Xbox One consoles do not properly upload game saves unless they are completely shut down

eSonOfAnder · Aug 17, 2021

Just in case someone at Microsoft actually looks at these forums, because the supposed chat "support" is actively antagonistic to getting issues solved, I am posting this here. There is a bug in the current Xbox One system OS that causes cloud saves to not upload unless the system is completely shut down (i.e. not put into suspend/standby mode while in quick start mode).

Repro steps:

Set your Xbox One (any iteration, Xbox One, Xbox One S. Xbox One X) to quick start mode, if it isn't already

Play any game that performs cloud save of its local save game data (I am using No Man's Sky as my example, but this will happen no matter the game)

Save the game; you have options at this step - it does not matter which of the below steps you choose

Go back to the Xbox home screen

Go back to the Xbox home screen and force close the app

Start up a different game

Perform a system shut down to put it into standby mode

Go to another Xbox One console, or PC if using a compatible title (No Man's Sky as my example supports PC / Xbox cross-save), and launch the title

Attempt to load the save, and see that the save date is at least one iteration old, often it is significantly older than that

The only way to currently work around this issue is after step 3 to either leave your system in energy save mode so that it performs a full shut down every time, or go into settings and manually perform a full system shutdown. During the shutdown process, it will finally actually perform the upload to the Xbox Live cloud. At this point you can go to a different console or PC and see that the save data is current.

After doing some research online, this issue has been around for a long time now (on the order of years) with zero response or effort to address it from Microsoft. Whether this is due to their support staff actively blocking the information from getting where it needs to go, or some other reason, it is laughable that such a fundamental function is still broken. I cannot tell you at what point this functionality stopped working, nor do I care. After fighting tooth and nail to finally get the share feature in the Xbox Console Companion app fixed (just prior to its retirement, of course), I don't have the patience to do this fight again. Maybe someone else can take this up and actually push on their support team to do the actual due diligence to get this problem fixed, but I already have one full time job, and I'm not being paid to act as Xbox QV.

:)

Christopher Revoredo

Hi there welcome to the community forum! Christopher here, an Xbox fan and been on Xbox for years already. I would really love to make your day by helping you out. This is really helpful! I completely appreciate this, I've had this issue before! Can I suggest also posting this on the official Reddit page? https://www.reddit.com/r/xbox?utm_medium=androi...

This way more people will have this information and also a developer can look at it!

Daft Badger

That's normal,it's just uploading your saves etc to the cloud before it shuts down completely.

ArminatorX

Xbox 360 games run in an emulated environment, and don't have information about the "running" state of the virtual Xbox 360 console.

Unlike Xbox One games, they don't know if you switched to a different game or simply turned the console off, in either case the game "thinks" it's still running and doesn't need to save.

Xbox 360 games are only properly saved, if you actually "quit" the game after you finished playing.

So in order to make sure your Xbox 360 games are properly saved and uploaded to the cloud, make sure to end your Xbox 360 game play session by pressing the Guide button, moving to the currently running Xbox 360 game, and then pressing the Menu button (to
the right of the Xbox button), then choose "Quit" from the Menu to shut down the virtual Xbox 360 emulator and to properly allow the Xbox One to save your progress.

Mesecur

3 small questions:

Where do you keep your console?

Is it properly ventilated?

Do you use 'power saving' (i.e. the xbox 'turns on' briefly before fully shutting down)?

ArminatorX

The Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One behave differently when saving a game than actual Xbox One games.

The emulated Xbox 360 games have no concept of being "in hybernation" or multitasked like Xbox One games. Therefore, if you just played a Xbox 360 game, and just switched to another game, or simply turned the console off, the console can't properly finish
saving/syncing the game to the cloud storage.

Whenever you play a Xbox 360 game, and you finished saving and playing the game, make sure that you actually quit the emulated Xbox 360 game by going to the Home Screen of your Xbox One, press the menu button on the main game tile with the running Xbox 360
game, and choose to Quit the game.

Then the console will properly save and sync the game. Also make sure your console has time to upload the cloud save. If your console is in "Instant On" mode, this will be done in a few minutes, if you turn the console off. If it's in "Power Saving" mode,
the console will be completely turned off, and it might not have had time to sync the game to the cloud yet.

So give it a few minutes to let it sync, and then shut off your console.

Xbox One consoles do not properly upload game saves unless they are completely shut down