Just bloody Kinect, will ya?!?
December 24, 2011 2:03 PM   Subscribe

It's Christmas morning here, and I can't get the new Kinect for Xbox 360 working for my son.

It is connected correctly (with an adaptor because it's an older Xbox, not the newfangled one).

When it's all turned on, the Xbox asks if we want to apply the update, we click 'yes', it says 'are you sure, you might need to delete items to free up memory', we click 'yes', it goes back to the dashboard screen... and than asks if we want to apply the update. Repeat ad nauseum.

The manual says that it will lead us through the setup process, but it doesn't.

The Kinect sensor light starts flashing green when it's turned on, and then turns red when it asks if we want to apply the update.

I tried Microsoft's update troubleshooting suggestions here. No success.

Any Kinect experts out there who can offer advice on how to get this bloody thing working?
posted by malibustacey9999 to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)
 
There are some people reporting problems with updates on a Kinect forum. You might get some help here.
posted by essexjan at 2:37 PM on December 24, 2011


It sounds like it's telling you that you need to manually delete some stuff before you can apply the update, in a very obtuse way. Have you tried freeing up space until you don't see that message?
posted by nomisxid at 4:34 PM on December 24, 2011 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Yes, nomisxid, we've manually deleted everything. There is nothing left to delete. We've restarted repeatedly, and still no joy.

I've been to Christmas family lunch (which involved many glasses of bubbly on an empty stomach) so I'm not exactly 100% at attempting technical solutions at the moment.

Essexjan's link has some suggestions, I'll try them when I sober up. (Thank deity-of-choice I also bought my son a book he yearned for, and is about 180 pages in already.)
posted by malibustacey9999 at 9:39 PM on December 24, 2011


No answer, but good luck from somebody who took an hour to set up a new Wii. Apparently not having the motion sensor face down helps.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 11:57 PM on December 24, 2011 [2 favorites]


Can you try updating the 360 without the kinect attached first?

Poke around in the system settings and see if you can factory reset as well.

Btw, you've got a hard drive unit, correct?
posted by Lord_Pall at 8:12 AM on December 25, 2011


Response by poster: Tried the suggestions at Essexjan's link. Nothing made any difference. Tried updating with the Kinect disconnected. Still made no difference. Apparently it has lost/never had Wifi connection so can't connect to download the update directly.

I can't find a factory reset setting. I just re-ran initial setup, no difference.

Is it a hard drive unit? I have no idea. It was a gift from their father, we didn't get a box or paperwork or anything with it. It was allegedly new last year... but daddyo has a habit of getting electronic gear from, shall we say, less than reputable sources.

The memory card thingy is allegedly 265 megabytes but despite there being nothing left to delete, it's still only showing 190 meg space available.

I'm frustrated, so I'm going to try to again download the update from this laptop, burn it onto a disk, and try to run it in the Xbox.

If all else fails... an online Australian retailer have new Xbox's for sale for $149. Could've saved myself a lot of grief by just buying the whole bundle in the first place. Sigh.

All your attempts at helping me to solve this are appreciated.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 11:23 PM on December 25, 2011


Response by poster: Tried to update it again via disk. Unsuccessful. It won't connect to Xbox Live to update via internet. I give up.

New Xbox has been ordered.

Thank you all for your help, though.

And Bill Gates is here in Australia. If I was in Sydney, I'd go and stand outside his mega-expensive-rental-mansion and ask him why playstations are so easy for us non-technical types, while xboxes are so infuriating.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 2:20 AM on December 27, 2011


Aww. I just popped back to see if you'd worked it out. You're sure it's not this issue here? Seems a couple of people at the end of the thread sorted it out. (You've probably already tried this - I just feel so bad for you!)
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:24 AM on December 27, 2011


Response by poster: Haven't tried clearing the system cache twice, obiwanwasabi. The new Xbox hasn't been shipped yet, so I can always cancel the order if by some miracle that solution works.

(Thanks very much for bringing that up, I'd missed the 'twice' bit.)
posted by malibustacey9999 at 3:09 AM on December 28, 2011


Response by poster: And my son is at his dad's for the next week, so my guilt due to not being able to get it working is slightly, albeit temporarily, assuaged. Sigh.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 3:11 AM on December 28, 2011


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