from burning.

Also the music industry were catching people from their ip address when they were downloading music.
How many banned people got their games from torrents where their ip is their for anyone to see and then logged into live with the same ip.

just my two cent, since most people are focusing on games been played early
as the main reason and not checking if their disc had burning errors.

Axwell

Bad rips will always mean people get banned but ip addresses is unlikely. Most people in Ireland dont have a static ip address so it changes everytime you log on to the internet. Its going to be down to playing games early, bad game rips, incorrectly installed firmware or the firmware being no detectable. In most cases its bad rips and playing early but people are reporting they bought new consoles and flashed them but didnt put any games in and went online to test and got banned shortly after. If thats true then it has to be related to the firmware, possilby the new 1.61 isnt reliable if they are installing that as the new firmware. Time will tell hopefully.

agriffin

ip addresses is probably unlikely but could be a factor.

As for people reporting they bought new consoles and flashed them but didnt put any games in is unlikley as i'm sure they put one in to see if their flashing worked.

Axwell

IP addresses as never been a factor and I doubt its going to start now, as regards those with new consoles they did it to test of the would get banned after flashing without putting a game in. They still got banned so they are saying the FW is the only possibility. As with all these things though you get people saying anything and everything online, that they didnt do this or that and they had perfect rips etc. No one knows for sure yet what caused all the bans but most are for playing games early for definite and also confirmed bad rips of games like UFC. After that who knows, perhaps some people played a game ages back that was a bad rip and no one noticed or knew at the time and its flagged them ages ago but the bans only kicked in now with this wave.

bluemachaveli

Posted by Stephen Toulouse on his Twitter. For those of you who don't know he is the Director of Policy and Enforcement for Xbox LIVE.

AKA the guy who bans consoles!

I've posted a detailed chart on how we detect modified consoles and how long ban runs last: Here

docentore

this is getting paranoid. Banning because I was downloading torrents and my console has the same IP? WTF???? This is not X-Files.

Also for 99.99% there is no way that they can see if the drive was flashed. There is no such a thing like "bad flash". Its working or you have 200e brick. simple as that.

I know that people are saying that they only flashed and then connected the xbox to live and got banned, but they are just saying. It doesn't have to be truth.

I'm just curious what will be next? Someone will say that one got ban just for opening console.

ongarite

Quick summary of whats know to happen now if your 360 is banned:

- What does this mean for you and what can you do about it?
Firstly, and most obviously, you cannot connect to Xbox Live on this console any more. This means no more game updates (aka title updates), XBLA games, marketplace content, netflix/sky player and so on. There is no way around this, all online capabilities are now disabled PERMANENTLY.

In all likelihood, your gamertag has NOT BEEN BANNED. When your gamertag gets banned, Microsoft sends you an email detailing why, if you have not recieved this email then your profile should be ok, to a certain extent.

Hard Drive installs are now disabled on the banned console. This means any disk-based games you have will no longer play off of the hard drive. If you attempt to play a game, it will tell you that it was installed on a different 360 and needs to be deleted/installed again. When you delete the game and attempt to install it, you are given a message telling you that it is not supported. There is no way to fix this, that functionality is simply gone from the banned 360.

The hard drive itself is left untouched - you can place it in another 360, even an unbanned one, and it will still work just fine. You do NOT need to reformat it to regain any kind of functionality. Any installed games will need to be reinstalled for the console you want to play them on. This is normal behaviour and happens when swapping HDDs on unbanned/legit 360's.

Windows Media Centre functionality is disabled. It is still possible to stream video/music content via the video library.

Your Gamertag may be corrupted. This does not mean your gamertag has been banned, you can recover it using any live-capable 360, however ANY ACHIVEMENTS YOU HAVE EARNED SINCE BEING BANNED WILL BE LOST. Your gamertag will be corrupted EVERY SINGLE TIME it is used on a banned console. This means you cannot use your banned console to play backups offline just to get achievements - it wont work, the second you put your profile back on a good 360, it will be corrupted and all progress lost. There is no way around this.

The same applies to game saves - if you access a game save on a banned 360, it too will be corrupted when accessed on a legit/unbanned 360! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! There is no way around this, either.

