We’ve figured out a couple of tested workarounds for the broken party stuff - figured I’d share here and try to spread the joy…
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If you manage to get your ‘Game Session’ party the way you want it - with all of your friends present - if you want to keep everyone together after a game, hang out in the carnage report with your roster open until everyone fills back into the list together. This could take 30-60 seconds. If you back out of the post-game report before that happens, you’re screwed.
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If your friends are no longer in your Halo roster (as being ‘in your game’), but the menu won’t let you invite them, we’ve agreed that it seems like the Xbox believes everyone’s in the party and all is well, even though they aren’t listed with you. No amount of kicking players or trying to rejoin the Halo party will work - if you go to your Xbox settings/power options and force a restart, it will start working again.
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As a general rule, when you’re waiting for your friends to filter back into your party, wait till you’d normally say ‘screw this, I’m restarting’ and give it 15 more seconds from there. Twice now I was ready to do that and POP - friends were back in the party.
So, in short, wait for your party to reassemble after each match, and if you ever get separated and the Xbox thinks you’re together, don’t waste time, everybody just restart your box (the right way - from the settings app) and rejoin each other.
It may also help to be in an Xbox chat party for all of this, so you can always communicate with each other in-and-out of Halo.
It’s worked for us - frustrating as hell, but it’s limping by… If any of you see easier ways around this stuff, let me know so we can have more than 2 games an hour…
-B