Xbox: World won't sync and reports as corrupted

After Contacting Xbox support and doing Contacting Xbox support and doing an Hour and 1⁄2 chat With 1 of the members and completing a factory reset of my console but keeping the games it concluded with The exact same issue except now storage wasn't a problem it was migration again and as I said before I have never transferred this world so what is happening

Did you have custom texture packs, have an experimental world, or move any files around or back up the world with a file manger or ftp manager? 

The update creates duplicate tiles and local state folder issue.  Backing up the world files would be smart if they are there to retrieve at all.  

Ok so I found out that you can load it the preview  version, but it’s very badly destroyed! Most of everything is gone and broken apart. Luckily I have pictures of my world before the update broke it (not everything is there but enough to show the damage) and I can take screenshots of the new copy made In the preview. So I’m going to set up a Dropbox link to the pictures so that someone can look and see what is happening here. Not sure if it will help but I hope it does. If anything it seems like data is there but either the update chopped it up, and sliced it, or the preview messes with the other saves. I’ll go and load up a world I made yesterday in the official release, into the preview to see if the same type of chopping and loss occurs there as well. I also kept my items in my inventory. (Not that I had a lot as I just recently died before the update and lost alot of my neiterite tools and such) 

I can't even make copies of my world because it will say it has been corrupted or hasn't synced data it won't let me make copies it won't let me do anything I just need to figure out what's going on so I did plug in an external hard drive a second one into my Xbox and it did have Minecraft on it so maybe that contributed to it so I unplugged that external hard drive and I'm going to attempt to start up my world again but I do not know how that's going to go and I do have the disc so I may put the disc in afterwards and see if that does anything at all but I'll update this comment when I try all this stuff, I'm currently grounded and can't play maybe Friday I can update this comment

Ok so I also loaded the neither and end in this world and this isn’t all broken like the over world is, it just reverted to its original state when the world was first created. (The nether and end haven’t had an update since then so This makes sense. Bout to make the Dropbox folder. I’ll send another comment when I’m done, this might help give anyone an idea of what may or has happened to the worlds save data. If you can I’d try to load it up in the preview and see what happens. 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j2xuwr8nfsva3ol/AAADWxCn2MRD5wwsDD0hOuLta?dl=0 Here is the Dropbox link, includes the broken part, and the old world before the update. There are dates on them. Hopefully this helps somebody. 

I'm missing the main world, someone already solved it, I managed to rescue two copies of the world but I'm missing the main one :c

To this day they still haven't solved the problem of my main world, I haven't done the correct synchronization for days and I can't edit my world because I get the same

Has anyone else had the issue that they're world got replaced with a world that is just a random string of characters and says it takes up 0.01 mb?

This issue affects me, but my world is not corrupted if I load it in minecraft preview, and none of the chunks are reset

My 9 year old survival world is gone.

Game updated and was playing for about 2 minutes then it tried to sync over my open world, got kicked out of game with data storage full message….. then all worlds are grey and unable to sync. Can not update/ sync even if I create a “new” world. Data storage error messages from Xbox and minecraft.  Fail to upload/ sync it will try for over 20 minutes get to 99% then kick me straight to dashboard.

Random greyed out worlds appearing then disappear the next day I log in…none will sync, all unplayable.

Tried every solution except uninstalling as per the mc warning as my game saves were 9gb. Spent over 11 hours with mc help and Xbox help trying everything they suggested. Made bug report.

Desperate to find something I re enabled my old realm which never wanted to work 99% of the time ( I had to pay and open another realm to get this one to give me the option to renew…only cancelled it Aug 22)The only very old template of my world was on there and it let me in… can play but it will not upload to save data when I quit. Tried downloading to playlist, works but then next day it turns grey… try to “sync” yesterday and it opened up my world underneath the sync… back to square one. Fail to sync!

Yesterday another version of minecraft appeared for an update they have two different version file numbers, different descriptions in about file but the new one will not update and just crashes.

I am devastated my beloved world is ruined by the update. I can’t stop crying.

As you can see it’s doing it again with the only old copy of my mc world. 

it’s trying to sync and auto open it underneath before it’s finished which results in the world yet again breaking.

I can’t play as it will never stop trying to sync, will fail to sync error, no data storage space error on both Xbox and minecraft are back again as soon as I load in and of course it is still obviously failing to upload to the cloud.

And I keep getting messages saying you are closing the post as “resolved” to which I reply “ oh no it’s NOT!”…

Reply from @unknown:
Your other report(s) were resolved as duplicates of this one. Be sure to look at the Resolution to see how the report was resolved. If it is a duplicate, you should then "watch" the main report (this one) to be updated on the status of the underlying issue. This is explained in detail in the Bug Tracker Guidelines, which everyone is asked to read when creating their bug tracker account.

Initially after the 1.19.31 update my worlds transferred ok and I could play on them, but because I create a couple of backups of my main world the save file was around 3.5gb and it started to say,,,, as above, can’t sync to cloud,,, out of space,,, then eventually greyed out with the file string of characters with a 0.01 mb size, no matter what I tried everything was corrupted,,, I bit the bullet,,,, in manage game I deleted the saves from everywhere not just local as it gives you that option now, then I opened Minecraft it showed no worlds at all, like when you play for the very first time,,, I had no saves on the cloud or console (or so I thought) then I deleted Minecraft completely from the console,,, I reloaded Minecraft,, then it updated and when I opened the game my worlds where all there,, but at the same save point as the 5th October,, so I lost any progress from the 5th after the update, which shows after the update the files in the worlds folder weren’t getting updated with any progress,, I lost progress and stuff I’ll have to do again,, but I’ll take that any time,,,, I got my world back,, I now only keep one backup of world and delete that before making a new backup,,, keeping the save file under 2gb ish,,, it seems to be saving ok although you do get a quick flash of the can’t save to cloud,,, then says ‘done’ I’m not saying do what I did,,, but it worked for me and thought I would share it as it might help someone.

