Plague of lost achievements, zero Gamerscores hits Xbox Live (update)

Hundreds of people are signing in to Xbox Live this morning only to discover that their gameplay history and achievements have disappeared and that their Gamerscore is now zero.

While the problem now seems to be resolved, there's a chance that some people effected may permanently lose some of the achievements unlocked until they're re-earned through gameplay.

Starting shortly before 10 a.m. eastern, some Xbox 360 gamers started to receive messages saying that their account was being played on another console and noticed that their Gamerscore was reset to zero.

The issue lasted about two hours, with Microsoft's Xbox support folks trying to get to the bottom of the problem. Xbox Live's Larry Hryb recommended that people who are having issues with their Gamerscore keep an eye on Twitter account @Xboxsupport for updates.

The Twitter support account is suggesting signing out and then back in to try and resolve the problem, but it appears that isn't working with everyone. Other support suggestions include re-downloading the profile

Complaints began flooding Xbox.com's forums. Shortly before noon eastern an Xbox Forum Support person posted in forums that the company was aware of the issue with achievements and that they're doing everything to resolve it as quickly as possible.

"At this time, we believe the issue should be resolved," he added. "If you're missing achievements, please try signing out of Xbox LIVE, then sign back in. If this doesn't resolve your issue, then you will need to re-download your profile. Please note that this will remove any achievements you might have earned since the issue began, however, they can be re-earned."

That means that those of you who unlocked achievements in the two hour or so window when the issue was cropping up may have to re-earn those achievements once you get your Gamerscore back. We hope you hadn't just unlocked Zombie Genocidest.

Updated to note that issue appears to be fixed, but that some lost achievements may need to be re-earned. Microsoft also tells us they will be answering some of our questions soon. We'll update the story again once they do.

Update 2: The temporary Gamerscore outage, Microsoft reps tells Vox Games, was caused by an "unexpected issue with data migration made between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. GMT and has been remedied." The outage temporarily affected a "subset of global users" who, Microsoft suggests, should log out and then back in again to restore their scores. The fix may not show up on Xbox.com for a few hours, they added.

Here's the best news: Microsoft is now saying that all achievements lost or not saved during the outage will be restored within 24 hours. We double checked that since it contradicts what Microsoft folks were telling forum goers earlier today, and the reps remain resolute that those lost achievements will be restored.