Hi, I've had this problem through all versions of XNA:  sometimes when loading my deployed game, the Xbox will just freeze at a black screen.  Only way to continue is power off and on.  Happens fairly regularly (25%-50% ish) after deployment, and occasionally when simply loading a game that had already been deployed.  I'm certain its not a code issue in the game, as it can happen on a build that has already worked or a build that works after rebooting the Xbox.

Just happened again and I finally thought enough is enough, I'll see if anyone knows whats going on.

richayrich:

I'm certain its not a code issue in the game...

How much are you willing to bet on that?! :D Have you tried debugging this?

When this freeze happens to a game that previously worked, what action did you take to start the game? Are you starting it from the Game Library on the console, or are you starting it using the Start Debugging or Start Without Debugging commands in the VS IDE?

If you start it from the VS IDE, what output do you get in the Output Window? There are several panes to the Output Window, and it is worth noting what it says for the Build pane (which logs build and deployment) as well as the Debug pane (which logs exceptions and assembly load events).

If the console screen is black after starting your game, what state is the IDE in? Can you break the program execution with the Break All command? If so, where is execution (the Call Stack)? Please be sure to show external code in the Call Stack Window and disable the "just my code" option in the debugging options, or you may not see anything useful.

What steps did you take to convince yourself that your own code is not at fault? What debugging did you do to eliminate programming errors?

It's always loading the deployed game through the game library.  And yup, I am certain its not a code issue :P  It can crash to the black screen and also work perfectly with the exact same build.

What happens when you debug?

richayrich:

And yup, I am certain its not a code issue :P  It can crash to the black screen and also work perfectly with the exact same build.

That doesn't mean it's not a code issue.

Just deployed 2 games for reviewing. Amazing Wizard loaded with no problem. RPaints then loaded with no problem. Quit out, and tried to load RPaints again - crash at black screen. Xbox power off and on, loaded RPaints, crashed again. Xbox power off and on, loaded RPaints, worked fine. Confused? Me? Never!

Put a breakpoint in your Game constructor or Program.cs. Does the crash occur before the breakpoint is hit? Does the crash occur if you step through the application until it starts Updating?

It sounds to me like a race condition where if the race ends a certain way... infinite loop, callstack overflow, and crash... otherwise business as usual. Probably some asynchronous call for a profile or storage device.

I was under the impression you cannot debug when running on Xbox?  If you can please say how, it would be a big help!

The problem doesn't occur when running on Windows.

Just open your game project in Visual Studio and run it. If it's a 360 project, it will push the game out to your 360 and you'll be able to debug just like a windows game. No real magic or hoops you have to do or jump through.

Someone else has also reported this problem in this topic: http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/21306.aspx

Sorry that I didn't post in this thread to begin with. I just posted the following in the other thread:

Update: I started a new Xbox 360 project - the default startup project that just clears the screen to CornflowerBlue. I deployed this app to my Xbox and tried to run from the NXE interface. It hung my Xbox the first time I tried to run it. In my mind, this pretty much confirms that this problem is on the NXE launching side.

Note that I have never had this problem when launching from XNA Game Studio Connect. That could just be a coincidence though. In other words, I cannot debug the problem because it only happens when I launch from the NXE interface (without starting XNA Game Studio Connect). I.e., the interface where you click on the game name and it takes you to the following three options: Play Game, Play Trial Game, and Delete Game.

Further update: I rebooted my Xbox 360 and tried to reproduce the issue again with the default CornflowerBlue app. It took me about 20 tries, flipping between Play Game and Play Trial Game before I got my Xbox to hang.