So I tried a method that someone had for reinstalling the game and my long term world is back! I had to delete my game, then go to the Microsoft store. (I’m on a Xbox one S) and go to the starter bundle. And then go to the stuff included in the bundle. I selected the first Minecraft on the bundle, and apparently it’s a older version or something of the game, after doing that I installed the older version, then updated my game. (You may have to restart your console a few times of the download doesn’t move.) and then loaded up my game and I saw my world was there! No need to sync, just ready to play! Then I loaded up the world and everything was ok! I then backed out and had no issues. I have only tried playing the world once today but plan to try and play it again when I get home from work! This may possibly work for you. 

Well today I tried something different. I uninstalled all the data from the save data files for minecraft on my Xbox. It was sitting at 5.2gb plus the game file of around 3.2 gb. ( I had nothing to loose as all my worlds are greyed out and keep getting the data save messages) cleared persistent data, restarted Xbox x.

Looked again in the data file storage and it’s gone up to 7.8 gb plus the size of the game?

This could be where some of the issues are coming from as it’s “cloning” data from some source. Tried to sync one of my worlds just to see if I could…only a very small old 583mb which took about 20 mins ( on a fibre 1000/1000 connection!) and failed to sync at 99%

Tried to join my realm on Xbox also continuously failed to join. This is so broken but did see that the basic resource packs were now flashing between the picture thumbnail and a pink/ black square thumbnail.

Hi something new…. Tried syncing again… got to 99% game sync failed, again the minecraft is out of space data message, % amount of Xbox storage goes up again and I get the Xbox is out of storage message… followed by do you want to play “offline” message box… never had that one before so thought why not try.

Turned off connection in Xbox settings, opened minecraft selected a world then the minecraft out of space error message pops up again, then game crashes.

version 1.19.4002.0 now it says I have 5.4gb base game save and 9.9gb 2 saved items….3.7gb reserved space plus 6.2 my games… despite not being able to save/ upload anything, sync anything, delete anything or play anything.

My realm which has the only old copy of my world which for the last 5 days have been unable to load (pink / black minecraft is out of save space) loaded today and now it’s messing with textures. Blocks of coal now look like glow stone. And the game crashes after I quit out. Texture  packs are flashing between pink/ black and the normal pictures.

I know I should stop trying but… 

Today my only Realm world now requires a texture pack download, then proceeds to take about 5 tries to load. Two days ago I downloaded the realm world to my main list… it now fails to load and experiencing the minecraft is out of data error all over again. The load is not greyed out but will not load due to this error… it is the only non greyed out world on my list as everything else failed to sync.

Tried minecraft preview. My original  world loaded very quickly and with absolutely no issues…until I quit out. 
Then the wonderful minecraft can’t save your data as it’s too full messages raised their “pretty” little heads again, closely followed by the Xbox is too full issue again.

In the original minecraft I have NO other worlds in my list except 1 greyed out version of my original world which I can not play because it will not sync.

What is all this “data” and why is all this “data” and where is all this “data” ?

The syncing error “Failed To Sync World Data” happened to me after uninstalling Minecraft. When I reinstalled the game, I find my worlds greyed out, and settings reset as if I was a brand new user.

Oddly enough, most of the worlds (75MB at the most) sync correctly. However, my main world (about 667MB) does not sync, as well as older copies of it around the same size. The world in question does contain a few resource/behavior packs. Every world greyed out is in the local Minecraft world files as well.

My current platform is Xbox Series X. I tested this on an Xbox Series S as well. Here’s the difference between the two consoles attempting to sync the 667MB world:

Series X: The Xbox syncing message for the console appears hardly at all, but does not display a percentage for the progress when it does appear. Every other time, just the in-game syncing message for Minecraft appears, instead of the Xbox syncing message appearing with it. 

Series S: The Xbox syncing message appears only once or sometimes twice in a day, along with the in-game syncing message for Minecraft, as well as a percentage on the completion of the sync. However, it takes an unusual amount of time to complete, (30-40+ minutes so far) and fails near the end of the syncing process.

I have attempted to upload the 667MB world to Realms using the “replace” button, but the “Failed To Sync World Data” message appears afterwards on either console.

In short, I encounter the in-game syncing error message every time I select the 667MB world on the Xbox Series X, and Series S consoles. This world is very important to me, and I’m so worried about future worlds having this issue. I’m just holding my breath hoping a fix comes soon. 😔

I now can only play on my realm world. If I try to even sync an old world or even make a new world I get the minecraft is out of data error message followed by the Xbox is out of data message…again. I can’t even download my world to the regular list as I immediately get the errors even though I have zero worlds on it.

So I’ve been looking for possible solutions for accessing the grayed out worlds failing to sync, and I think I may have found a possible workaround using a file explorer. However, your world folder may not appear doing this method. Also, if you find your world folder, it may be an older save of the world like it was for me.

Be careful! This app can be risky as it’s accessing console files. Use at your own risk.

Other requirements: you’ll need a Windows Computer or Laptop to access Minecraft Bedrock PC, a USB Flash Drive, and Realms Plus which is a paid subscription within Minecraft Bedrock, and of course an Xbox. (I did this on a Series X)

Firstly, I download an app which is called “ADV File Explorer” on the Xbox Console. You can find it in the Microsoft Store. Then I download the ADV File Explorer (Full Trust) app which was provided within the main ADV File Explorer App. It should prompt you to download it at some point. I used this app to retrieve the world files which should be in this location:

Q:>Users>UserMgr1>AppData>Local>Packages>Microsoft.Minecraft>LocalState> games>com.mojang>minecraftWorlds

Note: “AppData” seems to have trouble being accessed on ADV File Explorer (Full Trust). To skip this and shortcut to “Local”,  just select the white star icon on the left side menu of the screen within the app, then select “Local” in the box that appears next to the white star. Then continue to select the appropriate files to get to “minecraftWorlds”

Unless there is another way, unfortunately you have to go into the world folders that are random letters and/or numbers, and look at the world save pictures until you recognize a picture that matches the world you’re looking for. If the picture is not there, you could look at your Resource and/or Behavior Pack files and see if they match your world you’re looking for. Otherwise look at the properties of files like “level” and see if you can find a date on it anywhere below the “System.Date.Accessed” for reference.

