Halo 1 & 2 for PC
This topic has moved here: Subject: Halo 2 Windows Vista & Live Family Pack Issue - No Online Play
  • Subject: Halo 2 Windows Vista & Live Family Pack Issue - No Online Play
Subject: Halo 2 Windows Vista & Live Family Pack Issue - No Online Play
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

I just spent about 10 hours on the phone with Xbox Support, GFWL Support and Microsoft Games Support and just about every avenue was explored to come up with this one conclusion.

If you transition your Gold Account to a Family Gold Account you will no longer be able to play Halo 2 for Windows Vista online. Browsing for servers yields no results, and attempting to manually connect/host to a game fails. However if you use any non Family account (just a regular gold account), then the servers come up straight away, and all online play works fine. We even tested on the same PC, without relauching the game, just switching accounts. Every single safety setting was enabled or allowed on the accounts, and this still didn't fix it. We tested for hours and used a half dozen accounts, they even had me setup new accounts, non-family, which got online right away... its just when you join a family plan that things go down hill.

Unfortunately for me, I am the Family Primary account, so undoing it would be much too troublesome to disband it just to play Halo 2 (but for those pesky last few achievements!).

Best the GFWL and Xbox folks could discern, is that while Halo 2 is rated M (on the box), the Live Servers think it is an unrated game, and the new Family settings for Xbox Live are unable to process an Unrated Game. Appears to be some sort of programming or database type issue. If perhaps, Halo 2 could be patched in order to send an M rating to the Live Servers, then all should work just fine... or so they believe.

If you are one of the growing number of people who can no longer play online, and you are a member of a family account, this is probably why you cannot get to the servers.

I don't think it will be resolved since all of the MS departments I spoke to are blaming each other. Since Bungie is on Skeleton Crew, I doubt anybody there wants to make this a priority, but the guys at Xbox Live thought that it could be patched at the game level. I am hoping someone at Bungie is willing to look into this, and I am happy to assist.

Single Player works fine, and you can sign into Live just fine, just cannot browse games, or connect to any game, even if you do a "join session in progress" with a friend who is able to play online.

One more thing, I don't think that this is related to the issues from early 2010 when the Browse didn't work for a couple months, but it might be. Perhaps during that period of time, MS was doing alpha testing of the not yet released Family Plan, and this issue was discovered at that time, thought to have been resolved, but crept back up.

  • 04.21.2011 1:06 AM PDT
  •  | 
  • Exalted Legendary Member
  • gamertag: Btcc22
  • user homepage:

There's no end of Halo 2's failures in sight. I wouldn't hold much hope for a resolution any time soon.

By the way, welcome to the forums but please stop bumping old topics.

  • 04.21.2011 2:12 AM PDT

If it's causing you so much grief, why bloody bother using it? If you want to shield your childrens eyes from violence then make them join the priesthood...

  • 04.21.2011 7:46 AM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Think you might be confusing the Family Gold pack with something else, your comment has no relevance.

  • 04.21.2011 11:08 AM PDT

Posted by: Nessy

The bungie.net community is the halo PC community that is renowned for being unbelieveably sucky.

I feel for you, but your problem is not with Bungie, it is with Microsoft Game Studios or whatever they call themselves these days.

H2v was ported by Hired Gun, which was just a Microsoft team. Bungie doesn't make PC games anymore and didn't do much other than "advise" on this port.

Your best bet is to harass the GFWL team. Microsoft hasn't patched this game in ages and it looks like they have completely moved on.

  • 04.21.2011 12:28 PM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

I personally use Family Pack because it's 4 Profiles, Sky TV, Zune for 70 quid.
Bangtidy.

  • 04.21.2011 1:05 PM PDT

Oops sorry dude , I just read about it on the Xbox site, I thought it was some censored -blam!-. I'm totaly in the wrong here

  • 04.21.2011 2:51 PM PDT

OMG.. thank you so much.. thats it.. thats my issue.. all though I was told other answers now I truly know. I've been going nuts trying to figure this out.. was just messing with a bad drive that had vista on it (I didnt want to load a second os on this one) After hitting the desktop I wasnt getting anyfurther but now I have an answer to this never ending mysterious PITA. You can bet I'm calling them to let them know, this is so stupid.. really family account messes it up.. sounds so much like a ms issue Just like my son couldnt dl the expansions for Marvel Ult Alliance from the web but he could dl Call of Duty map packs. (this was with his teen account opened up w full rights) With xbox no issues.. from the ms website no go. Fricken rediculous!!!

