Homefront Xbox freeze bug fix ASAP - THQ

By Robert Purchese Published 23 March, 2011

"Day or two" from MS certification.

A Critical Title Update for Homefront on Xbox 360 is "a day or two" away from Microsoft certification, THQ has announced.

This addresses the Profile Corruption error (the "Freeze bug") and is "highest priority", the company wrote on the Homefront blog.

"We are also including a fix for multiplayer connectivity and ping time issues, where players are being sent to distant server locations at the expense of performance. We expect this update to be submitted to Microsoft really soon and we will be working with them very closely to get this approved and deployed as quickly as possible," THQChris added.

Once that urgent patch has been released, a second update containing a handful of fixes (patch notes below) will be sent to Microsoft for verification. A PS3 version will go to Sony "as soon as the issues are resolved".

On PC there is no certification process required, so when a patch is ready it will be released.

"Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through this process," wrote THQ. "We apologise for the inconvenience to your Homefront Multiplayer experience and are working 24/7 to make it as enjoyable as possible!"

Update 1: Xbox 360 Critical Title Update

  • Scheduled for Microsoft Submission in the next day or two
  • Fixing the Xbox Live Profile Corruption 'Freeze' Issue
  • Fix for players being matched in distant server locations

Update 2: Additional Game Issues Fixes

  • Playstation 3 Update will release as soon as fixes are ready
  • Xbox 360 will submit as soon as Update 1 is released live
  • Fixing Multiplayer Freezing (affecting X360 & PS3)
  • Experience and Statistics Resets (affecting X360 & PS3)
  • Improving Party Matchmaking & Joining with Friends (affecting X360 & PS3)
  • Fixing the Beacon Error (affecting X360 only)
  • Correcting inconsistent Leaderboards data (affecting X360 & PS3)

The first 15 minutes of Homefront.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (40) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Vice.Destroyer #1 1 year ago

    A friend of mine works in tech support for THQ. I can only imagine what his inbox must look like. He is probably happier than most that this patch is coming. Poor bugger.

  • oceanmotion #2 1 year ago

    How do these buggy games actually make it through the initial certification, obviously broken. Do they only become harsh afterwards because the platform holders have already got their slice of the pie.

  • LazyNinjaUk #3 1 year ago

    @WooHoo!!

    A lot of the time these are bugs that only become apparent after major server strain from multiple players, something which many developers find it hard to simulate. Other times it's down to how effective the person tracking all the bugs is.

    Now if only there was a patch to extend the campaign. :|

  • Fab4 #4 1 year ago

    They make it through because they don't test network connectivity on real networks.

  • Progguitarist #5 1 year ago

    Such a shame. The multiplayer is really fun but I think the damage is done at this stage.

  • joebount #6 1 year ago

    Am I the only one who cannot find any game online yesterday ? I really had a good time on Sunday, when it worked... :(
    Great multiplayer but GOD, test the infrastructure before releasing anything a product...

  • Sodding_Gamer #7 1 year ago

    For all those people moaning about it being broken and that it should of been tested..... There is a lot less wrong with this than black ops was when it first came out. And this is a brand new IP and they probably didn't expect that many people to buy it... Whereas Treyarch knew full well how many people were going to waste their money.

    So imo I think they have done a good job with homefront (bar the stupidly short campaign) I mean look at what the bulletpoints that this patches up compared to the 3rd black ops title update which was longer than a horses c*ck.

  • coolbritannia #8 1 year ago

    Sounds like their Crysis is over by Friday.

  • Cronan #9 1 year ago

    Very, very poor show by THQ and Kaos Studios, but I could see it coming. I played this game two weeks before launch at a press event in London and the multiplayer was barely functional, the team from Kaos had spent the whole night trying to get it working. Eventually they managed to get 4v4 games working, sometimes.

    The PR told everyone there not to mention the problems.

    Developers and publishers need to conduct better testing of their games, perhaps an early network beta would help? But of course, THQ didn't want people to see this game before launch, before it sucks big donkey balls.

  • Cronan #10 1 year ago

    Sodding_Gamer: Homefront is better than COD Blops? What have you been smoking?