After I found my world, I plugged a USB Flash Drive into the Xbox Console, then using ADV File Explorer (Full Trust) I found the USB Flash Drive in the app which was on the left side menu classified as “removable device”, or something along that name. Then I copied the world folder itself, then pasted it into the USB Flash Drive. After it said “100% complete” in the task bar, I unplugged the USB from the Xbox Console.

I then took the USB, and plugged it into my PC. Then I took the world folder out of the USB on the PC, then copied it, then put it into my Minecraft Bedrock world files which you can find by looking up how to do so on the Web.

I then loaded up Minecraft Bedrock on PC, and the world was there ready to go. It loaded as an older save, but better than nothing. 

Then I uploaded the world to Realms by selecting “replace” on a Realms world slot on the PC. After it uploaded to Realms on the PC, I downloaded it off of Realms using my Xbox Console. Afterwards, the download completed, and the world was back on my Xbox without the need to sync it.

The point of me doing this was to dodge the syncing error entirely by downloading it off of Realms since the world is technically already on the Xbox, therefore creating a fresh copy of the world. Hopefully this works for someone other than me.

I'm having this issue as well. I contacted mojang multiple times, they said it was my xbox that was at fault. The issue spread to all of my other games temporarily. All solutions Microsoft gave over my now month of speaking with them have been useless. It started early October, first pic I have of it is Oct 8, but it was happening for a bit before that. I was thankfully able to save my long term world to realms and port it to my tablet to keep safe, but this is so frustrating!

It's definitely a strange issue. The "fixes" Microsoft gave me cleared the issue on other games, and Minecraft is currently the only one impacted. I'll add that the issue appears to compound, the more you save or sync data the worse it crashes. Yesterday I couldn't sync or save anything as the xbox storage full error popped up every 2 seconds and wouldn't go away. I'm not sure if it's related or not but when I sync data from the cloud, like when I first got my current Xbox and when I've factory reset and re-synced my saves from the cloud to try to fix the issue, a bunch of old saves pop up. Ones I deleted months or years ago, some are even from 2018. They never fully sync so I can't play them or even delete them. My game is so cluttered with broken saves that I can't remove, it's quite frustrating. I deleted them for a reason 4 years ago, I don't want them permanently stuck on my worlds list.

When I had the problem of storage full it was because I had my storage full of redundant packs from servers and worlds I joined and I was able to remove over a gig by deleting ones I didn't need

If I try and sync the only one greyed out world I have left which was my main world and the only world I played ( it gets to 99% then just says can’t sync) then I get the minecraft is out of data message…followed by the Xbox is out of data message can’t save can’t play.

I have a very old version of this world on a realm and can play it sometimes and if I try to download it i start getting the every error messages all over again.

I had no problems playing my old world at all before the “update”.

Unfortunately for me I haven’t played with anyone else or in their games so I do not know where this data is coming from. I only have 2 packs of textures and no other downloads. I see players with hundreds of worlds and they have “ space” . My previous minecraft before the “ update” had over 10.8gb of saved data. Now if mine goes over 3 it basically crashes with those errors. That’s stopping me from downloading my 1.2gb world from my realm.

I have been having an issue for about a week now. I was playing in a new world that my son and I created. When I saved and quit I received a brief message that said failed to sync data retry. It flashed so fast I was unable to respond. I attempted to reopen the world and it will progress until I reach the building terrain bar (see attached pictures) and then will go no further. The same thing happens when I attempt to open the world I have been playing for over a year, which contains my huge build. I have not tried to enter any other world since these two failed to load. I had no issue prior to the latest update and have received no other error messages.

My Minecraft just updated and I can confirm the issue persists, unfortunately.

Same issues nothing will sync. Can not play any old worlds or even start a new one in my Xbox minecraft game as I get the error messages about no space on both Xbox and minecraft.

I have one very old version of my world on a realm and I can not download this world as I receive the above messages. My data on Xbox is wildly jumping from 11kb one day to 3.2 the next.

This is BROKEN!

Some added developments, worlds that have become corrupted due to attempts to sync world will display normally upon Uninstalling and reinstalling minecraft although they're still inaccessible, worlds that have not been expanded to the increased size from 1.18+ sync fine matter how large the world file, worlds that have been loaded in 1.18+ will only sync if the size is below about 115mb at least in my testing, any world synced 1.18, and is above 115mb will fail to sync and be inaccessible. 

Anybody else have the issue spread to other games? It always starts with Minecraft and then will start to spread to other games, almost as if the Minecraft data with saves keeps expanding and then makes it so I can't play any other games until I reset my console (clear local saves, or factory reset the console)

Some smaller world files seem to load just fine, but any over 100mb will just give up instantly/after waiting 5 mins for the Xbox to sync data for Minecraft, to which then it will give you the “failed to sync world data” pop up.

I have no problem with loading these worlds on Preview. The worlds still exist in the cloud, so why can’t I access them?

@Cael Hill, This one method I tried using ADV File Explorer on Xbox, for whatever reason, showed my older Minecraft worlds (that were deleted by me) still on my Xbox, and an older save of my current world that I couldn’t get to sync. If this doesn’t just work for me, it’s possible you could get your old worlds that were deleted back by transferring them to a USB Flash Drive using ADV File Explorer, then to a PC, and back on Xbox using Realms IF you wanted that. You may run into the same problem in the future though if you put it back on the console.

If that ends up working for you, (and it’s a big IF), or anyone else reading this, it could be a potential workaround. Again, I don’t see many up to date versions of the worlds, but it’s better to have an older save than nothing.

I put all the steps for me accessing these files in a few comments below. There are also guides on how to install the application on the web. You need the full trust version for the application to work.

Edit: If you have any world files you want to transfer from your USB Flash Drive when you’re on PC, you would definitely have to look up something like “how to access minecraftWorlds folder on MC Bedrock PC” since it’s not an obvious process. But once you find the location of them, copy the file off of the USB, and paste it into the world folder. Hopefully this helps!

It's been a month since I opened my ticket MCPE-164336 which was closed and absorbed into this one.

I tried to access my worlds again today but no luck. 

My main save called "The City" is 2.5 Gb and will not sync or load. It was last saved on 2021-12-28.

For some reason there are two copies on my Xbox saved 2021-12-12 (300 odd Mb) and 2021-11-15 (600 odd Mb). Both also fail to sync. 

