I purchased FS2020 in 2021, and my “billing activity” page shows the transaction. Everything worked fine until today.
Suddenly FS does not show up in my “purchased” list and it won’t run…
It gets as far as the “Microsoft Package Dependency Installer” and then pops the following error: Microsoft Flight Simulator is currently not available in your account. Make sure you are signed in to the Microsoft Store and try again. Here’s the error code, in case you need it: 0x803F8001
I called a Canada MS phone number, and it says “all help is now on line”. How do I fix this?
Are you SURE you’re signed into the Windows Store AND Xbox App (I assume you’re on PC. You didn’t state which platform you are on in your profile, which makes helping you difficult).
I would try logging out of both the Xbox app and Windows store, then log in again and see if that helps.
I had an issue way back where my Xbox login got corrupted and I couldn’t properly log into my Xbox account in the Xbox app. I had to go through a convoluted process which included logging out of both (Xbox app would say I was logged in, but I wasn’t), uninstalling them and then reinstalling them and I finally got it fixed. It took a couple of tries of this.
I don’t know that’s your problem, but, I had similar symptoms. As @Hester40MT noted, if logging out of both and logging back into them doesn’t fix it, I’d contact Microsoft Help (I hate calling it Zendesk, since lots of companies use Zendesk for customer issue tracking, Microsoft is not their only customer.).
Oh, I get it. But then people go tell people to go talk to Zendesk at Carenado, so they go to Zendesk above (because to them it’s Zendesk), and they get all confused when they get told that they don’t support that product.
My point is, I don’t call it Zendesk.
I call it Microsoft and/or Microsoft Simulator Support, just like it’s named above (It’s not named Zendesk), at the link above as you say.
When so many other companies use Zendesk for issue tracking, calling it “Oh, go contact Zendesk” is only confusing the issue. Nowhere in the link above is it called “Zendesk”, it’s just called “Support” (another confusing issue for people who aren’t familiar with the system if somebody tells them to contact “Zendesk”).
And be that as it may, as I noted above this could turn out to be a Microsoft or Microsoft Games problem, not a Microsoft Simulator problem. But, as you noted, starting at the “Support” link above is a good start.
I don’t mean to be snarky but going to https://www.zendesk.com/ isn’t going to help anybody. I do know what you meant, but that’s only because I’ve been using that support link for years now.
Nowhere is anywhere in the Support path called “Zendesk”. It’s called Support, and then “Submit a Request”.
I’m sorry to keep going on about it, but it’s really a peeve for me, as it took me a while to figure out what contacting “Zendesk” meant.
(not to mention the Zendesk software penchant for claiming my report is “Solved”, when it isn’t, it’s only “Submitted to the powers that be that may or may not consider my issue to be a problem and may or may not tell me either way what they think of my submission”.)
Sorry, I probably should have taken this conversation offline. You can delete it if you want.
Technically your issue is not directly related to MSFS. This is more of a problem with the Gaming Services application which is used to authenticate digital purchases made through the MS Store and XBox app.
Try these steps to try and force a reinstall of Gaming Services:
1. RESET THE MICROSOFT STORE APP
On your keyboard, press the “Win Logo” + “R” keys
Type: WSReset.exe and press “Enter”
A black window will pop up
Wait until the pop up disappears and the Store comes up
Reboot your computer
2. UNINSTALL AND REINSTALL GAMING SERVICES VIA POWERSHELL
Select the Search icon on the taskbar, type powershell, right-click on Windows PowerShell, and then select Run as administrator.
In Windows PowerShell, type the following command and press Enter:
get-appxpackage Microsoft.GamingServices | remove-AppxPackage -allusers
In the same window, type the following command and press Enter:
start ms-windows-store://pdp/?productid=9MWPM2CQNLHN
Install the app on that page and select Yes when you receive the User Account Control (UAC) prompt.
Restart your device and try to install the game again.
To be clear about the above directions (or maybe make it more confusing?), I didn’t have to reinstall the game. I just had to do all that uninstall Store and Xbox app and Powershell stuff and reinstall the Windows Store and Xbox Apps to get my gaming services working again.
(The original user has the game installed already and it was working. For me, anyway, it was just the gaming services that needed to be fixed, which could save the user hours of unnecessary downloading time if he doesn’t have to reinstall the game. Then again, in the end, he may have to. If I remember correctly, I had to do the above procedure twice before it worked properly. But I might have missed something the first time.).
That makes sense. MSFS never was uninstalled, but since Gaming Services was not functioning correctly and authenticating ownership, it made it seem that way.
It still sounds like OP’s issue is Gaming Services related. Hopefully a Gaming Services refresh is all that is needed, but there are times when one might need to reset Windows to fully resolve the problem.
OP - If you are using the MS Store, try using the XBox app as a workaround. Sometimes one of these apps works fine while the other does not.
That does not alter the fact that my billing history and “owned products” does not match… two years after the fact… and for those two years they DID match.
Okay, I tried to wsreset and to reinstall gaming services as per instructions.
Reboot.
No change when attempting to run.
Then opened the xbox app and it showed the fs2020 icon with the notation “played 5 days ago”. Clicked on it and it changed to “played just now” (or some such), but still did not get past the error message.
Then I tried one more time through xbox, and now it worked.
quit to desktop, and closed the xbox app. double-click the desktop icon for FS2020, and now it worked.
Went into my microsoft account and it STILL does not show FS2020 under “products you have purchased”.
