Xbox Series X/S keeps crashing? Here's a quick fix to get you gaming again

Over the past few weeks I’ve been at war with my Xbox Series X over constant and consistent crashes when I try to boot up certain online games.

The issues first came to my attention when I was loading up Xbox Game Pass games to gain some reward points (I’m very close to buying GTA VI with nothing but Xbox credit).

I’ve gotten back into Rainbow Six Siege recently which just so happens to count as a Game Pass game even though I own it digitally, but every time I’d load into an online match there was a 50/50 chance it’d crash.

My breaking point was when I tried to boot up Minecraft on a whim and couldn’t get past the title screen. That’s right, even Minecraft was apparently too load-bearing for my Series X to handle, so I knew something was wrong.

If this sounds like you here’s a helpful tip that relieved some of my Xbox woes; local saved data.

Your Xbox console houses two types of data; local and online. In the case of Rainbow Six Siege and Minecraft I deleted the local saved data stored on my console and that seemingly did the trick. I’ve had no issues since.

Don’t worry, your saved data won’t be erased entirely!

Those worried about losing their progress in a game shouldn’t be, as it’s perfectly safe to do as long as you specify local data. If you choose the clear everything option it’ll, you guessed it, clear everything.

When you console deletes the local saved data it’ll still have a backup in the cloud, so as long as you can connect to the internet you’ll be able to retrieve everything.

This should hopefully fix the crashes too. Sometimes the local data can be corrupted, or sometimes it'll conflict with the online data and cause a bunch of issues. It’s generally good practice to clear your console’s cache too.

Hard resets can be helpful in theory, but in my experience they’ve never fixed a thing…

General housekeeping tips for your Xbox Series X/S

In addition to the above fix, another sorely underrated part of Xbox maintenance is actually maintaining your console.

The Series X in particular has that massive fan vent on the top and over time it’ll collect all sorts of gunk and dust, so you should give it a clean when possible. If you don’t feel comfortable opening it up I’ve found a compressed air can when the console is completely powered down can do wonders. Just be sure to hold the fan in place with some non-conductive so it doesn’t spin as you clean.

You should also try to ensure there’s minimal amounts of clutter around the console itself. That’s easier said than done with certain set-ups, but at the very least try to keep the area around it ventilated.

Given how ridiculously expensive consoles have become over the years (the Xbox Series X is now almost double the price I originally paid for it) you’ll undoubtedly want to keep it ticking for as long as possible.

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