Xbox Insiders on the Beta Ring are now receiving the new Friends and Followers Experience that was first unveiled by Microsoft on September 11. The new experience has been available to users in the Alpha Skip-Ahead Ring for about two weeks already but Microsoft must now consider it stable enough to open it up to a wider group of users.
The main change with this experience is the reintroduction of friend requests and new privacy settings and management options. Under the new system, if a person wants to be friends with someone, they need to send a friend request and be accepted. If the person doesn"t accept the request, you can follow them instead. Check out Neowin"s coverage to learn more.
The Beta Ring update, version 2409.240925-0005 also comes with plenty of fixes and a few known issues. A complete changelog is as follows:
New Features and Experiences
We have exciting news! Xbox Insiders can expect something new coming to their Xbox Update Preview.
Friends and Followers
Making friends has never felt so good! Beginning today, Xbox Insiders will experience a new way to manage their relationships across Xbox. To learn more, visit:
New Xbox Friends and Followers Experience
Fixes Included
Thanks to all the great feedback Xbox Insiders provide and the hard work of Xbox engineers, we are happy to announce the following fixes have been implemented with this build:
Capture & Share
- Fixed an issue where capturing game clips would not always end when the drive ran out of space which could cause unexpected performance issues until the console was restarted.
Home
- Fixed an issue where disc-based games that were already in the console when it was turned on could display an unexpected warning badge indicating the disc needs to be inserted.
Installation
- Fixed an issue where some game add-ons were not being installed to the same drive as the base game with more than one storage device in use.
System
- Various updates to properly reflect local languages across the console.
- Note: Users participating in Preview may see “odd” text across the console. To learn more, go to: What’s This? Learn More About Pseudo-Loc in Preview
Known Issues
While known issues may have been listed in previous Xbox Insider Release Notes, they are not being ignored! However, it may take Xbox engineers more time to find a solution. Learn more about the known issues below.
Friends and Followers
- Xbox 360 friends who you"ve added as favorites may appear in both your friends and following lists. (2410.240908-1630)
- You may see accepted friend request notifications when someone adds you as a favorite or shares their real name with you. (2410.240908-1630)
Search
- We are aware the keyboard can lose focus after switching to the emoji keyboard when searching from Home or the guide, particularly if the colon or exclamation point were selected before switching. (2410.240918-2200)
- Workaround: Back out of the keyboard and search, then try again with the cursor in another location before switching to the emoji keyboard.
If you experience any of these issues, we ask that you please follow any guidance provided and file feedback with Report a Problem. To learn more about providing feedback and what happens when you do, go to:
If you are reading this and you"re interested in becoming an Xbox Insider, you should check out this FAQ for more details. If you decide to join, you won"t be getting onto the Beta Ring right away, the FAQ sets out the requirements, saying: "Beta - Open to Xbox Insiders with a program tenure of 3 or more months and an Xbox Insider XP Level of 5 or higher. This ring receives updates shortly after Alpha."