Xbox Gamespass games won't launch - constantly ask for Gaming Services, even when installed

Endieposts · Nov 21, 2021

OK, from two days of googling and attempts to fix this I can see that a version of this issue has been a problem for a couple of years, so I'm not optimistic, but I'm out of answers.

Whenever I try to launch a Gamepass game I instead get taken to the Gaming Services page on the Microsoft Store. Non Gamepass games work (eg World of Warships) even when launched through the XBox App. Solitaire (nominally a Gamepass game) works. But none of my GP games work: Forza, Flight Sim, No Mans Sky, Wasteland 3 etc. Gaming Services is currently installed, so it takes me to a Store page with no options to do anything except marvel that about 20% of those that rated the app *didn't* give it 1 star.

I have some games on both Gamepass and Steam. Steam versions work fine, as you would expect. Gamepass ones do not.

Things I tried:

- I tried removing Gaming Services using powershell as an admin and reinstalling then restarting (or restarting and then reinstalling as well).

- I tried removing the registry entries using regedit to get rid of the relevant entries in the local machine and current user branches. I also tried to remove the gaming services directories in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps but although I was eventually able to grant myself view rights as an admin, I couldn't grant myself delete rights on my own machine. Thanks MS.

- I uninstalled the Xbox Gamebar and all its dependencies using powershell.

- I uninstalled the Xbox app and all its dependencies using powershell.

- I removed all xbl- and windows live-related credentials (there were about 60 from the last two months) in credential manager.

- I tried various combinations of the above, up to and including doing all of the above and a restart then trying again.

I am on the Insiders program and have an ultimate subscription. Until two days ago, everything worked fine.

:)

XBF - Amory

I'm glad you were able to find a solution!

I assume you tried System File Checker as well, and even then, you're reporting that it still didn't start up Game Services automatically after that.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. For now, I'm closing the thread, as the matter has been resolved (for you, at least). If the issue continues in a different way, you can respond here or create a new thread as well for the community.

XBF - Amory

To reiterate, your game services are not working the way they should be in spite of trying a lot to fix these through PowerShell.

Because we're talking about PC here, I'm suspecting that there's something a little deeper that Game Services relies on that is not behaving correctly (in plain English, Windows might be corrupted). I'm linking an article to the next option you should try: Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files (microsoft.com)

This is my first recommendation, and if this does not work for you, either of the following should be your next step:

Getting in contact with us at Xbox Support to have individual help from the "Xbox Game Services" perspective
Getting in contact with us at Microsoft Support to have individual help from the "Windows might be corrupted" perspective

At the very least, please let us know how this turns out, and for anything that happens at a massive scale that isn't just affecting you, you can always check Xbox Status.

endieh

OK, I managed to get this working.

I'll describe the final step that fixed this, but clearly the infrastructure supporting Gaming Services and XBox on the PC is overly byzantine in its complexity, because everyone who encounters this issue seems to have to fix a different thing. It's one more thing to try, though, if you're stuck like I was!

After doing all of the above, I still found that the Gaming Services component was loading but that no games (except Solitaire and World of Warships, which don't seem to use it) would run: they would all still go to the store page which had no Install button because it was already installed!

So I went to the services app (press the windows key, type "services" and select it to launch). Then go to Gaming Services. I have two versions of this, one running as Local System and one as Local Service. The one set to local service was stopped, so I set it to startup type Automatic and started it myself. Blammo: games work, birds sing cheerily in the trees, dogs and cats made friends outside my house.

Microsoft: by all that is holy why can't Windows tell the difference between "the Gaming Services service doesn't exist on this system and needs to be downloaded" and "the Gaming Services service needs to be started"?!? There must be an endpoint to call to discover this state!

YakupBaschol

Hi Tomm,

I'm able to open up the XBOX app just fine, but can't get to the general settings area, IMG2 as above.

If I try to launch a game, or download a new game. It is telling me, that the gaming services needs to be installed. And when I click on install, it shows a popup on the notification area, that gaming services is getting installed/got installed.

It happens everytime, even if I already installed the gaming services on the machine.

On the games with Epic/EA launcher, it is constantly trying to install the launcher even tho they are already installed and even logged in.

Kind regards

Yakup

Astronox01

I followed your steps and deleted both gaming services and gaming services.net but when I open the Xbox app I see a bar that asks if I’m having trouble launching or installing games. When I click the fix now beside I’m brought to the troubleshoot game installations on a windows device page on the Xbox support website

Xbox Gamespass games won't launch - constantly ask for Gaming Services, even when installed