The bug is a cloud problem on the main games end. Works fine on preview. I’m even able to access worlds that I haven’t been able to access for years on the main game, so preview is doing something right, where the main game is getting it wrong.
Perhaps the devs should look into the differences in the code between the main game and preview, when it comes to world saving, world file accessing, syncing, etc…

File size also plays a role. The larger the world, the less likely it’s going to sync.

I also feel unsafe to start any new worlds because of this reason, but also because Xbox keeps on saying that it’s out of storage for the game, which it most certainly is not, since Minecraft should save to the cloud, and is not internal.

@Cael Hill, My xbox keeps telling me my cloud storage is full when I have Minecraft installed. I've had to uninstall it to be able to play other games. It's definitely file size related, I started a new creative world to mess around and test the issue, and the issue only begins when syncing my larger files.

I'm also super confused as to why files I've deleted are popping up and of course are not fully synced, its clogging up my game so much with unnecessary files, although the unaccessable worlds has been a problem for me for over a year, it just seems to expand each time I reset my console data (was trying to fix the issue).

I have been having this “cloning data “ issue since the October update on Xbox. Not only do I get the Xbox is out of data space but also the minecraft is out of data space errors.
I now only have one unplayable world on my list and one “sometimes” playable world in a realm. I can not even start a “ new” world as I immediately get the above errors!
Watching the minecraft “ saved data” in manage games on Xbox sees it randomly fluctuate between 3.5 gb up to 11 gb of data without having any worlds able to be played.

As I have asked before “ what is this data?, where is this data? and why is this data? … no answer.

This is ridiculous as it is NOT being addressed nor has anyone been assigned to this Xbox issue. They obviously don’t care.

Reply from @unknown:
As stated in the Bug Tracker Guidelines, technical questions (such as "what is this data?") are not generally answered via this bug tracker.
In addition, the Assigned to field in Jira is not used for the "MCPE" project. If the issue is Confirmed or has an "ADO" number, then Mojang are aware of the issue. Please limit comments to specific new information about reproducing an issue.

Ani Historically if minecraft is telling you that your out of storage space it's because you are, if possible, and assuming your on xbox going to the storage tab within minecraft will give you a list of things that are taking up space and you can delete old worlds. And data packs that you are no longer using, yea every time you have to download a pack to join a world it takes up permanent space until you go through an delete it, once you've done this you will probably have to unplug your xbox and plug it back in to get it to update

Careful when deleting stuff because deleting the wrong thing can cause you to accidentally wipe all your worlds so make sure to read it

Hi Jeff if only that was the case. I have NO other worlds only one unplayable version of my old world and one realm world. Nothing else. I do not have multiple shader packs nor adventure worlds. The only one I have is the texture update pack which is tiny.
It does not explain why one day my Xbox data is 3.2 gb then the next it skyrockets to over 11.8 gb without any sort of play by me.
Explain that…

As a side note I spent over 9 hours with Xbox support trying everything possible to try to save my minecraft world. Resetting, hard factory resetting, deleting everything including saved games, you name it I did it. I striped my Xbox down to the operating system and this crap is still happening. As Xbox support have said multiple times it’s a developer issue not an Xbox issue. The game saves are being “ cloned” in minecraft saves then updating the gb value onto the Xbox cloud save. It’s a vicious cycle which seems to not be being addressed.

This data replication is a bug and was reported by me in my previous bug report. It was closed and put into this bug report as a duplicate issue.
I am not doing anything with the game to cause this data save error as it started immediately after the October update and randomly happens if I either try to sync a world ( I now only have one on my list but it is greyed out) or I enter my realm then save and quit or I try to make a “ new” world. All of these produce the random extra data and I end up deleting minecraft and reinstalling just so I can get into my realm which is only 1.2gb.

A week after posting, here are my updates: Minecraft Bedrock Edition is an unplayable mess. Moderators, enjoy.

I tried checking XBox a couple of times since seeing some sort of 'hot fix' show up in the forum, but I now cannot locate it and perhaps it was not meant to be here.

As per the header here: "If you want to discuss this among yourselves, there are plenty of places you can find and chat with other community members, such as the Discord or Reddit. If you want to discuss it with Mojang, you need to contact the Community Management team on Discord or their Twitter accounts," I attempted to reach out via these two additional platforms.

1. Twitter: No response

2. Discord: I went into the Discord channel or server and straight into the Community Support chat room. When I was there, another user advised me it was not an official support area. However, he/she also noted that for console editions of Minecraft there was a limit of 4 gb allocated for save files.

I have a 2 tb external hard drive hooked up to my XBox so this leads me to see this issue from a different angle. I checked my XBox and noticed my save files for Minecraft took up 4.1 gb. Trying to make some room through the game not a single save was able to sync in order for me to delete it, play it, manipulate it or otherwise access it.

I understand that questions are not being addressed here, but the underlying issue, I think, space capacity from "the Minecraft cloud." 4 gbs? Really? With the additional bottom layer of world force-saving copies of the world, naturally a lot of users space allocations are going to balloon. It's nice to be able to save to 'the cloud' as an OPTION to BACK-UP a save, but why aren't we able to save our worlds locally? We paid for the game (years ago, sure, but I've also bought additional skin and resource packs, etc) so why am I unable to play it?

The player who opened this thread said they were going to start fresh on a new world. But how can you start a new world not knowing that it may not be accessible 1 month, 6 months, 2 years later, etc? I also tried to start a new game but became frustrated searching for diamonds to replace all of my old equipment. I had scores and scores of diamonds on my other game. 

The message I keep getting is that the save files are corrupted or I cannot sync. I'm not buying it. I have a high speed fibre op connection and can download gigabytes in minutes. With Minecraft, I sit syncing for 20 minutes to end up in failure. The save files exist, what it needs is a version of Minecraft that can decrypt the coding language. It's clear to me that Bedrock Edition is incapable of this right now.

Tried to load minecraft yesterday…back to Xbox can’t save data messages even before the game loads. If the mythical 4gb limit on Xbox x is the reason, why does my game manage file say I only have 3.2gb in total?

