Mass Effect - Disc Unreadable or Random Crashes Fix

BioWare's quality assurance agent Tayce Wilson posted in the official Mass Effect forums:

"There appears to be a reoccurring issue where players are getting disc unreadable errors, or random crashes. This seems to be most commonly found somewhere after character creation, but can occur anywhere in the game."

Wilson proposes a fix to the issue.

[Antan]

No crashes yet, though have a few freeze moments while the disc reads, but nothing that required any reset.

[unlimited]

really who isnt suprise??? its like every single big title 360 games seem to be defective who isnt used to this crap?? sigh glad i dont support faulty console

[tomfoolery]

and none of my games have been defective.
If any of them were,I would just say to you,
at least I have games ya crawling trolling little Sony bastard.

[dantesparda]

So therefore since none of yours have, that means that none do!? I have and have seen other peoples games that do. So stuff it, with your fanboy comment. And accept that they do mess up, period!

[wallace1000]

tomfoolery's point is that people are going to jump all over another one of the 360s great games because some people are saying they are having problems. Like what people did when it was disclosed that halo 3 was 680p was it? I can't remember because it wasn't important. People (mainly haters from the PS3 camp in this case, there are haters from the 360 camp too) take this article to mean that all Mass Effects are going wacky, but i am sure only a handful are. Those that seem to hate the 360 will take any little thing and attempt to blow it out of proportion in order to try and taint another awesome title. I don't quiet understand all the hating around here, don't people have better things to do with their lives? I read this article because i wanted to see if it was a big/real problem with the game and now i have found out it isn't so i am happy :-)

[AngryTypingGuy]

Funny how all of my 360 games have worked perfectly. Every game will have a glitch or two.

I bought Mass Effect on launch, and I think it is the best game to come out this year. The size of this game is unbelievable. Not only that it's incredibly fun. I have to pry myself away from it, otherwise I'd play it all day and get nothing done.

[TheZippo]

I'm tired of that argument. Did Tomfoolery say that he didn't believe that there are faulty 360's? NO. In fact he was just stating a fact that his is still working. Which guess what I have a launch 360 also and it's working fine. The way the sony fanboys go on it's like every console to leave the assembly line is faulty. That's just not true.

I know people who have had problems with their consoles. And I know how they had mistreated the said consoles too. They sent them off and got them replaced no questions asked. It does happen. Just not to mine.

[dantesparda]

Wallace I understand what you are sayig, but dont think that his comment didnt have "malace" in it. And to zippo, you're sick of my argument!? Im sick of this pretending or excusing of the hardware failures of MS. I have had the 360 since day one (Nov 22, 05) and i am already on my 3rd unit cuz it keeps breaking and its been freezing and disc read erroring since they sent it back to me. And to say that its because of how people are mistreating their systems, is, im sorry, just completely and utterly ridiculous. Its not my fault MS made such a sensitive console. And how come i dont hear you complaining about Tomfoolery's statement that it has no games? And "No" Tomfoolery did not admit that the 360 has problems. You misinterpreted what he said. Re-read it

[TheZippo]

I took your advise and re-read Tomfoolery's statement. He's only talking about his expierence and he's had good luck.

"And how come i dont hear you complaining about Tomfoolery's statement that it has no games?"

I'm not sure about what your talking about here. He doesn't mention anything not having games. Only that he's hasn't been scratched.

I do not agree with the generalization that all 360's are faulty. I'm sorry if you disagree with that. It may be a little delicate, yes but not everything can be built like a Nintendo system.

[snoop_dizzle]

haven't had an issue aside from a textures taking a few more seconds than usual to load up once i load up the game. but thats about it.

but yeah i remember with gears a lot of times it didn't read my disk, but after a few times i opened and closed the disk drive, it seem to work.

[BLACKJACK VII]

The only "crash" I've experienced is when the blue alien chick jumped my bones, ....MMMMMMMMMMM, ALIEN EROTICA !

LOL !!!

[Kleptic]

yeah no crashing for me either...I have noticed the framerate problems mentioned during combat, and occasionally an Oblivion-like stutter during loading...but no crashes or total freezing for very long...

for the record, I also didn't get any of the PS3 freezing with AC when I rented it either, but I am assuming 2.01 was to fix some of that stuff...

[Douchebaggery]

It crashed on me 4 times since Tuesday.

p.s. sniping in that game is awesome.

