MFS 2020 stuck on "Checking for updates"

[MauBen 82]

Hello,

This is my first post here and I really wish this was a lot more positive comment about MFS 2020. I bought the premium package directly from Microsoft.

I was able to download MFS 2020 and play with it 2 or 3 times with no problems (amazing graphics). But now, suddenly, I get 2 errors when I start the game:

1:  "We can't sync your data with the cloud right now"

2: If I ignore above message and continue, the game gets stuck on the "Checking for updates" screen and never starts.

I tried all the suggestions I have seen on the web incl. running it as administrator, latest Nvidia drivers, latest windows updates, disable firewall with no change, ran CCleaner pro.

I also uninstalled the game several times and re-installed it, and again, same problem.

I moved the game to a different drive and same problem.

When I uninstall the game, the free disk space on the C drive remains the same. When I move the game to a different drive D , the free disk space on both drives remains the same and the re-install is much, much quicker (~ 2 minutes and only 990 MB)  than the original first install which took hours. This can only mean than uninstalling the game does not remove the original files, nor does it free disk space used by flight simulator.

There is no way to manually delete the program directory/files as it/they are nowhere to be found. This is really frustrating. I should be able to do a complete uninstall that deletes ALL the MFS 2020 installation files. As it stands, I cannot play the game and I apparently cannot delete it either and recover the disk space. Something really weird is going on here.

Any other suggestions from anyone?

Thank you,

Maurice

[188AHC 2,141]

Please look in the pinned topics. There is a link to MS about problems. 

Hang you'll get it done. 

[Rene777 9]

I.ve also tried all the so called fixes..Even changed my Windows account name to the same as in microsoft account. But it sticks at checking for updates. A blue bar and nothing happens.

Will this be solved with the coming update from msfs ?

Asuming that such update is recognized and installable .....

Rene.

[MauBen 82]

Well, I did resolve the mystery in my case, especially free disk space issue. 
A couple of days after I had installed the program, I changed my Microsoft store account email address because I was fed up with emails disappearing in my Yahoo address. So I changed it to a gmail address and this was when the problem started. 

When I started the game after the address change, it got stuck on checking for updates, so I tried all the suggestions floating around including uninstalling and reinstalling the game. Apparently, the first uninstall did remove the main program files and the free space on the drive must have increased as expected.

What happened then, when I tried to reinstall, it was just reinstalling some basic stuff of about 1 GB but not the actual program files and that is why the free disk space was basically not changing anymore, even if I moved the installation to a different drive.

So, I finally remembered that the problem started after I had changed my email address. I then changed it again back to my old Yahoo address and bingo, the next reinstall took several hours and about 100 GB and all is good again.

The real clue here that I had missed was the first message I was getting before it would get stuck on checking for updates which was “We can’t sync your data with the cloud right now”. Apparently, the program is not smart enough to realize this was the same Microsoft store account but with a changed email address.

Anyway, many, many frustrating hours later, life is good again. I think that the change of email address might not have caused a problem had I not removed the Yahoo address completely. Maybe if I had left it there as a secondary address, it might have been ok, but I’m not about to test that again 😁.

Hope this will help someone with this same ‘problem’. 
Maurice