This was originally covered on the MS Flight Sim Forums here and I opened Zendesk Ticket 152992 and 155947 with the Flight Simulator team to try and solve this. Ultimately they suggested I contact Microsoft as I was at the end of what support they could provide.
For those searching for this issue, my current work around is to disable my wifi while the Gaming Services UI splash screen is running and then to re-enable it once the actual game starts.
Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this. I'm going to copy/paste what has been done so far to try and cover those bases and not start all over with the simple things.
After the March Sim update I see a new (to me) launch screen then receive the following error (After a lot of research I learn that this is "Gaming Services UI"):
In the bottom right it shows “Signing in” then “Checking for updates” then nothing and this error.
To remedy I have :
Running as Administrator
Cleared the community folder
Performed a repair in apps settings
Performed a reset in apps settings
Uninstalled and reinstalled to the dedicated disk
Uninstalled and reinstalled to a different disk
Signed out of Store and Xbox apps, rebooted and signed back in
Signed into a different Microsoft account that owns a copy of MSFS
Performed WSReset
Removed and Reinstalled Gaming Services
Launching with only mouse and keyboard connected.
Reviewed everything posted in the other thread with this error: FS Re-Installation Fails With Code: 0x800701B1 on Windows / MS Store Version - Bug Reports / Install, Performance & Graphics - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums 1
Switching from wired to wireless
Disabled windows firewall
Logged into windows under a different profile that also owns Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Disabled Real-time protection
On March 26th the issue disappeared without any further action from me.
A little over a week ago, the issue returned:
I ran through all the troubleshooting steps provided by Zendesk as well as moving the sim from drive to drive. Uninstalling, reinstalling, everything I could think of.
https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015760660-Microsoft-Store-Download-Installation-issues-Checklist
https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405345181202-Microsoft-Store-Download-and-Installation-issues-Basic-Troubleshooting
https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405340433042-Microsoft-Store-Download-and-Installation-issues-Advanced-Troubleshooting
I’ve been able to narrow it down to a combination of Xbox game launcher and FS2020 on this particular machine as it does not reproduce on another machine it’s installed on and Forza launches just fine.
(Funny enough, some Forza users are having this same issue FH5 crashes on launch with error code 0x800701b1 : ForzaHorizon (reddit.com) and Forza Horizon 5 starts the game and reports an error - Microsoft Community)
I was finally able to work around it on Sunday by turning off my Wi-Fi during the initial Xbox game services UI splash screen and then enabling it once the actual game launched. However, I’d really like to have it fully fixed and not have to do these extra steps. (This also worked for the Forza users above)
Asobo/Zendesk finally told me that the troubleshooting is beyond their scope and I need to open a case with Microsoft.
I presume it has something to do with some data stuck somewhere and the error message has less to do with a physical drive and more to do with a location it’s trying to read or write to.
I'm sure there are steps I've tried along the way and I'll try and cover those when they come up.
I'm fairly experienced with PC troubleshooting so if someone from Microsoft wanted to reach out to me directly I would be glad to provide any extra logging or information needed to get to the bottom of this.