  • Sodding_Gamer #11 1 year ago

    @ap3x

    This is what I'm trying to say, a lot of games these days just patch after release because of such strict deadlines set by publishers n what not. All I'm saying is cut the new IP some slack peoples! Yeah it's not a great game but so many AAA titles (mostly sequels) have fooked up big time. new vegas, gears of war 2, tdu2... and loads more.... And with those titles then its fair to say they should be flawless. Especially with the amount of money that gets poured into them.

  • carlitoswagon #12 1 year ago

    This shouldn't damage the community too much. It's not the first game to need patches after release. Look at Gears 2. You couldn't get a game on release. Battlefield 1943 had crazy unplayable lag, disconnects and you couldn't get a game half the time either. BFBC2 has had the mother of all patches and received community abuse for all sorts of release date issues.

    Sometimes its worth putting off the purchase of mp titles for a few weeks until they iron out these problems. Means you're not left with a bad taste in your mouth for pre-ordering & paying top dollar.

  • Sodding_Gamer #13 1 year ago

    @cronan

    Did I say it was better? NO

    I said it was released in a better state. Especially the ps3 version of BLOPS. Omg don't get me started on what a mess that was. Plus this is THQ. And they don't have the greatest of games tbf. With developers liek Treyarch and IW you expect flawless MP.

  • Sodding_Gamer #14 1 year ago

    Thank you carlitoswagon! Pretty much summed up what I'm saying.

  • nooneyouknow #15 1 year ago

    @carlitoswagon

    Very good point. All 3 games you mention I had issues with and yet each one of them continued to eat up hours and hours of my gaming time once sorted.

  • coolbritannia #16 1 year ago

    Homefront prob is better than COD BLOPS, BLOPS is an abortion of a game.

  • green_nifta #17 1 year ago

    Bugs are always going to be discovered once the game gets released.

    They've sold about 400,000 copies in the US alone. Don't know about Europe, but let's assume 700,000 are playing this worldwide. THQ's QA team is probably about 50 people...even if it was in the hundreds the chances of them finding all bugs is pretty slim.

  • green_nifta #18 1 year ago

    Bugs are always going to be discovered once the game gets released.

    They've sold about 400,000 copies in the US alone. Don't know about Europe, but let's assume 700,000 are playing this worldwide. THQ's QA team is probably about 50 people...even if it was in the hundreds the chances of them finding all bugs is pretty slim.

  • green_nifta #19 1 year ago

    Bugs are always going to be discovered once the game gets released.

    They've sold about 400,000 copies in the US alone. Don't know about Europe, but let's assume 700,000 are playing this worldwide. THQ's QA team is probably about 50 people...even if it was in the hundreds the chances of them finding all bugs is pretty slim.

  • Sodding_Gamer #20 1 year ago

    They should do a patch for the graphics in BLOPS too. But as i'm sure you should know considering your a legend gamer, you can't do that ;)

    Also does anybody remember reading on here that treyarch denied that the ps3 version of BLOPS was broken? Then a few days later they were apologising saying they are patching it up now.

    At least these guys admit there is something wrong and are working away at fixing the problem lolzz

  • Arsecake_Baker #21 1 year ago

    Sorry THQ/Kaos but you had your chance and blew it, most gamers won't be on the internetz checking for daily updates or even have a clue what a dedicated server is, your average CoD fan will take one look at it and say "fuck this shit, it doesn't work" and move on, if this game was released without competition then a few weeks wait for a fix may have been justifiable.

    As it stands Crysis 2 arrives on friday promising all kinds of new multiplayer delights (we shall see) so good luck with your fixes but id'e be amazed if anyones playing Homefront 3 months down the road.

  • ducksmuggler #22 1 year ago

    its to little to late .

  • aphex187 #23 1 year ago

    Just took my copy back this morn to Tesco's, got my copy of BO back which i'm not happy about tbh haha!!

    Anyway i've bought it on the PC for £18.00 so hopefully i can finally get some GG's going! I tried in vain all day yesterday and only managed to get one game in, the rest of the time was either the PS3 rebooting from the game freezing or me sat in a Lobby waiting for those damn 4 players to show!

    Don't get me wrong that one game was quite fun even though the actual game is pretty damn ugly at the best of times! I may pick the game up again next week.

  • KayJay #24 1 year ago

    "its to little to late." - +1

    Trading for Crysis on Friday. Waste of time.

  • Tryhard #25 1 year ago

    4 days for me 1 green bar game.4 days for my Mrs who bought the game. Only been able to get into one game.Shocking.

