Frequently asked questions

Signing in opens a Microsoft page inside the app. Two things break it more often than anything else.

Leaving the app mid-way. If Microsoft asks you to approve the sign-in somewhere else — an authenticator app, an email, a code on another device — switching away can close the sign-in down behind you, and you come back to an error. Either approve it on a second device, or put the app and your authenticator side by side in split screen so the sign-in page never goes away.

Two-step verification. If your Microsoft account uses it, have the second factor ready before you start rather than going to find it half way through.

If it says your account has no Xbox profile. The message reads "This Microsoft account doesn't have an Xbox profile yet. Create one at xbox.com, then sign in again." This is the one failure here that trying again will never fix: the Microsoft sign-in worked, and what is missing is the Xbox profile behind it, which only Microsoft can create. Open xbox.com, sign in with the same Microsoft account, follow the prompts to create a gamertag, then come back and sign in here. It is also worth checking you signed in with the account you actually play on — a work or school Microsoft account will not have one.

Any other failure. You land back on the sign-in screen with a short message — usually "There was an error authenticating your account", or "Oops! Please try again" if something else went wrong. Those two are worth another go: the sign-in button is still there, so tap it and start again. You do not need to restart the app or reinstall it, and there is nothing to clear. If the same message comes back several times in a row, it is not the kind of failure retrying fixes — tell us what it said at xbox@indiesoftware.com.ar.

You should not be. Signing in gives the app a long-lived permission from Microsoft, and it renews itself quietly in the background — so under normal use the sign-in screen should not come back at all.

One exception, and it only happens once. A major update can rebuild how the app stores things on your phone, and the first launch after one starts from a clean slate — so it asks you to sign in again, and to pick your language again. That is a one-off, and nothing on your Xbox account is affected.

What genuinely ends a session. Changing your Microsoft password, or signing your account out of everything from Microsoft's security settings, revokes the app's permission along with everything else — that is the system working, and signing in again is all it takes. Tapping Sign out in the app's Settings does the same thing on purpose.

If it keeps happening. Being asked repeatedly — every day, or every few launches — is not something you can fix from a setting, and it is not the "Stay signed in?" answer: that choice affects the Microsoft sign-in page in your browser, not the permission this app holds. It is worth telling us about at xbox@indiesoftware.com.ar, with a rough idea of how often, because that is a fault rather than a setting.

Signing out really does sign you out. It clears the Microsoft sign-in from the app on purpose, so the next person to open the app cannot walk into your account. That is also why signing out and back in is the way to change which account the app uses.

Almost always this is Android quietly blocking them, and it takes about thirty seconds to fix.

1. Open Settings in the app. If there is a Notifications warning at the top of the screen, Android is not letting us through — tap it and switch notifications on.
2. While you are there, check the Alarms warning too. Without the alarms permission Android delays the app's background refresh, so notifications arrive late rather than not at all.

Still quiet after that? Check that you actually asked for the kind of notification you are waiting for. Settings → Notifications is not one big on/off switch — each type has its own entry, with its own settings inside:

• Latest Achievements — achievements you and your friends unlock
• Friends — who just came online
• Messages — your Xbox messages
• Communities — posts in the communities you belong to

So if your messages arrive but achievements never do, it is the Latest Achievements entry you want, not the system settings.

One last thing worth knowing: battery saver and Do Not Disturb both slow the app down on purpose. That is deliberate — it stops the app draining a phone that is already low — and everything catches up as soon as you come out of either.

The app refreshes in the background roughly every six minutes rather than constantly, so there is normally a short gap between unlocking something and seeing it here. If the gap is hours rather than minutes, it is usually one of these.

• Battery saver is on. The app deliberately backs off while it is, and catches up when you come out.
• Android has restricted background use. Check the app's battery setting in Android's own settings and set it to unrestricted.
• The alarms permission is missing. The Alarms warning at the top of the app's Settings screen tells you if it is.

You can always pull down to refresh by hand rather than waiting — that works on your profile, your latest achievements, a game's achievement list, friends, messages, communities, captures and blogs.

Battery saver, Do Not Disturb and Android's own idle mode each slow the refresh down to about every three hours. That is deliberate, and everything catches up in one pass as soon as you come out of any of them.

