Last night, when logging into Xbox Live, it wouldn’t let me log in and ultimately gave me “code 80048821”.

The full text of the error was:

“Sorry, either that’s the wrong password, or the email you entered doesn’t have an Xbox LIVE membership. Please try again, or got to Xbox.com/forgot if you need help. Code: 80048821”

This code is not listed in the list of codes on xbox.com, and most of the results of a Google search returned info on Windows Live Messenger, not the Xbox.

After resetting my password and trying again, it still didn’t work. I finally gave up and called Xbox Live support, where I talked with a very helpful tech. He suggested re-downloading my profile, but that didn’t fix it. We made sure that my Xbox Live Gold membership was renewed and in good standing (it was).

Next, he had me clear the Xbox’s system cache. The steps were:

1) Go to Settings, and then System.

2) Select Storage.

3) Select Hard Drive, and press Y

4) Select Clear Cache, and press Yes.

After rebooting the Xbox, everything worked fine. I’m not sure if clearing the system cache was sufficient to get it working, or if I also needed to re-download my profile, but these steps fixed the problem.