[The Dude]

Not one crash Mass Effect just kick ass with superb game play. I am willing to bet more ps3 users have WSOD on Assassins Creed than 360 players have issues with Mass Effect. And there are twenty times more people playing Mass Effect than Assassins Creed. Lastly I'd be more concerned about the ps3 having dust issues than this. I mean the ps3 collects so much dust when its not played.

[DongHungLong]

Please explain to me how the PS3's Assasin's Creed issues has anything to do with this article? Exactly it doesn't ass-hat. Your just trying to start crap for no reason.

[Meus Renaissance]

You're gonna dig your own grave if you taunt PS3 owners about hardware issues mate. It's a stupid thing for you to say. There's no reason for you to attack another platform when it has nothing to do with this game or this problem. Yet, you want to because you're insecure about the hardware problem so you assume that PS3 fanboys will attack it - so you make a pre emptive strike. Well, it's more like you dropping a grenade because you chose the wrong topic; hardware reliability.

[AnalFace]

wow... totally off topic.. you f*cking wanker.. hahaha

[Gamespot-equals-EGM]

Off-topic but I like your avatar. Although I don't think too highly of AC (the actual game itself) ur avatar looks cool.

[barom]

lol u know, Assassin's Creed on the X360 also had freezing issues.

[superman]

Where the hell did this article mention anything about ps3.

[slak]

you know why 360s break cuz we play 2 much theres 2 many good games and ps3 collects dust :(

[DrPirate]

This is the dumbest post I've ever read in the history of my life.

Congratulations, you win.

[AllroundGamer]

or maybe, but just maybe MS have some unexperienced engineers and was cheap by the production and used low quality parts...

[Douchebaggery]

True that was stupid post but I find it hard to believe that it was the dumbest you ever read.

[RedSeven]

Why the fcku are you talking about the PS3 right now?

[Chug]

Shoddy hardware, thats why they break. I should know, I'm on my 3rd one since launch day.

Back on topic: I got this game for Christmas, cant open it yet though...Hope it runs good for me :)

[Snukadaman]

it takes awhile for the textures too get in place...no more then 3 secs...but after it does its great. what irked me was the grainy texture look./.thank god you can turn that off.

[TheZippo]

I love the film grain look. But that's just me and my photography ways I guess.

I haven't had any problems with it. Not to far into it yet though. I'm a magnet for glitches though. If there is any in a game I am sure to find them. I've learnt to save a lot.

I don't understand all the fuss. Anything when mass produced is going to have a few mishaps. I once bought a dvd movie that had no dvd in it. Try explaining that one to the store clerk.

[IPlayGames]

I been playin ME for about 10 hrs. not and i don't want to kill my 360. Please can sombody make this game less addicting???

I got FrameRate and & texture issues but no frezzing.

[Vip3r]

lol

[remix]

people dont respond to them. there very ignorant epsicially BLADESTAR after he compared WW2 to console wars. whats a bunch of freakin retards on this site.

[Bladestar]

what are u saying? ww2 never happened? It's a interesting concidence.. ehh? xbox 360 not selling well in Japan and Germany... Everything is related... gamers live in the same word as the real word... Everyone pretends to like Americans.. specially during desasters or when there are finantial gains... plain and simple... but most are eager to push the trigger or behead one.. It's also not a coinsidense that American's giggest enemies are those they previously had as allies.. i.e. Arabs during the russian invasion... I do agree America needs to stop being a hero... do like most countries do.. mind their own business.. deal with other contries only when is a matter of national security... let the world deal with their own problems.

Anyways.. look at my gamer tag... 24 hours into the game.. and not once crash... I must be lucky...

[Meus Renaissance]

The United States killed almost quarter of a million people in Japan using an atomic bomb, in essence, to win that war. Unless Microsoft's 2008 strategy is to place put bombs inside Xbox 360's next to PS3's in every retail store in the Far East - to literally, not win, but kill the entire competition by cheating (like the US did to Japan but just exterminating hundreds of thousands within 2 minutes to get a submission), I don't think you could compare.

But, do you know something we don't? Are there really explosive devices designed to blow up retail stores, or warehouses that hold PS3's?

[Bladestar]

I'm not going to get into a debate about why is ok for japan to hate americans and how bad they did when they dropped the nukes in japan... nor in which side japan was when they attacked America first... and what would happen if the nukes would never dropped... Germany and japan would have developed their nuclear weapons and the entire war would probably be in nuclear winter... I was not there... nor will mention how Hitler, japan allied kill a lot more than the nukes killed which Japan was perfectly fine with... or should I say the President of japan... because like every other war... the people are not the ones who cause the wars... but only a handful of people... sadly.. the people let themselves influence by their govs.. for example... the anti american thing going on... blame it on bush.. I didnt do anything.