From advice from many af the Microsoft/Minecraft reps I've spoken to, I paid for reals to have an online back up in stead of relying on sync. This has failed after a day as well: it does not seem to access saved progress; I played for a couple of hours yesterday - there are backups - but when I logged in it went back to the save I originally uploaded from PC. I tried downloading and uploading one of the backups and now my game just crashes.

Just to try one other suggestion; I made a new world and after a day this happened again.

I also tried making a “new” world as I have nothing on my list now except one unplayable world and only my realm world. The game just crashes then I get error out of space again and again and again

I have exactly the same problem. It started with an update stalling on Xbox One, forcing me to reinstall the game. After that, all my files have been corrupted and I cannot open them. Tried to contact Microsoft and Mojang to no avail. Really frustrating, as our 3+ year map is now gone and we cannot start a new one because this might happen again in the future. I believe the save is still in the cloud as it opens in Minecraft Preview, albeit at an older version of the map. The game just cannot access the files for some reason. This needs to be fixed, the internet is full on questions and discussions about this exact problem.

I've had Minecraft removed from my console for a while now since having it downloaded just lead to me eventually being unable to play because of the data duplication. Still having the issues, syncing data still takes way too long and often fails. I notice now my MC Save Data is over 9 GB. More deleted worlds are showing up, and their individual data has been massively expanded. One file that was deleted (and last interacted with) in 2019 which should have only been around 100mb at the time is now showing as over 500 mb. I usually only have 2-3 gb of storage. I have one main file of roughly 350mb, and then usually 2-3 copies, since I've lost progress due to bugs before and don't want to lose this world. A ton of those deleted copies show up, and are now over 400-500 mb each. They all take a ton of time to sync, then show syncing failed, and then when I try again it typically shows that the world is corrupted. This means I cannot even delete them to be able to free up space.

I have tried my world on the Preview version, like some of you suggested. When saving the world, it still does the "uploading world data" and then says "world upload failed", but closes the message window. In my experience, this means the bug is still present, but not enough data has been cloned yet to cause the world upload failed message to stay on your screen, or to start showing that all the xbox data is taken up.

I have a copy of this world on my iPad and on realms. I am able to access the world, download it from realms, and play it on my tablet with no world upload failures, so this is definitely a Xbox Cloud Save or some Xbox specific issue that is causing the data duplicating. This same file on my tablet is 360 mb, so it is expanding on my Xbox for unknown reasons. I'm hoping this is addressed soon, so I can get back to playing on my Xbox.

I hope the worlds can be recovered, but I have verified that currently when you want to synchronize the worlds that you are playing, when the error appears when loading the world immediately press A several times and if it synchronizes.

https://youtu.be/3yZpTyzEyLU

Best workaround out there right now and I definitely recommend giving it a try for anybody experiencing this issue, it worked for me. It basically tricks the game into loading a cloud save of your corrupted world/worlds, and because the corruption issue is within the game save rather than the cloud (why the worlds sync in the preview version), the fix actually works. An ethernet cable is also an absolute must with this fix. Good luck to everyone! 

I attempted the troubleshooting guide proposed by the earlier attached video yesterday and am re-attempting this morning as I had missed a step in the process. My XBox is wireless and using an ethernet cable is simply out of the question as our peripheral monitor (TVs) are too big and clunky to move to the area where our router is plugged in, we do not have a long enough wire and I'm not calling a technician to rewire our house! Instead of disconnecting my cable, I switched on and off the wireless during each step

The steps in the video are more or less as follows, with my own commentary:

It requires that you have a second account on your XBox, although I don't know why.

1. Delete all local saves (I've done this previously through the XBox troubleshooting guide).

2. Disable automatic game updates (settings>system>updates) and turn power saving mode on (settings>general>power options)

3. Uninstall the game (done this countless times already)

4. Search out "Minecraft Starter Collection" in the Microsoft store

5. Within this collection, select ANY texture pack and locate the Minecraft game through the texture pack. Download this version. (I've done this before as well; this is in effect downloading an earlier version of the game to load and sync your worlds to)

6. Ensure the version you have is 1.19.3101.07, name Microsoft.MinecraftUWPConsole (according to the video which is incorrect; the version in the video is 1.19.3101.70 which is the first mistake I thought I had made; it was the video's mistake not mine - the actual version  should be 1.19.3101.70)

7. Disconnect (your ethernet cable or wireless) and restart (the old hard reset)

8. Try to launch Minecraft. It will alert that you are not connected. Reconnect and open again. It will attempt to update. CANCEL, disconnect and hard reset again.

9. After disconnecting and hard resetting, open up the game again

10. A few seconds after the Mojang logo, reconnect (the ethernet or wireless) Reconnection at this point was the step I missed on my first attempt

11.  Change profile to the secondary profile using the Y button

12. Sign out of your main profile

13. Sign back into your main profile

14. Attempt to play; you will be prompted to use the XBox data or to pull from the Cloud. Select 'Cloud Data'

15. Open worlds in order to save locally. (This is where my second attempt failed for my target world called 'The City.')

16. Check storage in game to ensure the save has been saved locally; this will show a screenshot of your view of the world rather than the generic minecraft save

17. Update Minecraft and, apparently, you will be able to access your world 

The process is basically tricking your system into accepting an older version of the game in order to access your save. I found that the process worked for downloading several of my other saves which had also become inaccessible.

I find it interesting that you even need to trick Minecraft into to starting while disconnected in order to circumvent the mandatory updates. 

Perhaps this will be helpful for some folks, but for me, I'm still disappointed and dissatisfied. Even the error message is infuriating: open the game on a console where it's in a good state. Like folks are sitting around with multiple XBox consoles! I do have a second console, but I've scrubbed Minecraft from there as well.

I had opened my save on this second console during another attempt, but it loaded a MUCH EARLIER save of the same world which was missing a library I had made from Nether Quartz (this is a survival world, so that took a LOT of effort). I had stocked the library full of named librarians and boxes of books, all labelled. You can see the result in a picture I had posted a couple of weeks ago. When I saw that I had loaded such an earlier version of the game, I immediately turned off my console because I did not want that save to overwrite what was on the cloud.

