I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I was experiencing the same lobby and game chat issues as everyone else - chat didn’t work and other players sounded like Cylons (from the original BSG - I’m THAT old!). However, I seemed to have solved the problem, at least for my setup. I use the Xbox One stereo headset (with the fold down mic) connected to a controller, and I race with a Thrustmaster wheel. The controller is connected to the Xbox with a USB cable for power. I used to log in with my wheel, get Forza running and then turn the controller on, plug in the headset and go. I could hear the game fine but there was no chat. I then decided to log in with the controller after logging in with the wheel and suddenly I had chat! Problem solved, or so l thought. The next time I played that method didn’t work either. So I dug around online a little bit and decided to make some changes to my router. My home is entirely Apple with the exception of the Xbox. My routers are Airport Extremes and Time Capsules. So I went into the router configuration, set IPv6 to automatic, native. I also gave the Xbox a dedicated IP address and opened up ports (as recommended by Xbox Live) to that IP address. Bingo! I’ve played 10 or 15 times since then and chat has worked every time. And I don’t get the Cylon voices any more either.
I realize this may be beyond the technical abilities of some, but the advice is out there online. And maybe I just got lucky. And I realize that we shouldn’t have to jump through hoops like this just to get such a basic feature to work. That said, it does work, for me at least.
The robot voices was always easy to fix - all you had to do was quit Forza properly before shutting down (so next time you played you had to start a new session rather than continue one).
The far larger problem with game chat is only being able to hear or be heard by an ever-changing subset of the people in the lobby.
The “problem” is not everyone has their system set up properly (unlike the OP in this thread). If you have eight basketball teams playing in a tournament, and three of the teams show up and insist on using a volleyball, what type of game could you play?
I find it absolutely hilarious that Turn 10 has messed up both vote kicking and in game chat lobbies as bad as they have. I play plenty of other games and I can chat to people just fine without going through and doing 18 different things to my router or anything else so I think it’s kind of ridiculous myself. $ is their primary focus not fixing bump drafting or chat or wheel working correctly. We have to even police the game saving replays and turning them in like some kind of free out of the kindness of our heart job. That’s why I hardly play it anymore along with allot of my friends. Race for 16 minutes then make reports of watched replays for 30 minutes. The fun to not fun ratio is gone way to the not fun side of things. But at least when you get rammed you will hear his laughs nice and clear !
You shouldn’t have to change 12 settings in your router for chat to work. You actually expect that everyone with zero knowledge is gonna mess with their router so we can chat. That is absurd. Works in other games. Unless everyone does that what is the point? That is not a solution and opening ports is dangerous and opens you up to hacking. The other guy is right we have to do everything in this game ourselves to keep it manageable. Irritated.
Actually, that is what Xbox Live (not just Turn 10/Playground Games) does expect us to do: Xbox Support
And those settings can and are changed, depending on the networking hardware each of us individually is using. How many Internet Service Providers are there in the world? How many different routers/modems/gateways are there in the world? How is a game developer supposed to off all the possible variations to you, I or anyone else with any possible combination of ISP/hardware devices can work “automatically.”
And here is a list of hundreds and hundreds of other games, and the required ports: http://portforward.com/cports.htm The list includes all Xbox 360 and Xbox One Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon series games.
Never had this problem on 360 or even in Forza 5 Snow. Than it should have been implemented properly by MS in the first place or in a better way. They cannot seriously expect people with no networking knowledge to do that. That is wishful thinking on their part. Part of the wrecking problem is no one can communicate where they are going to pass. Forza 5 lobbies had people talking constantly. Yea there was wrecking but way less than now. It would be like one person not half the lobby. It is MS job to figure out how to make it work on different ISP’s, not ours.
I don’t think FM5 was any better, there were just fewer people in each lobby so it wasn’t as noticeable. I certainly remember regularly having to pull my mic out and reconnect it because I couldn’t hear everyone.
And that’s the thing though - that mic trick does fix it (temporarily), so it cannot just be router configurations that are to blame. It has to be the LIVE software, either the firmware on the box or the remote code on the servers. If it was ISP or router-related then something as dumb as pulling the mic out and plugging it back in wouldn’t have any effect.
“Some” Internet Service Providers, if they send a real person installer out with the networking hardware to make sure it is working correctly, will ask (or see) an Xbox and use their own built-in “Xbox 360” or on the newer routers/modems/gateways “Xbox One” settings to open the basic ports to Xbox Live for us.
Those ISP’s who hand us the hardware or ship it to us, don’t automatically open their ports on the devices, and one of those reasons they’re not, beside letting a whole lot of problems have access, is because they don’t know YOUR Local Area Network (LAN) IP address for the Xbox console itself.
It can be dangerous to open those ports on our whole LAN, when it is not necessary. The Xbox console (individually for 360 and One -by the Rule established on the networking hardware through the administrative logon) itself will request those actions from its unique, individual IP address for the open port feeds. I have two (360 and One) on the same gateway device, and each has an individual IP address for the LAN, plus and individual rule established for the proper ports. I set it up once (maybe seven minutes each) and it is done.
Only time I’ve ever even tried messing with ports was GT5. It sucked so bad online and I was desperate for a better experience. I’ve never had any issues with my Xbox like this, had the original and 360. I have my xbox one set up in the router to have priority, but that’s about it. I chat when others chat and can hear me. It’s no longer an issue since its been so long we’ve learned to deal with it and just not use it. It’s absolutely insane for M$ to expect all the customers to set up their routers ports specifically for each console or game. The day that a game is unplayable and they use that excuse is the day most customers will walk. I’m a car enthusiast and that’s what keeps me enjoying Forza. I’ve just kinda gotten over all the issues that Turn 10 ignores and decided to speak louder with my wallet next time.