Constant Greybeard on Open Crew

While this launches the game, if this problem is world-wide--then nobody would be able to join anyway. Time to sail the seas and ask people sailing around to join me.

@offtherec

Having the same problems on USA west coast.
Going on for 3 days now. Wasn't a problem a week ago. How are these kinds of problems cropping up? If it ain't broke, stop screwing with things.

@musicmeeeeee

While this is technically a solution, it is not a complete fix.

I was having no problems 5 days ago. Some of us like hopping into a ship and helping some new crews recover from a fight or get their bearings.
Any sort of good will I would have shared during this time has been lost.

How can crew members join the ship once I vote to open-crew in settings?
Something does not sit right with all this.

Is there a level of game matchmaking at play that is not completely random preventing players from joining ships due to some bad programming?

Very disappointing response to the situation.

Getting the greybeard since yesterday for open crew, I can run a solo sloop just fine though. It happened right after I completed the newest tall tale. I don't know if that has anything to do with it or windows update KB5031356 possibly? But I was still doing open crew two days ago just fine

Adding to posting to register I'm still seeing the constant greybeard error when trying to launch as an open crew
I have also had this issue since yesterday (10/10).
I have managed to get into a game via the "work around" and once in game I can change the crew type.
Slightly annoying, but it kind of works, although this needs pushing on the main page in game to let players know what's going on! Also it's so hard to come by a crew member this way!

@coley666 Hello, did you manage to solve this problem, the same thing happens to me and I don't know what to do.

99% of the time I'm doing open crew. This limits me to never being able to be a sailor on someone else's ship. This also slows down the time it takes to get a full open crew going. It's very strange that it is only affecting certain people. They need to do a workaround quick because i'm getting sick of being captain everytime I play. For those of us who use open crew this is a game-breaking problem. Going to find a new game until they fix this issue. Also these responses from devs are very lacking. Give us a more specific explaination as to how big this problem is and how long it's going to take to fix.

@truthoasis Still getting Greybeard. Day 8. No explanation from Rare or on any forums I can see. Going to attempt joining open crew with other accounts and with a VPN.

@offtherec

Okay as someone who really enjoys hopping from open crew to open crew and finding random adventure and fun. This is very frustrating and confusing. I have tried uninstalling and re installing my game, resting my game, and changing my firewall settings. Nothing has worked. I have a friend who has 2 pc's in the same household. On one pc sot is able to open crew just fine, and on the other it results in a grey beard when open crewing. How is this so? Is it PC based? game files? It would be cool if i could repair the sot game on the xbox app, but under the manage settings there is no repair option. Truly a disappointment.

@artaxplay3466 still no fix it seems and waiting on the devs to rectify it. the work around is to launch in closed crew and then set to open. you get in the game at least, but it's nigh impossible to find a random crew mate this way :(

My other friends (west coast California) have also been getting Greybeard. Day 9.

How long until this gets publicly addressed? I've resorted to playing other games at this point because relying on something that isn't the game I paid for to build up a crew is a bit of a slap in the face to the player base. Did a group of people get inadvertently targeted by the new anti-cheat testing? Is it a larger regional issue? What region is being affected???

The "workaround" is frustrating players even more. We just want an honest response that is more than "we're looking into it".

@coley666 That's what I'm doing, what I also want to know is if it affects only the English speaking region, because I'm from Spain and I haven't yet read any complaints about Greybeard from someone who is from Spain.

@musicmee said in Constant Greybeard on Open Crew:

@chewylewis318 Ahoy matey!

Sorry! Unfortunately, this is only the current work around.

The team are aware though so hopefully this get fixed up soon enough.

Hopefully they are not just aware but working on it too!

The only work around since 2018...
https://www.seaofthieves.com/community/forums/topic/126389/sot-matchmaking-has-failed-please-advise-or-fix

My main play style in SoT is open crew, so when it goes down like this it is very sad.
The "work around" is not equivalent :(

@clammyhuevos said in Constant Greybeard on Open Crew:

I don't see Rare fixing this with season 10 release imminent. It's clearly a server issue, and it may be resolved with season 10 update. I just Rare would communicate that, and say "Hey, we're aware of the situation and it should be fixed when the season update drops."

I don't think it's server issue (unless those servers are blocking certain accounts).
I have friends on PC and/or console in my country (New Zealand) and abroad who do or don't have this recurring error on the same servers

@spaghettidog969 said in Constant Greybeard on Open Crew:

@offtherec

Okay as someone who really enjoys hopping from open crew to open crew and finding random adventure and fun. This is very frustrating and confusing. I have tried uninstalling and re installing my game, resting my game, and changing my firewall settings. Nothing has worked. I have a friend who has 2 pc's in the same household. On one pc sot is able to open crew just fine, and on the other it results in a grey beard when open crewing. How is this so? Is it PC based? game files? It would be cool if i could repair the sot game on the xbox app, but under the manage settings there is no repair option. Truly a disappointment.

^This right here.
Original PC SoT owners need a working file integrity check and repair.
The old X-box app console thing doesn't exist anymore so we are forced to update through Microsoft store (which has no repair feature).

Yeah open crew Galleon is my go to playstyle, either that or solo sloop (so I'm stuck doing that). I don't want to get involved with Discord servers nor do I have a bunch of friends who play SOT.

Having a "workaround", which isn't really the same as fixing the problem, is fine for a few days, but when it's going on for a week or two it makes it seem like:

1. they can't figure out what the issue is
2. they don't think enough people are being affected by it to be bothered (which is wrong)
3. they have identified it but don't want to make it public and everyone affected just has to wait for the season 10 update because they think it will look like bad PR to have a separate patch for it (again wrong, good PR would be fixing major problems like this ASAP)

Either way not having made any announcement that it will be fixed basically implies option 1 or 2. If it's 3 then some out of touch higher up is definitely making poor business decisions.

Most people who have the issue are not going to bother complaining about it so the number of people affected is probably 10x what it looks like. It's really reflects negatively on the game when interacting with other players requires a workaround. Not good PR.

@exodontia7933 Any sort of hype I had going into the new update got completely discouraged with more than a week of Greybeard open crew failures.

=(