Guys, before I start let me say I have already contacted Xbox customer support on this issue, and they could not help me. I was told my problem is unusual *sigh*, figures right? While I don't foresee my problem being corrected, I figured I'd at least put this out there if I don't have any other options.

I bought Worms about a week ago on XBLA. Its been playing 100% fine, no problems whatsoever ... until the other morning. I had played the night before on Live with my Wu-Tang clan (Prince Rakeem, Dirt McGirt, Genius, Tony Starks) of worms, again, with no problems.

The next morning I grab my coffee and try to get some fragging in before class. I selected Worms from the dashboard, and happily awaited the explosive experience that awaits me (longtime Worms fan btw, thank you for the Worms 1 nostalgia devs). Anyway, no quicker do I hit 'Launch' than it kicks me straight back to the dashboard. Confused, I try again. "Can't be," I say to myself, "please for the love of...." I start it up again. It shows the initial black title screen that says Worms and Team 17, and then instantly boots me back to the dashboard again!

With my hopes fading, I tried powering off/on the console and trying again. No dice. Every other Arcade game boots and runs without so much of a hiccup. So I deleted Worms from my system and redownloaded - nothing. Instant boot back to the dashboard; completely random and totally out of the blue.

I called MS and they had me basically do the same stuff over again. So it looks like I'm SOL. My favorite Arcade game (BY FAR), my favorite 10 minute killer, hell ... one of my all-time favorite games ever, and I can't even play it. Words cannot express my disappointment. It's not even about the money that I could get back ($10? I'd pay a full $60 for Worms), I just absolutely loved the franchise (except for the 3D versions, heh), and now I can't play it ... ever (on this HDD, anyway). :(

If you can help me, I'd love to hear your suggestions. Just know I've exhausted all the logical steps I could take to get it working.

Oh yeah, and MS's final suggestion? Complete format, lose all my saves. I love you Worms, but I just can't delete my previous year of gaming from my 360.

Excuse me while I wipe the tears from my eyes.

Metaphorical tears, I hope. Otherwise a break from the game is something you need.

It sounds like corrupted game config data. I imagine you'd need to edit the Worms save files in some way to save your game progress but refresh the rest, but that's out of the question. Have you tried deleting the Worms save files? If you do, you should only lose your teams and your tutorial and challenge progress. Your achievements and times are stored on your online profile.

If the patch is released soon, maybe it will rewrite the configuration portion of your save files. In the mean time, you could find a memory card and save them for later, then start up a new set. This is assuming that's where the problem lies.

God is analogue, he has no bearing in the digital realm.

Metaphorical tears, I hope. Otherwise a break from the game is something you need.

It sounds like corrupted game config data. I imagine you'd need to edit the Worms save files in some way to save your game progress but refresh the rest, but that's out of the question. Have you tried deleting the Worms save files? If you do, you should only lose your teams and your tutorial and challenge progress. Your achievements and times are stored on your online profile.


Of course metaphorical. :D

I'm not worried about the game progress, didn't take long to get a few of the achievements/create my team/whatnot. I haven't deleted the save files though, that's a good point. I've only tried deleting the game itself from the system. I'll give it a shot when I get home later.

Hoov, I will point out this post to the team and see if they have any ideas.

Did you try going to the dashboard memory options, delete the game, then re-download it (you shouldn't have to pay again) - it certainly sounds like something is corrupt. This isn't a known issue/problem as far as we're aware.

The game loads save game data from the profile which isn't selected until the press start screen has been passed. There is code in that will return the game to the Arcade menu of the dashboard if the data cannot be read. As to why it would be failing to load the game data even after re-downloading I cannot say. Certainly nothing we've heard of happening before.

Hoov,

It sounds like you have a corrupted game save, and need to delete that save from your profile.

Try that first. If that doesn't work, seeing everything else you've tried, I would try one more thing.

You can clear your HDD's cache. As noted here (http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11131/Xbox-360-Cache-Clear-Code-Revealed/):

Go to the system blade and then select memory.

Press Y on the HD symbol and then press X,X,Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X,X. Once you do this a messsage will appear saying: Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices?

Performing this function will also clear any software updates.
So you'll have to re-download any game patches, but that's still not as bad as losing all your gamesaves!

