MSFS 2020 Mandatory Update stalls and will not complete.

Hello David Miller 787,

Thank you for posting in the Microsoft Community.

I'm sorry to hear that you are having trouble with the MSFS 2020 Mandatory Update. I understand that you have already tried some troubleshooting steps, such as removing peripherals, renaming the Community folder, and rebooting your console. However, the update still stalls and does not complete, and the sim is not working at all.



To help you resolve this issue, I would like to ask you a few more questions:



- What is the current version of your MSFS 2020?

- How much free space do you have on your console's storage?

- Do you have any other games or apps running in the background while updating MSFS 2020?

- Have you tried clearing your console's cache or resetting your network settings?

- Are you getting any error messages or codes when the update stalls?



Here are some troubleshooting steps you can perform the troubleshooting steps:

- Make sure you have enough free space on your hard drive or SSD. The update requires at least 100 GB of free space.

- Check your internet connection and make sure it is stable and fast enough. The update may stall if your connection is interrupted or slow.

- Pause and resume the update from the Microsoft Store app. Sometimes this can help to resume the download progress.

- If none of the above steps work, you may need to uninstall and reinstall the game. This will delete all your saved data and settings, so please back them up before doing this. To uninstall the game, go to Settings > Apps > Apps & features > Microsoft Flight Simulator > Uninstall. To reinstall the game, go to the Microsoft Store app and download it again.

Please see:

How to uninstall and reinstall the Xbox app to fix installations and updates issues – Microsoft Flight Simulator Support (zendesk.com)

How to install a new update safely – Microsoft Flight Simulator Support (zendesk.com)

How to get past the "Checking for Updates" screen – Microsoft Flight Simulator Support (zendesk.com)

I hope this helps you to complete the update and enjoy the game. If you have any other questions or issues, please let me know. Thank you for choosing Xbox.

Hello David Miller 787,

Good to know that it is working now and thank you for sharing the method you perform to fix issue. This will be helpful with the rest of the community member who may encounter this type of issue.

Please do not hesitate to ask the community anytime just in case you have any questions in the future.

To help other customers searching for help on related issues, please mark the response you found most helpful by clicking “Yes” on the bottom of that post. This will ensure the helpful responses are most visible when searching (and you can vote more than once if the solution was spread over multiple posts).

Yes, I had to delete the sim and reinstall it, all 5 hours of it. At least it is working again. Thank you.

This is complete BS. The method to perform the fix cannot be install the whole game from scratch!!

I'm in the same situation on the PC and actually even now after reinstalling the game (260GB download for the Deluxe edition) it freezes when i start it.

I will update my graphics card driver now to see if that improve things, but you guys are delivering a very crappy product for the money that we pay. Your updates are MANDATORY but they are not tested properly. This is already the 3rd time this situation happens this year.

I can also confirm this worked for me on PC. I downloaded the XBOX app via the store.

Then, in store, clicked the three dots.

Then "downloads and updates" and sure enough there was an update for MSFS 2020 1.19.9.0. This was 507.0MB.

I then started MSFS 2020 which went to its own install manager and showed me the "Standard Content" mandatory update which was 108.12MB. The total download, however, was 3.19GB.

I then downloaded all available updates in content manager.

Once all this was complete I quit to desktop and restarted MSFS 2020 without issue.

I think it's VERY strange to need to install the XBOX app for any updates to show in the PC's Microsoft store!!