For me to get anywhere, either I will need some elsewhere with dev abilities to access my save in whatever state it can be loaded to resave to the cloud (i.e. 'another console') or they can fix the coding of Minecraft to read older files that had (I'm guessing) some disruption during the syncing process. 

Have the same issue. but with a small twist.

Last week cannot upload the save to the cloud, then i have moved the minecraft from internal HDD to external HDD on the Xbox One X. 

Swapped the internal HDD to an SSD and copy back all moved games/contents to internal SSD.

All 2 maps sync back minus 1 (my 5 year map) that has around 450Mb of used space. 

My world saves and backups are not syncing on xbox single player no mods. I finally got an older backup to load and it spawned me at game spawn (0.x.0). I was able to make tools and build blocks. I updated builds and played for roughly 2 hours. Once I logged off I created a copy of the world I just worked in. Closed everything out and shut my xbox off. 

When I logged in the next day it would not load either game save. It stated they were not synced and or corrupted. 

Deleted local and storage saves as well as minecraft. Installed from the game pass app. This allowed me to open one of the save files only to start me off at original spawn again with my inventory gone. 

Running into this same issue as well. Every time I attempt to load the world in question I receive this message: "Failed to sync your world data. Would you like to try again?" The only option is to select the "Go Back" button and repeat, which fails time after time.

Here's the tale:
My wife and I noticed that every time we stopped playing on our world there was an error message that popped up that read: "Syncing World Data - World upload failed. Would you like to try again?" Two choices are give: "Cancel" or "Retry." We selected "Retry" and the error message would repeat once or twice until the game went back to the main menu. No prompt indicated success or failure once we hit the button multiple times. We kept getting this message, which annoyed us, so I thought we should reinstall the game.

We didn't delete any of our local saves and just reinstalled the game itself. After doing this, we loaded Minecraft to discover our world was now greyed out. Upon selecting the world we received the "Failed to sync your world data" message. After closing the game, we went back in to discover our world was no longer named, but a string of random characters, with a creation date of 12/31/69 and 0.01MB of data. When I looked at our Xbox storage data, our game save (which was saved under my wife's profile who does not have an Xbox Live subscription) still showed that we had 30.5MB of data, which was the exact number our world had before the error. 

We then attempted what many commenters mentioned as workarounds but they did not work for us, as Microsoft has pulled the 'Minecraft Start Collection' from the store. There is no way to download an older version of the game, which I assume is the issue. 

What's odder is that we were able to sync and load our world successfully in "Minecraft Preview Edition," however this does us no good because we can't sync it back to the original. The save obviously exists in the cloud, but cannot be synced to the current version of the game. 

Here's what I've tried so far without success:

• Manually changed DNS settings

• Changed MAC address

• Deleted and reinstalled the game

• Deleted local save files

• Power cycled the Xbox One console

• Reset router and modem

• Downloaded the Minecraft Deluxe Edition (one of the workarounds mentioned this instead of using the "starter edition" which is no longer available.)

• Reached out for help on the #community-support channel on the official Minecraft discord

Anyway, I hope this helps in some capacity. Hang in there everyone! 

Hello, I have also had several worlds fail to sync, they had this problem after having to reset the console. (Keeping games and apps) due to another game having a bug.

but this bug is just obnoxious as myself and several friends had worlds that were 5+ years in age, and over 600mb. All of that has been lost, the tireless amount of work lost makes the game unbearable to play, especially when there is another but when you go over 500mb on a world eventually it will corrupt too. 

Does anybody have any updates on this? My favourite game of all time is currently unplayable and in addition, many of us have lost our 3+ year old worlds. The issue still persists, I can open the map in Minecraft Preview, however it is an older version so it seems that for the past year, the game has not saved to the cloud and when deleting local files, the latest version is completely gone and the older version cannot be played. In Preview, there is also an error ”Cannot sync to the cloud” so any progress made in there is irrelevant as well.

I am also having this issue on my Xbox One X after my xbox failed to update I had to factory restore it, and selected “save games and apps” and then once I got back on I had to update minecraft. All of my worlds were greyed out and over half of them aren’t able to sync as discussed previously. it takes 5 minutes to sync data then it says failed to sync world data. the fully up to date version of the world loaded into Minecraft Preview absolutely no problem, so clearly the file is still intact on the cloud. I’ve tried all of the troubleshooting tips and work arounds and none of them help. I feel like this a serious issue with the game that makes me not want to play it anymore due to the likelihood my worlds i’ve put hundreds of hours into will just stop working for no apparent reason.

I also have the problem in Minecraft 1.19.71 but do not have the problem in Minecraft preview 1.19.80. I also have the storage problem where nothing stores properly if too large and over 3 g. If Minecraft would check their compiler to see if it accesses the higher storage these issues may not happen. Older compilers cannot access the higher storage due to storage limits. Because this problem seems to be going around a very long long time. The problem makes playing Minecraft totally unplayable. I've lost worlds I spent a long time in because of this. You will lose players if you cannot fix this.

I am also having the same issue on my Xbox one S and I noticed that when I select on the world itself to play it I get the “failed to sync world data” error message and when I choose “retry” it shows up again. But when I choose the edit icon to edit the world, Minecraft crashes and when I reopen it the world turns into the string of random letters and numbers. I then have to reinstall Minecraft for the world to show up again but I still can’t play it.

Can confirm this is happening to me too. At first it was just worlds I transferred from Xbox One Edition, but now even worlds I make ON BEDROCK will not sync after I save, exit and come back later.

Mojang I don't know what's been going on but you need to fix this issue yesterday.

It is definitely something to do with sync on xbox only.

I used realms for a while and all was working fine (except certain resource packs) but as soon as I was back on the xbox; the game says "fail to sync" but then continues. Then after any hard reset, the world is greyed out again.

Realms and hard back ups are the only sure solution but this shouldn't be the case. 

Having the same issue on series x. World over 300MB. Fails to sync now after I had to reinstall MC. Loaded just fine when I got the series x. Smaller worlds seem to sync fine and it also syncs fine in preview. I’ve carried this world since mc launched on 360 and just want to be able to play it in retail again. 