[Meus Renaissance]

Well, actually Germany started to research developing the atomic bomb 15 years before America used it on Japan. When Adolf Hitler came into power, the program was accelerated and that worried many in the scientific community, and so they supported Roosevelt to develop it first as a deterrent because they thought Germany would get trigger happy.

Turned out it was the United States who got trigger happy when they nuked Japan, I think the pilots of the bomber - upon seeing the mushroom cloud - reflected to themselves with "oh my god, what have we done". I don't see how it was a positive thing, it was widely dismissed and ridiculed internationally. Nuclear Bombs were meant to be a threatening chip, they were never designed to take lives because of the scale it would take them in could never be justified regardless. I don't think the Japanese hate America, in fact, many love American culture but they just prefer their electronic technology over anyone else - and I'm sure most people, Japanese or not, would agree with that. Besides, it seems they were right along considering the hardware issues facing the Xbox 360.

[Vip3r]

STFU about countries. They have nothing to do with the game and all you're doing is more from console bashing to country bashing. Being a fanboy is one thing but a racist is unacceptable.

[MikeGdaGod]

why do you guys even bother???

yall must have forgot, he thinks he lives in the "Matrix"

LOL!!!!

[kevin1122]

speaking of world war 2 and japan, our nukes didnt even do the most damage. The fire bombs the us did killed and destroyed more than both nukes did.

[godofthunder10]

the SOB need to shut the f**k up,if japan wouldn't be chicken sh*ts and sneaked attack us and then still wouldn't surender after the war then it's japans fault that the bomb was drop.
hell on G4 at the TGS they interviewed two writers from japanese game magazines,and g4 asked them why the 360 just can't seem to sell in japan,they replied that the japanese people are proud of their country and companies in it and they buy japanese products to help their economy out,and they said that they are really proud of the japanese game companies,and they both said that japanese just refuse to buy forign products especialy if it from the U.S.
well screw them and sony to,hell i'm proud of my country and i like to support my economy to.so they can stick the ps3 and other sony products up their asses.and every one that buy the ps3 needs to wake up and stop buying them,hell they are laughing their asses off at the U.S because we buy their products and they admitted that they hate to buy anything from the U.S.i know that people could buy what they want and i usually agree but after hearing g4 interview the 2 writers for japanese game magazines and reading this article,i don't understand how can people still buy ps3 and other sony products after all the stuff they said about the U.S.if they really care about the U.S they should do what japanese people do,they should refuse to buy their products and only buy american products and suport the U.S economy instead of japans.
henery rollins was right.i was watching his show and he said that japan had the U.S over a barrel and f**king it dry,and he's right so people better wake up because japanese people are smart for what they are doing and we are dumb asses for buying their products..

[thepill88]

I honestly think he hears voices while reading and typing, This article says nothing about the PS3... He just started trying to convince himself if the game was on PS3 it would be worse.... weirdo....

[The Dude]

@thepile

Your always off topic dirtbag now go clean your dusty ps3. LOL

[Charlie2688]

Interesting enough some of the people posting in this Bioware thread don't seem to have a direct problem with Mass Effect but rather a 360 that is about to die as showed by the comments about constant freezing in ALL games (same thing that happened to my 2nd 360 before getting a RROD) and how all the clear cache and try playing without HDD does not help >.>

But every one that knows Bioware knows that their latest games all of them require a lot of patching like KOTOR 1 and 2 that require a substantial patching (you cant really play KOTOR 1 on the PC without patches) before working properly so I guess patching for Mass Effect was expected

Well I just hope I don't have that much problems when my copy arrives :)

[Douchebaggery]

I hope it's the game and not my box cuz it's only a month 1/2 old.

[Charlie2688]

@Douchebaggery: what problems are you having? is it only Mass Effect related?

[Douchebaggery]

I got the disc unreadable error 4 times.

[Douchebaggery]

...

[Charlie2688]

It could be Mass Effect only then, for example I have constant "disc unreadable" with Dead Rising but not with other games

and the thing I was referring that people should be careful was that when my 2nd 360 died it started with freezing problems with the Guitar hero 3 demo that could have lead to me thinking its GH3 related but later all my other games started freezing and finally the next day my 360 got the RROD >.>

[jaOSYH261nsw29m]

I had a disc unreadable once on the opening cutscene, just gave the disc a quick rub on my shirt and its been fine since then.

Can't wait for the patch to fix the texture pop-ins though. That'd totally fixable with a patch. Hell, Oblivion fixed theirs.

