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#1
Xbox Game bar is offline or storage missing error (Windows 10 v1803)
Really hate Microsoft right now!
The short version is that my H drive got corrupted last week, taking with it about 3 TB worth of games including a number of Microsoft Store UWP titles (Gears of War 4, all 130 GB of it!) plus some apps. Thankfully I only lost games (Steam, Origin and UPlay) which can be replaced. No save data was lost and nothing important.
Anyway, I reformatted the drive and set about redownloading part of my missing Steam library (which is spread across several different hard drives). I also decided to redownload Dead Rising 4 and Halo Wars 2 from the Store but due to limited bandwidth on my non-fibre internet connection decided to hold off until everything else on Steam was downloaded.
Only problem is that I now get a random error from the Xbox Game bar which claims it is offline and that the storage might be missing or unavailable. There is a link in the error window to the Store where I can choose to Reinstall the Xbox Game bar. Thing is that it will not install; it downloads and installs but then immediately reports that it needs to be repaired.
On checking the WpSystem folder, I found a sub-folder for the Xbox overlay with only two settings files and a load of empty folders. I deleted this folder and next time I was prompted to install the Xbox Game bar so I choose the C drive where Windows is installed. Well, what do you know, the overlay *STILL* insists on installing to H for some reason, still refuses to install and still pops up from time to time (causing the game to return to the desktop) to report that is offline! I tried reinstalling v1803 build 17134.1 as an in-place upgrade from within Windows the updating it to the latest 17314.5 build but the error still persists.
Odd thing is that the Xbox Game bar *is* working - pressing the Guide button on my Xbox One Elite controller or Win+G on the keyboard brings up the Game bar, sometimes with the error but not always - and the Game mode is visible in some games so I am not sure what this error is unless it relies on an internet connection (my current connection has been almost maxed out for the past four days continuously as I redownload games to the H drive).
Has anyone else ever come across this? I did some research on Google and found out that Windows assigns a new VolumeID to a reformatted drive and that this can confuse (surprise, surprise!!!) the Microsoft Store which is looking for the old ID. If that is true then I am shocked as I wonder how Microsoft can code something so poorly that gets 'confused' if you reformat a drive and then try to download the same apps and games back to it. Steam does NOT have this problem!!!