1.20.1 hotfix didn't fix anything on xbox series s end,

Where still having problems with saying the game needs to be bought again when it's already bought I installed it and reinstalled it several times and my 1 world failed to sync data after reinstalling the game! I was a very disappointed good thing I had a backup on the realms file to get it back! was the only option to save my world! I half to re-build a lot of things mojo needs to get on top of failing to sync worlds! I almost lost everything if I didn't have old data on the realms you guys really need to fix this not to mention the world is still corrupted and has numbers and letters and a dash = and an odd world date end line please fix this issue!! I don't want to lose any more worlds not to mention when you guys add in new updates like the caves and cliffs it ruined a lot of my lands and created floating and broken chunks you also need to fix where realm people don't half to update the realm world to the new hotfix or update to peoples worlds

so they don't

half to keep re-downloading the world to update it to the newest update of Minecraft on bedrock xbox edition 

I have 4 worlds that were corrupted in a previous update that I have not been successful at restoring so I would like to know how I can delete them from my account to clear up space
4 Worlds are : "Knights of Ren, Knights of Ren 2, Winter Wonderland, and [EX] My World"

Reply from @unknown:
As explained in the Bug Tracker Guidelines, this is not a support forum, nor do we have any access to your device or account to delete your worlds. Please visit Community Support for assistance.
(please delete this entire comment after reading)

If the world files where corrupted/deleted. There are tools for data recovery. Search “Xbox Data Recovery “ and there would be tools to scan the hard disk. There are also tools for other platforms. Just do not use the console too much.

Can confirm this is still an issue in most recent version of Bedrock that was recently downloaded.  I have an over 300MB world that I created when I had realms that syncs just fine but my old 300MB world will no longer sync and it synced fine i know for sure like a year ago maybe even more recently.  Not sure when this was broken but I don't know why it cannot be fixed since it's not something that has always been like this and it syncs fine in preview which makes it even more confusing.

I found a way to fix it for me but maybe not for others. You simply just go to Minecraft Preview and get your world on there using the button at the bottom of the world menu but unless your on PC you can't export the world to the full version.

Hey. Doesnt work. My world is 1.8gb over 7yrs i had it so far. I tried and it fails to sync. It is because of October's update, the changed the game app to GDK on xbox.

A huge portion of this issue seemed to be fixed with 1.20.30, as you're now able to sync certain worlds again that were previously corrupted. However, there are still worlds that report corruption and fail to sync, and I've noticed the larger and older the world, the more likely it is to fail to sync. Worlds are also continuing to grey out/corrupt themselves after reinstalling the game, this wasn't an issue up until the performance update for Xbox on October 5th, 2022. 

It's safe to apply 1.19.30 as a fix version to this issue, but do NOT mark the issue as resolved nor close it, it is still prevalent and there's still more fixes that need to come.

I redownloaded and updated my Minecraft today to see if the recent bug fixes fixed this issue. The first world I tried to sync was a previously working world, which now reports as corrupted. My second try synced as usual and I was able to enter and then save the world. Upon saving I got the same “syncing to cloud” that started when this issue first arose almost a year ago now. It did sync, but I know if I keep trying, it will hit the failed to sync to cloud stage, and eventually the big out of storage pop up.

Essentially, I can confirm this isn’t fixed, and now some of my previously working worlds are corrupted.

This issue has been fixed for me on my Xbox One S after the 1.20.32 update. My world went from the error message of "Failed to sync world data" to back to normal.

I tried reinstalling and it still isn’t working. File is around 6-700mb and was was made originally right after nether update. 

Sorry in advance for the long post; just really want to make I provide plenty of details in hope that this issue will actually be fixed. 

I started playing Minecraft again in January 2023 after a pretty long hiatus. Purchased a digital copy of the game on Xbox marketplace and started playing. Fast forward to May 2023 and my world's size was around 1GB. Mind you my Xbox One has PLENTY of storage space left on it. But noticed the further I ventured away from world spawn, the more glitchy my world became. Until, finally, it started failing to sync my world data. I reached out on Reddit (zero help there) and searched on Google to see if I could remedy the situation. The only thing I came across was uninstalling the game from my Xbox One, shutting the console down, unplugging for about 30 seconds, plugging back in, and reinstalling the game. And at first, that did work. But again, the more I explored and played the game, my world started failing to sync again. But after a handful of doing the uninstall/re-install method, eventually the pop-up claimed the world was corrupt. It happened too while I was playing; usually if I was crossing an ocean. The game would freeze up and I would have random pink and black boxes across the screen (like those pictured on this thread). Anyway, I was unable to fix it (couldn't even delete the world - just wouldn't let me); but I figured I would just wait until the 1.20 update dropped to create a new world.

So, I created a new world in June 2023. Wasn't as glitchy as my first world. The game would often freeze up for about 5 minutes (not exaggerating) when I arrived at a village. I thought maybe I was in the clear - but unfortunately my world started failing to sync starting mid-October 2023. And as you can guess, it went from failing to sync to stating that the world is now corrupt. Obviously, devastated. I contacted Mojang technical support, and really they were only able to provide some minor troubleshooting things to try. All unsuccessful. I then contacted Microsoft technical support; they were at least about to instruct me to run tests on network connection (which checked out fine) and freeing up some storage space, even though our console had plenty of space. Unfortunately, that was also unsuccessful. I attempted to reach out to Mojang support again and they recommended I post on the bug tracker site. I'm assuming the more people report on this issue the better chance there is it will be fixed? But I'm definitely not holding my breathe.

I'm very VERY frustrated. It seems like if you play on Xbox, you aren't able to play the game all the way through the campaign. I'm not completely ready to give up on my world just yet. I'm going to continue scouring the internet for potential remedies. Plus it seems stupid to make another world just for it to crash just from playing the game normally. 

One work around I used to use to look at my old worlds since they no longer sync was to use the Minecraft Preview version but now I’m running into the same problems. I want to play on my old worlds. I have no reason to play Minecraft anymore this bug or whatever it is has single handedly killed Minecraft for me. After reading some stuff from Reddit it seems like Mojang might be intentionally doing this to our worlds but I don’t understand what they would get out of doing that though so it just leaves me baffled. We can’t save more data for this game or app. It tells me my Xbox is out of space for saved data even though both my external and internal hard drive have 50% capacity left. I’ve literally uninstalled everything but Minecraft and I still get this message it’s frustrating and seems like nothing is being done to fix it and every time someone finds a way fix it it just gets patched or stops working. It truly does seem like it’s being done on purpose.

