XBOX won't sign me in after a Windows Update 0x87DD0005

Hi NauttiBoy,

I completely understand your frustration. It is incredibly annoying when you are dealing with a clear connectivity issue, but the official status pages still show everything as "green" and operational.

Unfortunately, there is often a significant delay between when an issue first starts affecting users and when the automated monitoring systems or support tiers officially update the public dashboards. Community forums and crowd-sourced sites like Downdetector are almost always the first to reflect these backend hiccups long before they get officially acknowledged.

You are definitely not alone in experiencing this—many users are hitting the exact same wall right now. It is clearly a backend authentication drop, and we just have to hold tight until the server-side engineering team catches up and pushes a fix. Hang in there!

Thanks for the answer Baraniwala, but can you explain why I can access the games (MS solitaire, fishing planet) on my desk top PC but not on my Laptop. They are both running Windows 11 they both have intel processors 1 is Gen 14 i7 (laptop) 1 Gen 13 i5 (desktop) both have 16gb ram and both run RTX graphics. I know I probably don't need to put all that info, I'm just confused how it works on one and not the other. They are both on the same network.

It should read cannot access the games (MS solitaire, Fishing Planet)

Good to know about the PC/iPhone differences. One thing to note is I just started up another laptop I have with the app installed. That has not been updated in some time. I was able to sign in and play with zero issues. I checked available windows updates and the following are pending install:

1. 2026-10 .NET Framework Security Update (KB5127694)
2. 2026-10 Security Update (KB5127648) (26300.9711)
3. Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool x64 - v5.146 (KB89083)

I am downloading and installing on that laptop at this moment. It'll be interesting to see if the sign-in issues starts after those are installed.

Hi John and Cronin,

This is a fantastic observation from both of you, and it actually perfectly explains how backend authentication outages work in real-time!

The reason your desktop (John) and your older laptop (Cronin) can still play is because of Cached Authentication Tokens.

When you log into Xbox Live, your PC saves a temporary digital "key" (token) locally to keep you logged in. If that key hasn't expired yet, your game uses it to bypass the login server completely. Those working PCs are simply coasting on their old, valid tokens right now.

However, if a PC's token expires, or if a Windows Update / system restart forces the Xbox app to clear its cache and request a new token, it hits the broken authentication server and you get the 0x87DD0005 error.

@Cronin: Since you are downloading and installing those updates now, there is a very high chance it will force a restart, clear your active background session, and lock you out of the games on that laptop too once it tries to reconnect.

Let us know what happens after the update finishes, but whatever you do on your working machines right now, do not click "Sign Out"!

I'm having the same issue and have wasted 4 hrs uninstalling, reinstalling restarting, trying to uninstall windows updates and I'm a premium user also. So frustrating.

Thank You Baraniwala that actually makes sense to me. So we just have to wait for MS to resolve the issue?

OK. I updated my laptop, and restarted. MS Solitaire worked again without issue. Out of curiosity, I signed out of the app, signed out of my xbox and microsoft account, the signed back in. MS Solitaire continues to work on that laptop without issues. Not sure what to take from all this, but nothing seems to make sense why it works on one laptop and not the other.

This occurred after my last Windows Update and I was able to resolve after reinstalling Gaming Services. However, that did not work this time.

Hi everyone,

@Janice: I am so sorry you had to go through that! Wasting 4 hours reinstalling is incredibly frustrating. This is exactly why I wanted to post the warning to save others the headache.

@John: You are very welcome! And yes, unfortunately, waiting for the Microsoft engineers to fix the authentication servers on their end is all we can do right now.

@Roger: Great point. Reinstalling Gaming Services is usually the golden rule for Xbox app issues. The fact that it is completely failing right now is the ultimate proof that this is a backend server drop, not a local app corruption.

@Cronin: That is actually fascinating (and very lucky!). If you were able to sign completely out and back in successfully on that specific laptop, it tells us one of two things: either the Xbox authentication servers are slowly starting to come back online and you caught the fix early, or your internet routing hit a specific regional server node that wasn't affected by the outage. Server drops like this can sometimes be highly localized. For now, consider that laptop the "chosen one" and enjoy the games!

I have a temporary workaround for this issue and am now able to play my Microsoft games. I uninstalled the updates, did not restart................ I then went in and paused all updates for the latest date possible (November 18th, I believe - hopefully they will fix their update by then). When you uninstall the updates and restart it just installs them again so by pausing them they don't install.

Well articulated and Microsoft have fixed the back end. Authentication now works.

Hey david,

You sure the authentication work? I'm still having same issues like everyone else

My location is New Zealand ... Wondering if the service update is taking awhile to globally rollout. At about 2.40 PM NZST is when the authentication worked for me. It stopped with the Patch update the other day.