Games stuck on "downloading" or "preparing"

WJ09EH · Mar 8, 2022

I cannot download anything using the Xbox app. I have tried multiple game pass games and nothing will move past "preparing". I think the issue started when I tried to download Halo Infinite and something happened which interrupted it. It is now stuck on "downloading" and showing a few MBs downloaded. I have tried every solution I've found when googling, such as resetting the store cashe, making sure all the correct services are running, I don't remember what else. I have tried to manually delete any local files I can find but Windows won't let me as they're "in use". I've even upgraded to Windows 11 but the issue has persisted through that! Short of a clean install of the whole OS, I am a bit stuck. Any ideas?

:)

Lucas Lauer

Is the download stuck at 0%? Only preparing?

WJ09EH

I have found my own answer to my issue. It seems to have been caused by the store getting stuck at some download % and unable to progress, for whatever reason. I couldn't cancel the download nor delete the folders in the install location as they were "in use". So, I managed to start in safe mode and then delete the folders. This caused the store to then start the download over from scratch, with no issues so far.

Ezrovernum

This is happening to me too. On top of it, games also get stuck at Preparing 0% when downloading. Please do something.

Yiğit Taha Sağlam

In solution 2, i couldnt reinstall Gaming Services. It was stuck on Pending. And when i tried to install a game on Xbox Game Pass, it either shows me the Gaming Services popup or the button never appears because its stuck on "Preparing..."

Update: got some progress. Download started but its at 0bytes/second. It doesnt progress

Kimmy_24

Hi, JulianQV! I appreciate you trying the steps. Have you tried installing your games using a different drive?

Go to Windows settings

-> Storage settings

-> Change where new content is saved

Then change "New apps will save to:"

-> to C

-> and then back to the other drive.

You can also try deleting all files in C:\Users\User_name\AppData\Local\Packages \Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache, and then reboot your pc.

Note: This will only rescan all your downloaded files in just a few minutes then will let you launch the game.

Restart your PC to make sure all changes are saved. If it still persists you may also want to try performing a clean boot: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-t....

Games stuck on "downloading" or "preparing"