[RedSeven]

Does this error effect the masses or just a small percentage?

(Edit: The above is a pun of the game's name as well.)

[fopums]

the glitches sound more abundant then crashes, but there are probably plenty of gamers who havent had any real problems. but I would think they are the lucky ones. a patch should more then likely clear it up soon I imagine

edit: oh......lol xD

[BIoodmask]

with the game freezing. But it does have it's share of glitches. I don't know if there are Bioware fans in this thread, but most of their game engines are a bit buggy. The same thing can be said about the KOTOR engine, and even it's sequel although made by Obsidian...it still had the same engine. The Jade Empire engine was a bit better however.

Bioware has always been about great storytelling everything else is just fluff. Some people need to give the tech specs a rest. Does draw distance, texture pop up, AA, etc really affect one of the coolest storylines ever brought to an RPG?

The funniest thing about this thread is that some of the people commenting in it have never played Mass Effect, just here to cause trouble and nothing else.

[kevin1122]

everyone should remember this post to see how much of a hypocrite he is.

[DrPirate]

Played this game for 3 and a half hours straight on my cousins box, my God, I loved some of the vistas i nthat game.

In that time, it didn't crash or freeze once. On that note, I've never even heard of it freezing, the common issue is just framerate issues (Which I got from turning the camera quickly).

[Ghoul]

come on guys

bash it at least as much as you bashed ac for the crashes.

[Meus Renaissance]

I want Mass Effect, if anyone has problems and can't cope anymore, just PM me and I'll take it off your hands

[Captain Tuttle]

I've gotten "Disc Unreadable" a couple of times when I try to open the galaxy map. Great game BTW.

[Fanboy Slaughter]

*sigh* M$ really needs to get their act together. I've frozen and crashed on character creation numerous times and I'm getting very pissed.

I was gracious enough to forgive MS for my 2 RROD'd 360s, I even tolerated the Halo 3 fiasco, of which I one of my RRODs was caused by. But they're really on thin ice with me.

[360Crusader]

I havent had no problems. ( freezes that is ) Assassins Creed for the PS3 was much worse then the little problems Mass Effect is having. But Mass Effect does have some minor glitches.

[gamesR4fun]

A blind fanbot

[rjgbyrne]

I jumped around like a Thomson's Gazelle and it soon freed me up! Am sure a fix to combat some of that screen tearing would be very much appreciated but talking ot the new aliens is a joy. I love it. Now all I need is that widescreen fix for Bioshock to give me the excuse to play it through all over again... If I could live in Rapture I would its that cool. Its a shame the PS3 owners won't have a chance to play it. An awful shame, come on MS, let 2k publish it, we have all bought the 360 version!?!

[BLACKJACK VII]

Hmmm, no crashes for me, & I've spent over 8 hours a day with Mass Effect for 4 straight days. Already completed my 1st playthrough (37 hours = Soldier Paragon) & I'm about 7 hours in my 2nd playthrough (My sweet evil biotic Vixen this time). LOL, I've already clocked more gameplay than 2 or 3 "next gen" games!

"Best story ever told in a video game"... Bioware Rocks !!!

BIO-SWEEEEEEEEEEEET.

[green_ghost5]

I love this game, I mean I am really enjoying myself, but seriously Bioware needs to get off of their asses and release a patch. I get tired of textures taking about 10-12 seconds to load, and the frame rate issues, don't even get me started. I haven't had any crashing, or read disc error, but the frame rates do drop so low I think I'm watching a Sci Fi slide show! Come on Bioware!!! I really didn't expect EA's death grip to take hold so soon.

[DARK WITNESS]

its an awesome game, but i am having loads of frame rate problems.

its not crashed on me at all, but the frame rate spoils it really badly. i don't consider myself a tech gunkey to the point were one drop in frame and the game is rubbish.

people talked about problems with AC, but i only noticed one or two glitches like once and that was it, but this game. i don't know if its just me. we have two copies of the game in my house and both of them run the same, with the same frame rate problems.

i hope they fix it as well. its the only game i think i have played were a problem like this has really spoilt the experience.

[dfcm2003]

they have made you aware of the problem, the PS3 version of AC, is a freezing monster, and only after a week, have we got a forum post on a fix, not even for the main company,... Good Luck

[Hypnotic]

I'm about 4 hours into the game and I haven't any crashes, freezes or anything like that.

[Z501]

pfft!

[likeaboss302]

I played the game from start to finish on my 360 Elite. I had no issues with the game locking up and disc read errors.