Your purchase is safe — it is just attached to a different app than the one you are looking at.

There were two Achievements for XBOX apps on Google Play: the free one, which shows ads, and a separate paid PRO app, which does not. Google Play treats them as two different apps, so buying PRO never removed ads from the free one — they are not the same install, and they do not share a purchase.

PRO is no longer listed on Google Play. Nobody can buy it now, and its store page will not open. That does not affect what you already paid for: the app stays yours, it keeps working, and you can still install it on this or any other phone from your own library.

How to get the app you paid for

1. Open the Play Store app on your phone.
2. Tap your profile picture, top right.
3. Tap Manage apps & device.
4. Open the Manage tab.
5. Find Achievements for XBOX (PRO) in the list and install it. If it is not there, change the list filter from Installed to Not installed — that is where apps you own but do not currently have on this phone are hiding.

Google explains the same steps here: Find and reinstall apps you have already bought.

One thing to check first: make sure the Play Store is signed in with the same Google account you paid with. Purchases follow the account, not the phone, so an app bought on another account will not show up in this list.

If you would rather stay on the free app

The free app has a paid tier of its own, also called PRO, in Settings: a subscription, or a one-off Lifetime payment. Either one removes the ads from the app you already have, with nothing else to install — and it is the way to go ad-free from here, now that the PRO app is off the store. It is a separate purchase from the PRO app, so owning that app does not grant it. What PRO includes, and what Lifetime means.

PRO is the paid tier inside the free app — the one you already have. It is not the separate PRO app that used to be on Google Play; that is a different install and a different purchase, and it has its own answer above.

PRO unlocks five things:

• No ads, anywhere in the app.
• Create communities — joining one, posting and reacting are always free.
• Others with this game — which of your friends play it, and how far along they are.
• Custom theme — build your own color palette and wear it across the whole app.
• Price alerts — get told when a game on your wishlist drops in price.

There are two ways to get it and they sit on the same screen, in Settings: a subscription, billed every 3 or 12 months and cancellable at any time from the Play Store, or Lifetime, a single payment.

What “lifetime” means. One payment, no renewal and nothing to cancel: PRO stays unlocked for as long as the app is published — the app's lifetime, not yours. It belongs to the Google account that paid rather than to the phone, so reinstalling, changing phone or signing out of Xbox does not take it away — the app asks Play every time it starts and turns PRO back on by itself. There is no Restore purchases button because there is nothing to restore by hand. It cannot be moved to a different Google account, and it does not cover the separate PRO app.

The free trial. A subscription can start with a free trial, and Google Play decides who gets one: it is for accounts that have never subscribed to this app, once per Google account. The app only mentions a trial when Play has actually offered you one, and Play's own sheet shows the length and the date of the first charge before you confirm anything. If no trial is mentioned, that account has already had one.

If you already subscribe, Lifetime is not shown to you. Google Play cannot turn a subscription into a one-off purchase — you would end up owning both, with the subscription still renewing every period — so the app does not offer you something that would charge you twice. To switch, cancel the subscription in the Play Store first. You keep PRO until the period you already paid for runs out, and Lifetime appears once it does.

The old one-off upgrade is gone, and owning it still counts. The free app used to sell a separate one-time upgrade. It is no longer sold — two one-time products doing the same job was one too many, and Lifetime is the one that stays. If you bought the upgrade, you keep it and it unlocks the whole of PRO, with no button to press and nothing to buy again. If it does not come back, check that the Play Store is signed in with the same Google account you paid with.

From inside the app, open Settings and, under Account, tap Delete my data. Two prompts follow: the first spells out exactly what goes, the second is the point of no return. Nothing is deleted until you confirm that second one, so closing either prompt leaves everything untouched.

Already uninstalled the app, or cannot sign in? Email xbox@indiesoftware.com.ar with the subject “Data deletion request” and your gamertag. Requests are handled within 30 days and remove exactly the same things.

One thing worth knowing before you do it: this removes your Achievements for XBOX data only. Your Microsoft account, your Xbox profile and your achievements belong to Microsoft — we only read them, and deleting here changes nothing on Xbox.

The full detail — everything that is removed, the few shared things that are kept with your name taken off them, and what is not ours to delete — is on the Delete your data page.