Good luck!

I was about to post the same as above, to clear your HDD cache.

I had a problem with PGR3 before kept crashing, but after clearing the cache it worked.

Also had another prob with PGR, where when it was loading my profile it crashed, It turned out the time on my machine was wrong, as it was unplugged for a few days, when I connected it to live it auto updated the time and the game worked, weird.

Is there any way to clear just the saves? The only thing I'm finding is to delete the game outright. Anyway, I tried the system maintenance and it still crashed. So I just deleted Worms, did the system maintenance again (does it clear the cache just by going into that mode?), and am again downloading from XBLA.

Spadge, deleting the game was one of the first things I tried.

Thanks for the replies. What bugs me is how #1) it literally happened out of nowhere and #2) it's THE arcade game I was looking for.

Any idea how it could have gotten corrupted? Just to get the specifics down a little further, the night before I played a match on Live. My brother later played Gears of War, and then the next morning is when the problem started. Argh, this type of crap is what I expect from a PC, not a console.

Update: The download finished, still crashes.

Hoov,

Try something for me. Load up a different profile on your 360 (not your main one), preferably one that has not played Worms before. Then load Worms under that profile. It should work just fine.

Sounds like you still didn't try deleting your save game file (not the game itself), which is unique to your profile. I'm not at my 360 right now, so this is from memory, but I think if you go to the System blade, select Memory, select your HDD, then look for profiles, select your profile, then inside there I think it says "Games" as one of the options. Inside that, you should see a list of all your game saves for that profile. Select the Worms file and delete it. This should delete just the Worms save from your profile. Then go back to Worms, and it should load up fine. It will detect that you have no save game, and will create you a brand new one. Of course, since your save game is gone, you will have to start over all the single player stuff, but your online progress will have been saved on the Live servers.

There shouldn't be a separate save game file as the progress is saved to your profile. I'm not sure if there is any way to delete the game specific part of a profile through the dashboard. That's probably a question for MS.

Does it crash before or after the press start screen where you select which profile you're using. If before then it shouldn't be save related as that is not loaded until after the press start screen.

Yeah I looked around and there's no way to delete the saves individually.

Lebowski, it crashes before the press start screen. I hit launch, it shows the black screen that says Worms and underneath it Team 17 for a split second before going straight back to the XBLA menu.

Edit: Rebel, I forgot to mention loading under a different profile that hasn't played the game is one of the things MS had me try and it crashed all the same. Now that I think about it, my brother may have played it once or twice under his account name. I'll try my dad's and see what comes up.

Ok I tried under my dad's profile and it crashed as well.

Do you have a memory unit? Have you tried removing it from the HDD and saving it to one of them?

Use a USB unit. Back up your profile, and game saves onto it, then, when you get your new HDD, put them back on in the respective places.

That's how you do it.

MS doesn't let you backup to a USB mass storage device. You have to use their official memory cards or you could buy a third party device that lets you connect the 360 HD to a PC.

I would try deleting Worms, downloading something some other game (so it uses the area of the HD that Worms is currently using) and then download Worms again.

There shouldn't be a separate save game file as the progress is saved to your profile. I'm not sure if there is any way to delete the game specific part of a profile through the dashboard. That's probably a question for MS.Really? I wonder why you guys did that... Texas Hold'em is like that, too. But most other games (even XBLA games) have seperate save game files under the profile. This would have allowed him to delete just the game save file for that game. But it sounds like that's not the problem anyway...

Really? I wonder why you guys did that... Texas Hold'em is like that, too. But most other games (even XBLA games) have seperate save game files under the profile. This would have allowed him to delete just the game save file for that game.

And it would allow for saving more than 4 custom teams.

There will be a reason why the other games can do this and Worm's can't. It will be a good reason, a solid reason. The reason might be that it works this way because it's good for the players. It was a design decision to make it that way you see. The other games are just - wrong.

Well, it's been a long while since this thread was active. But, I have good news. And I didn't even have to touch anything. I hadn't really touched Worms since I made this thread, so yesterday I figured I'd give it a shot. It worked without a hitch.

I'm not sure what fixed the game. Regardless, thanks to the Team17 group and everyone else here who tried helping me. See you online.

Hehe, it was fixed by little XBLA elves in the night.