  • bwiancohen #26 1 year ago

    Absolute friggin shambles. Never again spending money on anything that holds the THQ or Kaos branding. Im sure they wont miss my £40 but I will get to spend it on something that works.

  • metallicorphan #27 1 year ago

    i bought the game yesterday,and couldn't get into an online match whatsoever...so i played the single player

    This morning however,i have had no trouble at all finding matches,its quite a fun game

  • Daeltaja #28 1 year ago

    Hasn't loaded past the Kaos logo since Friday evening for me. Sorry but its an utter disgrace that this issue made it through to retail. Trading it in today, I feel robbed. And stupid.

  • Keenthell #29 1 year ago

    There were issues with lag and connecting to games last Friday, last night however i played it for about 2 hours with no problems and i must say it takes a big piss on COD. Graphics are pish but after a few hours you don't even notice, the actual online gameplay is beezer.

  • Vortex808 #30 1 year ago

    I'll be delighted when the patch hits. Not played as much of the great multiplayer as I'd have liked. Been making do with the ropey SP when I can't find beacon, or get into matches.

  • Syrette #31 1 year ago

    @WooHoo!!!

    Without going into too much detail, the certification teams that work on titles are pretty small and they don't have a lot of time to test each title.

    This isn't an issue that has been observed by everyone who owns the game, so it's understandable that it wasn't seen by THQ QA or cert. Unfortunate though that is, because it would have been fixed already if it had already been seen.

  • schnide #32 1 year ago

    Wow, with all these bugs they really are going after the Call of Duty crown aren't they?

  • Bigmac1910 #33 1 year ago

    Too late, traded it in today. I really liked the MP but could only connect to their servers twice since it came out, this kind of shoddy launch is inexcusable, thank god for Crysis2 coming this friday.

    Just a side note, and message to THQ, if HomeFront would have worked properly I wouldn't have traded it in and Crysis2 would have had to wait. In todays competitive market one just cannot have bad launches.

    Edit: This was the XBox360 version, and I couldn't connect tuesday night at all.
    Edited by Bigmac1910 at 23/03/11 @ 14:47

  • Bibbo #34 1 year ago

    Total rubbish online. But I did get one ounce of fun out of it. For those of you that are still playing it, you can tea-bag your enemy to death. If standing, jump at them and mash crouch, or just dunk 'em on someone's head while prone. Killed. Got a few giggles.

  • FortysixterUK #35 1 year ago

    This means they must have been aware of these issues prior to release, as they already have a patch undergoing certification.
    Naughty.
    Still, I had no intention of getting this until it hit the £20 mark anyways :)

  • WeirdbeardUK #36 1 year ago

    Traded in already. Couldnt wait for it to fuck my ps3..

  • Murton #37 1 year ago

    @woohoo

    While I'm sure that there are exceptions the unwritten rule is to simply pass games through cert as long as there isn't a major issue with it. To do otherwise would be to hand your competitor a temporary exclusive and watch any chance of making a decent revenue in production royalties go out of the window.

    From the sounds of it this game probably wouldn't have passed MS cert if they had tested it in full accordance with their own rules, but then they'll likely have known before cert that it was going to be a huge seller on 360 in America which means it had to pass regardless of what was wrong with it.

  • Syrette #38 1 year ago

    @FortysixterUK

    That doesn't make sense. They were made aware of the issue, created a fix and are now submitting it to cert. That's how things work. Certification is not a long process.

    @Murton

    This is not a fully reproducible issue so as such might well have not been seen by QA/cert.

  • Murton #39 1 year ago

    ^

    Fully reproduceable or not it would have been seen at some point in QA, when I was a tester we found dozens of unique bugs that we simply couldn't reproduce and we logged them anyway, the devs still managed to track down and fix the majority of them.

    Truth is, cert testing isn't what it used to be, they're more concerned with text strings and making sure that loading screens and such look right than the quality of the game, Fallout 3 and New Vegas are compelling proof of a disregard for quality over sales when it comes to cert.

  • RustyBullet #40 1 year ago

    @Cronan at what point did Sodding_Gamer say that it is actualy better than Black Ops. BUT with that in mind Black Ops is utter CRAP but all the sheep will follow the Shepard. I personaly like the on-line but that is me, i dont need aproval from anyone else.