Gears 5 Guide: Potential 0x8b050033 Error Fix

Gears 5 might have been the biggest launch in the franchise’s history (thanks, Ultimate Game Pass), but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t suffered from a few bumps along the way, including an ugly error code: 0x8b050033

The latest problem reared its ugly head this morning as players worldwide have had trouble launching the game at all. Many receive the error message “You need this update, but we can’t get it right now. Try again in a while. (0x8b050033).”

Xbox Live completely crashed the night Gears 5 went live, and a steady stream of issues have popped up since the Dave Bautista skin event launched last week.

How Do I Fix the Error? 

Unfortunately, the issues is that there’s no Xbox One console update to actually download. The game is searching for an update that isn’t there yet.

Uninstalling and re-installing doesn’t solve the problem as of now, so don’t bother, especially considering the bulky install-size of Gears 5!

While it isn’t sure-fire, the most frequent fix for the largest number of users is to:

1. Log out of your profile
2. Log back in
3. Completely close the Gears 5 app
4. Re-open it
5. Check if the error code pops up

Some players have successfully circumvented the update error message that way, but it isn’t guaranteed to work in all cases.

          This is a whole mood for Gears 5 players right now

That’s all you need to know about the 0x8b050033 Error for now. The good news is that a patch is supposed to arrive later today, so this is likely a limited-time problem. Check back later tonight, and we should (hopefully) see an official fix from The Coalition.

Have you found a workaround besides logging out and back in? Let us know what you did!

Looking for relic weapon locations or want to unlock that killer new Bautista/Fenix replacement skin? Check out the rest of our Gears 5 guides here.