Why o why?

Can anyone tell me WHY my Xbox locks up while racing online? It only does it if there are human opponents. I can run a few races, then it locks up. I can race all day long online with AI opponents and not have 1 problem. Some folks say it’s because I have too many vinyls, or too many designs, or because someone in the lobby is cheating/modding. I have maybe 2 vinyls and maybe 4 designs, but I never put them on anything. I do have a lot of cars, and a lot of tunes, 541 cars. Could it be the amount of cars in my garage? Does anyone know for sure?

If you’re going down that road don’t forget pictures, replays, and movies (in game) and system cache and ghosts files at the xbox system level, but I have my doubts that these locally stored files (including paints, tunes, number of cars in your garage, etc.) have anything to do with the problems.

I’ve only just recently seen what sounds like the same problem you’re having - playing online with others last weekend I experienced one complete system hang (required a reboot) and a couple of “weird” glitches during play that I hadn’t seen before. All other indications are that my internet connection is solid, no problems with other games, applications. What I suspect is something going on behind the scenes on the server side, but I do not know for certain. I’ll be watching these forums.

If your using a router, make sure your NAT is set to open. FM4 uses a “peer to peer” connection. If your router is not set correctly it will cause these types of issues. I doubt it has anything to do with the number of vinyls,tunes etc.

I’m pretty sure it’s on server side.

And what DL47 just described is real issue.

First symptom of it is that while racing, your paint doesn’t load up and you end up driving a car on what ever color is it’s base color. After first time this happens you have 3-5 races left before complete freeze and only booting your box gets you out of it.

Second symptom happens when you go painting your car. you might be able to but vinyls only on 1 or 2 places Lets say, they might be left side and wing, you don’t have other options. And pretty often you can put the livery only to coordinates X-999.99 Y-999.99

Only way to prevent this is return to dashboard (preferrably soon as you can) or the game will crash.

I for once tested the amount of paint/vinyl group/photo/video/movie/car theory. That was over 700 files gone, I saved only 4 tuning setups, 2 replays and 4 paints, and unicorn cars and cars which I had won from some competition with paint/tune setup in them (lost over 400 cars) but that didn’t have any affect what so ever.

well when the game first came out it would get hung on the loading screen of a online race then toss everybody back in the lobby sometime later all tho sometimes it would take a while & then you would see people had left. Then they patched that & it reduced the hanging problem & started the freezing problem.

I’ve only been playing for a few weeks on line and didn’t have any problems until yesterday. Got some kind of weird message that there was a communication error. At first it wouldn’t let me in to a lobby. Then it was fine. But then when I was racing with someone it booted him out but I was still going.

I’m not sure what the deal is.

The FM4 servers are well known for being “uncooperative” from time to time. Most of the time they are fine, but once in a while they still get testy and your lobby will crash. Any one who has spent a good amount of time racing online is aware of this, and we all just deal with it. The patch Rossi mentioned above did correct the loading issue that was present when the game first released. I don’t believe it caused the freezing issue. I race in several leagues and don’t know anyone with that problem, so I don’t think it’s a server issue.

As I posted before, FM4 uses a peer to peer connection. In simple terms, that means when racing on line, your xbox is connected to everyone else’s in the lobby. This is why it is important that your router settings are correct. The speed and quality of your internet connection is also critical. A slow and or unstable connection will also cause trouble. Bandwidth is also a consideration. If you are racing online and your brother is streaming a movie in the other room, it will most likely cause problems.

If you can race online most of the time without issues, then it is probably someone else causing the problem. If you continually have trouble joining a lobby or remaining in a race, then the problem is most likely on your end. When racing in the public lobbies, it is far more likely you will encounter players with poor connections. The best you can do is a find a lobby that seems to be stable.

Yea, I’ve checked my router settings. Just yesterday I was not able to get into lobbies. So I switched to a game that shows my NAT type, it was strict. So I reset my router, game then said I was open NAT type. Switched back to Forza 4 raced 1 online ABC’S race, finished 2nd overall in a C-class, and right after I received my credits and affinity XP, the game locked up. So I switched back to MW3, still showing open NAT type. I dunno what’s going on, but it’s annoying. Sometimes I can race 5 or so before I lock up, sometimes only 1 or 2 races.

And again. I know my NAT is open right now. I just raced 2 online races and the Xbox locked up on me before I got back to the lobby after the 2nd one. Very irritating. So some of ya’ll are basically saying, " …there is no fix, it’s in the servers…" to, “…it’s your connection/NAT type…”. So which is it? A combo of both? I know it’s not anything on my end. Don’t have problems on any other games.

it is the game & the problem has been around a long time, so no there is no fix.