TL;DR: If you change your gamertag on the Microsoft site then, at least under some conditions, the iOS app keeps trying to connect to the old one and won't launch anymore.
So I ran into precisely the problem hit by joshkelsey-ross on Microsoft Community last fall:
My son has had minecraft on his ipad for a while now, and i have just got it for my iphone so that we can play together. It has been working fine until today when i created a microsoft account for him and set it up as a child account with myself as the parent. Now when he tries to load minecraft, the mojang logo comes up, it tries to load and then it closes itself.
I noticed that the app was almost loading before crashing, getting through most of the startup screen. After restarting the iPad and letting it sit for a while before attempting to launch the app again, it got all the way to the welcome screen and displayed a message something like "now logging into your Microsoft account" before the app died.
I was preparing to uninstall and reinstall the app to try to get it working at all, worried that all my son's levels would be lost in the process. So first I connected to iTunes to backup the iPad and any accessible Minecraft files in the hope I might be able to restore his games somehow if that happened.
On a whim I looked inside XBLStoage.json at the root of the file structure. I noticed that in two places his gamertag was still recorded as the default one that the Microsoft site assigned to him when I first created his account – he had just changed his gamertag before the app started crashing.
I hand-edited the two incorrect gamertags to his new gamertag and put it back on the iPad, and the iPad app resumed launching.
Comments 8
Update: Changing "Xbox One/Windows 10 Online Safety" settings on the xbox.com site caused the problem to resurface. So I don't know if it was the gamertag after all, possibly just updating the file caused the app to revisit the configuration in some way?
I recently setup 2 "child accounts" for my kids to be able to join a MC realm with their classmates. After creating the accounts, I hopped over and set a XBox gamertag... since it automatically assigns a random name, I updated this to be what they wanted. I fired up MC on their iPads (2019 model, iPad OS 13) everything was fine... then I went in and logged into the MC account. They couldn't see each other and got messages about friends/realms being unavailable due to account settings, so I closed the app and restarted. Now the app opens, goes past the red Mojang screen, starts the white MC loading bar and sometime between that and the main menu it crashes. Every. Single. Time. I have pretty much enabled all network/connectivity/etc. options in the Microsoft/Xbox family account & privacy sections (which is not ideal) and the issue remains.
My iPad (2020 iPad Pro, iPad OS 13) which is signed into my XBox "parent" account (which has been around since the first XBox and never changed the gamertag) does not have any issues.
I recently setup 2 "child accounts" for my kids to be able to join a MC realm with their classmates. After creating the accounts, I hopped over and set a XBox gamertag... since it automatically assigns a random name, I updated this to be what they wanted. I fired up MC on their iPads (2019 model, iPad OS 13) everything was fine... then I went in and logged into the MC account. They couldn't see each other and got messages about friends/realms being unavailable due to account settings, so I closed the app and restarted. Now the app opens, goes past the red Mojang screen, starts the white MC loading bar and sometime between that and the main menu it crashes. Every. Single. Time. I have pretty much enabled all network/connectivity/etc. options in the Microsoft/Xbox family account & privacy sections (which is not ideal) and the issue remains.
My iPad (2020 iPad Pro, iPad OS 13) which is signed into my XBox "parent" account (which has been around since the first XBox and never changed the gamertag) does not have any issues.
Thank you for your report!
However, this issue has been temporarily closed as Awaiting Response
If you feel this is still a valid issue in the latest version, then please update the ticket accordingly and ensure that it follows the Issue Guidelines including clear steps to reproduce the problem.
For any account or purchasing related issues, please contact Minecraft Customer Support directly, as we cannot assist with those here at the bug tracker.
This ticket will automatically reopen when you reply.
Quick Links:
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Thank you for your report!
However, this issue has been temporarily closed as Awaiting Response
If you feel this is still a valid issue in the latest version, then please update the ticket accordingly and ensure that it follows the Issue Guidelines including clear steps to reproduce the problem.
For any account or purchasing related issues, please contact Minecraft Customer Support directly, as we cannot assist with those here at the bug tracker.
This ticket will automatically reopen when you reply.
Quick Links:
📓 Issue Guidelines – 💬 Mojang Support – 📧 Suggestions – 📖 Minecraft Wiki
Cleaning up old tickets: This ticket had been set to 'Awaiting Response', but has not received a response from the reporter (~3 months+) so is being closed as Incomplete. If you feel this is still a valid issue then please comment, or create a new ticket following the Issue Guidelines which includes steps to reproduce the problem.
Quick Links:
📓 Issue Guidelines – 💬 Mojang Support – 📧 Suggestions – 📖 Minecraft Wiki
Cleaning up old tickets: This ticket had been set to 'Awaiting Response', but has not received a response from the reporter (~3 months+) so is being closed as Incomplete. If you feel this is still a valid issue then please comment, or create a new ticket following the Issue Guidelines which includes steps to reproduce the problem.
Quick Links:
📓 Issue Guidelines – 💬 Mojang Support – 📧 Suggestions – 📖 Minecraft Wiki
Update: Changing "Xbox One/Windows 10 Online Safety" settings on the xbox.com site caused the problem to resurface. So I don't know if it was the gamertag after all, possibly just updating the file caused the app to revisit the configuration in some way?