Your XBLA games and DLC will still be valid, however to play them on a different 360 you will need to be signed into Xbox Live. This is normal behaviour on unbanned/legit 360's as well. They may be corrupted and have to be re-downloaded if you attempt to access them on a banned 360. You can transfer all of your downloaded content to a new 360 here: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/licensemigration/default.htm however note that you can only do it once every 12 months.

So, in summary:
Your Banned 360:
* Cannot go on Xbox Live
* Cannot install games to the HDD
* Cannot use Windows Media Centre extender
* Cannot be used to get achievements from backups without corrupting your profile

You cannot do anything about this, short of buying a new 360.

There may be more functionality disabled than mentioned here, things are still being discovered.

The current theories are its all do with jitter correction, jitter signal recieved back from original DVD drive versus modded drive.

Axwell

docentore wrote: »

Also for 99.99% there is no way that they can see if the drive was flashed. There is no such a thing like "bad flash". Its working or you have 200e brick. simple as that.

ixtreme 1.61 isnt gaurenteed 100% safe yet since its only out..that can be considered a bad flash. Even if it installs properly its still early and could have holes in it.

gline

Heard of a few people being banned, seems to be their console auto signs into live when they turn it on and they have an un-released game in the drive. so either turn off auto sign in or unplug your network connection when playing an unreleased title.

But i was wondering, can M$ detect a save-game of an unreleased title? If you connect to live with a savegame of an unreleased title, can they detect that and ban you even if you werent playing that game or have it in your drive at the time?
That would explain why we have a lot of unexplained bannings.

Axwell

gline wrote: »

Heard of a few people being banned, seems to be their console auto signs into live when they turn it on and they have an un-released game in the drive. so either turn off auto sign in or unplug your network connection when playing an unreleased title.

But i was wondering, can M$ detect a save-game of an unreleased title? If you connect to live with a savegame of an unreleased title, can they detect that and ban you even if you werent playing that game or have it in your drive at the time?
That would explain why we have a lot of unexplained bannings.

If you have an unreleased game and play it in your machine its pretty much taken for granted at this stage its flagged and you will get a ban. Plugging your ethernet out doesnt make a difference as far as most people are concerned as they think the xbox records the title anyways and next time you go online you will be flagged for playing it early. Along with achievements showing you played it before the release date. If you have an unreleased game the best thing to do is not play it before its released or play it on a console you dont use to go on to live with ever.

Axwell

Axwell wrote: »

If you have an unreleased game and play it in your machine its pretty much taken for granted at this stage its flagged and you will get a ban. Plugging your ethernet out doesnt make a difference as far as most people are concerned as they think the xbox records the title anyways and next time you go online you will be flagged for playing it early. Along with achievements showing you played it before the release date. If you have an unreleased game the best thing to do is not play it before its released or play it on a console you dont use to go on to live with ever.

folks who played pirated games after rls dates were banned , If you can believe the word of an random internet poster that is, then you have to factor in did they check for stealth patching etc.

The Fact is as of right now nobody knows jack about how MS are detecting this as all of the banned folks have so many variables between them.

It used to be the belief that a properly stealth patched game with correctly patched dvd drive FW was indistinguishable from a retail dvd to MS, there are many fingers to point in many directions like the fw providers , the guy how flashed your drive, you not checking the patching of the games or what ever fact is Nobody knows end of

gline

Axwell wrote: »

If you have an unreleased game and play it in your machine its pretty much taken for granted at this stage its flagged and you will get a ban. Plugging your ethernet out doesnt make a difference as far as most people are concerned as they think the xbox records the title anyways and next time you go online you will be flagged for playing it early. Along with achievements showing you played it before the release date. If you have an unreleased game the best thing to do is not play it before its released or play it on a console you dont use to go on to live with ever.

Thats what I'm asking, do we have any concrete evidence that MS check achievements+savegames for unreleased titles (or timestamps of these), I was not aware they did this and havent seen any concrete evidence of this in the past.

Of course we know the safest thing to do is never play unreleased games on your console if you use live. But of course some people do want to do this, so it would be nice to know how MS detect them, as a lot of what ive heard online is hear-say about it and not proven. Like the reports of people with new xbox's with no games played on them being banned, these are just reports and we have no solid evidence of it.