Some kind of communication on the issue would be great. 

This issue has relation to MCPE-163050

This glitch is very upsetting to say the least, and the fact it’s existed for a long time with no fixes is disappointing. The issue with this is that I have enough storage, both in Minecraft and in my Xbox, and I know it doesn't actually have anything to do with storage because I deleted unneeded worlds to try and create space, but it did nothing. I did research on the topic and found many people posting about the issue on other platforms from over 4 years ago, not to mention this post is from 2 years ago, and it seems the issue still hasn't been fixed. I simply cannot play in my world anymore. 

it sometimes happens when copying the world too

Thank you for the update but Hotfix 1.20.81 did not resolve my maps not syncing.

Please confirm if this is still an issue.

Still an issue, please fix.

I checked and yes still a problem.

My 2.5gb world fails to synch, is ‘corrupted’ or is simply too big for Mojang (the company, not the person) to really care about.

Support has been completely M.I.A. Hot fixes, etc, have done nothing. What is there to do when through XBox I am limited by no dev tools?

Reopened for review

It’s still an issue on my end. If it helps, when I first open Minecraft, it tells me my world is up by 50MB(650MB total), then when I try to open the world and it says “you don’t have enough space” and it takes me back to the Home Screen it goes back to the 600MB it was before. I have no clue why it does this, but it does it every time I try. Also if I try to load the world again it says that there’s just a problem loading my world.

I had the same issue with my 1.9gb world. Through hours of research I finally was told there is a 4 gb limit of “save data” allocated to console world size which includes the base game and any saves.
This info is not openly out there, in fact it’s downright impossible to nail down but I did get this answer.
After deleting every save I ever had I finally got my world to open in the 1.20 update… the kick is it can never “ save” a play session as there is not enough space.
So much for infinite worlds.

This is honestly an issue with the file types. The world i have an issue with can be loaded fine in preview. When the file type got changed back about maybe two years ago, i think the newer type can’t support the large data in that state. There needs to be a way to upload our worlds or something. Or a conversation of a world by fully reading the system. A recovery option i guess is what I’m trying to say. 

I am commenting to state that this is still very much an unresolved issue. 

Last year, I upgraded to an Xbox Series X - however, I still have the same issues. This is my fourth world that has failed to sync or became corrupted. However, I didn't get the black and pink boxes like I did on Xbox One. First, I got messages that I needed to free up space in order to save. But I had already deleted all my previous worlds (since I could no longer play them). So, there was no space to free up. But I was able to continue playing. Then recently, I got the dreaded "cannot sync world" "maybe corrupt" popup. This always happened when my world reached 1.2GB or more. So, basically, as I progress through the game - the closer I am to losing that world. I would love to beat the game, but that is literally impossible on Xbox. I have sent multiple Minecraft support tickets - no one has been able to help. I've posted and upvoted in the bug tracker. I've reached out to other users on various forums (Reddit). I've also reached out to Microsoft support. Not one person has been able to help me. If this is not fixed soon, I am going to see about getting a refund for the game. It sucks playing a game that you can never beat. And I don't want to make yet another world. I've progressed so far. And I don't want to start all over, just for this to happen again. PLEASE HELP!!

Hey for those who want to try it, you may be able to bring your world back with a tool on the microsoft store called "MC Worlds Downloader. I got my world back on a usb drive fully intact and uploaded it to my pc then to a realm. its back and kickin. hopefully some of you guys can get your worlds back. 

Very much an issue, so much of an issue that I am telling friends not to buy the Series X if they don’t have to. If I could go back to the Xbox One I would. Bought a brand new Series X and with nothing but Minecraft on it I was told I had insufficient space to save my worlds. I fail to understand how I was able to play Minecraft with 45 worlds on the Xbox One and multiple other games but am unable to even load my Minecraft worlds at all. I returned the first Xbox Series X (thinking it was an issue with the console) and am still having the same issues with the new one. I have tried every support option but none have worked. I have even deleted 30 of my worlds in an effort to reduce cloud space but this has not worked either. PLEASE HELP resolve this issue.

Happening for me and my wife. Used two different Xbox’s and two different accounts.

the bug seems to happen when the file save becomes over 250mb.

• tried deleting save data from the Xbox, this just stops us syncing with the world and won’t let us back onto it again.

• tried clearing the cache of the Xbox, unplugging it too.

• Tried deleting Minecraft

Nothing we have tried seems to work. Also seems to effect any older worlds too after a while.

It seems the only solution is to ditch your worlds and pay for a realm. even though realms don’t work half of the time.

I think this might also be related to Minecraft holding worlds in “Reserved Space” rather than the player’s data. My 980MB world didn't sync most of the time on my Xbox One X previously, and now the same on Xbox Series X. After I first imported all of my data onto this console in December it took up too much space for me to then play my other games, so I cleared local save data. This corrupted my world and the copy, but I was able to recover the file via uploading to Minecraft Preview Realms and extracting and zipping it on my iPhone. Now my world is taking a huge toll on my system again and I can't play Forza because Minecraft is using up all of the available “space for saved data” despite 1.1TB of free storage. This save data is seen in Manage Game and Add-ons. A 980MB world with two additional copies (this redundancy is necessary at this point) should cause 3.6GB of player save data, sure, but it should not cause 9.8GB of Reserved Space. The total storage in Minecraft’s settings isn't available during the current update, but I remember it being much closer to the 3.6 figure. On my installation of Minecraft Preview, I have 1 file of the same Minecraft world, but in the saved data menu, my profile only has 172MB of data while the Reserved Space has 4.2GB. At this point, I don't think worlds are stored in the player’s own saved data at all. They are just being held in the Reserved Space, which is why there are many reports online of trying to delete only the reserved space causing worlds to be deleted. This storage is also bloated in size compared to the world files that need storing, and it is happening the expense of every other game on the console. Additionally, the installation sizes of both Minecraft Preview and Minecraft in the Manage Game menus are inflated by the exact amount of storage taken by the Reserved Space.