  • 04.25.2011 10:02 PM PDT

Posted by: Nessy

The bungie.net community is the halo PC community that is renowned for being unbelieveably sucky.

This is why we tell people not to buy this game. It is unsupported and Microsoft doesn't care about your problems. They have left the game to rot away.

  • 04.26.2011 2:30 PM PDT

After explaining this to game support and windows live support I was told the same thing. But I'm a bit too stubborn, either they will help me get my primary account moved and set my wifes as a primary, or they are going to lift the family account flag so I can see the servers. Im getting bounced around atm, I'll edit the post once I get finished.

Ha well now I see why you decided to tank the idea of moving your account off. The whole family account gets wiped including all months .. so the 13 1/2 months that are left would be gone, and all accounts would be at 0 subscription. I guess I could have really been a jack@@@ and pushed it, but thats not really me. (I do have somewhat of a limit as how far I will go) Anyway most of the support was not only great but exceptional - (short of the few that were more interested in shuffling you off to a diff dept). Anyway the last lady who I spoke with made sure to get all the info of the issue and make sure it was reported as a bug.

With any luck maybe they will setup a transfer main account or *correcting* the GFWL servers so It would look at accounts as either Adult/Teen/Child. I guess they have 13 months to resolve it at which point I can review if Halo2 is still alive :/

[Edited on 04.26.2011 6:25 PM PDT]

  • 04.26.2011 5:34 PM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Thanks for the info Frnksnbns, this will help as I can direct the issue to the right group.

I have discovered that the game is still being supported, however only the Halo 2 for Vista PC version. Because of it's age, it requires a substantial amount of people reporting the same bug. Until I called, this bug was NOT even listed in their database, and so all previous calls were logged as unknown cause. Now it is a reported "ticketed" bug, and can be reported on. I was unable to discover how many calls is "substantial", but I feel that it is more than will probably bother reporting the issue, and therefore something that is very unlikely to get addressed. This is why I am working through some other contacts and have made some progress. Apparently, Halo 2 for Vista is registered on Microsofts servers as a Xbox Original game. I was told that Xbox original games were not required to report their rating to the console in the same manner that Xbox 360 games do. The Xbox 360 dashboard had a setting under Ratings to permit/deny "Xbox original" titles. This setting has dissapeared under the Family Gold Plan, and needs to be somehow added back in. The setting is always set to DENY if you upgrade to a Family plan. Once you have a family plan on the xbox 360, the setting never re-appears, even if logging in with a non-family account.


I found one guy who says he has a work around. You can re-activate this 'Xbox Originals" setting logging on to a Xbox 360 console with your Live Account, and then under settings on the dashboard, follow the options to reset the console to its original settings. Then use the setup wizard to create a NEW "non-family" Gold account (set up a free and get one month gold option). After logging in with that new account, go to your profile settings and you should see the "Xbox Originals" option. Activate the option to permit Xbox originals... then sign out with that account and log in with your family gold account on the Xbox and it should pick up these settings (which are apparently console settings and not user settings). Then go to your PC and log into Live and the settings should transfer and allow you to play Halo 2. I have not tested it yet.



[Edited on 05.06.2011 6:03 PM PDT]

  • 05.06.2011 6:02 PM PDT

This is the average H2 Fanboy.
Xfire: JacobGRocks.
50 in H2/H3? Great, but you still fail at this.

Tech guy = Idiot. Original Xbox Live = Deadz.

  • 05.06.2011 6:25 PM PDT

"It doesn't matter what I say, since Halo is already more popular than god!" - Zero Punctuation, Halo 3 review

I haven't had this issue.

my guess it to get your own adult account for you

  • 05.06.2011 6:29 PM PDT

I AR3 BK

Just signed up for the family gold pack last week. H2V isn't working anymore so I'll be calling to complain tomorrow.

The family gold pack has been a complete hassle. My little brother can't remember his password or any of his contact information because he made his account three years ago when he was 12. For no discernible reason a valid password is required to add him to my family account. I don't understand why this is necessary when both his account and mine are on the same console. Xbox support and Win live support are completely useless, and cycle me through different departments too.

Also, there is no way to add an existing live member online from the xbox.com website, only new accounts. Why? /rant

  • 05.09.2011 9:33 PM PDT

The issue with that is, when you use your adult account to setup a group account for your family you are locked in or loose all your months that you've already pre-paid to get it out of the group account.

Anyone tried the workaround yet? Does it need to be done each time you want to play?

  • 05.16.2011 4:47 AM PDT