Dr4gul4

Axwell wrote: »

Well if you were playing MW2 then you can be pretty sure you are facing a ban when you go back on live, there was no proper release of it out so thats gonne flag straight away.

RRoD ??

Axwell wrote: »

If you have an unreleased game and play it in your machine its pretty much taken for granted at this stage its flagged and you will get a ban. Plugging your ethernet out doesnt make a difference as far as most people are concerned as they think the xbox records the title anyways and next time you go online you will be flagged for playing it early. Along with achievements showing you played it before the release date. If you have an unreleased game the best thing to do is not play it before its released or play it on a console you dont use to go on to live with ever.

I'm puttin my money on this also, once you play a game, you are going to leave some form of marker on your profile, and your profile sync's the moment you hit live, it's going to be a dead give away, in fact i'd say MS have been watching this for months now, waiting for the Xmas rush, to cash in on folks, and it happening days before MW2 being released.. it's hard a coincidence ..

if im banned, im banned, i'll go by another arcade, and MW2, and move my live account, after that, meh, it's only 200 or so euro ..

I'm open to correction on this but nowhere in the TOS from live does it state that it's a violation of TOS to play a game pre-release date.

There are retail 100% legit copies of MW2 "In the wild" and there have been for a week or so now, so M$ just blanket ban all of these along with the Arrrrgghhh Maties ? Same goes for every other game, how many of us know someone who works in game stop or somewhere, guy takes a copy home a week before release passes it on to a pal etc. should they be banned? Would be even more an issue in the US where they get the games first a lot of the time. And again I say it's not against the TOS to play a game early. I have heard talk of the actual developers banning account from the the game in question for playing early not the console from live but that was speculation at best, and I see no real proof of it.(open to correction on that too)

We all know , and MS knows without having to prove they know that 99% of those playing early are playing rips. That's just common sense.

I find it hard to believe they would ban with out good cause, I sense it will come down to a pattern of behaviour like playing a lot of games pre-release, signing up for that recent beta for the facebook etc, them possibly being able to see "stealthed" copies and tell the difference from real and fake, dodgey flash (though I would think thats a case of either working or not?) or them actually being able to tell a drive is flashed.

Ajfunky

I had my xbox on live about a week ago.. I havent been on since but i badly want MW2! Should be safe seeing as they didnt catch me in the wave the first time?

Dr4gul4

Ajfunky wrote: »

I had my xbox on live about a week ago.. I havent been on since but i badly want MW2! Should be safe seeing as they didnt catch me in the wave the first time?

my analogy for this will be as follows

You meet a hot chick who works for MS last week, but you give her the clap at the time, you dont bang her again for another few weeks hoping that she's forgotten, but i think we both know, she wont forget ..

docentore

Axwell wrote: »

If you have an unreleased game and play it in your machine its pretty much taken for granted at this stage its flagged and you will get a ban. Plugging your ethernet out doesnt make a difference as far as most people are concerned as they think the xbox records the title anyways and next time you go online you will be flagged for playing it early. Along with achievements showing you played it before the release date. If you have an unreleased game the best thing to do is not play it before its released or play it on a console you dont use to go on to live with ever.

There is no real time clock in Xbox 360 and everybody seem to forget about it. If I will disconnect my xbox and set a date to lets say 1/1/2006 and throw in GOW2 disc in I should be banned next time I will connect to Live? Even if it is long after release date I should be flagged. No way it works this way

Dr4gul4

There's a huge thread over at xbox-scene on the whole fiasco, makes us look like old wimmen here, but there was one good post among all the bickering and rubbish that stood out.

Basically reminding everybody that, the first firmware was eventually gotten around by MS, and how it's always going to be a cat and mouse game ( mouse trap for the 360, comming Feb 2010, if your not banned that is )


Even tho C4e is buzy testing and looking at the code going back and forth on xbox live, it's going to be a while before we have any answers.

Now who knows where to get arcade bundles with mw2 ?? i bursting to get online later on

Ajfunky

Right, if i was to check if im banned, is there anyway te make that xbox not banned again so to speak?! As in could i jus move my gamertag, get the xbox "fixed" and then move it back?