How to Fix Achievements NOT Unlocking

This guide should help you fix achievements not unlocking in Halo Master Chief Collection on Steam.
Answers obtained from iza, MADROX and others from this thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/976730/discussions/0/1741134940144089973/

DISCLAIMER

*DISCLAIMER*: Microsoft says "The following endpoint is used by the Connected User Experiences and Telemetry component and connects to the Microsoft Data Management service. If you turn off traffic for this endpoint, diagnostic and usage information, which helps Microsoft find and fix problems and improve our products and services, will not be sent back to Microsoft", meaning they use it to track data. I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt although with the junk telemetry and spying Windows 10 does I just want you to be aware of what you do to your PC when you unblock the vortex entry/entries

How to fix the issue

Why they won't unlock
Chances are your computer is blocking the "vortex.data.microsoft.com" domain. To unlock achievements again all you have to do is unblock this entry.

How to check if you're affected
This issue can be caused by the domain being blocked on your hosts file, via a firewall, anti virus software, or DNS server. You can test if it's blocked by going into command prompt (cmd) and trying the command "ping vortex.data.microsoft.com".

• If you get a "Request timed out." response than you should be good.
  
• If you get a "General failure." response than something on your computer must be interfering with it and you should try one of the solutions below.

Solutions to try

• "TyrannoWright"'s comment: "Sometimes, I just go into the Player ID customization menu and the achievements will pop up."
  
• Delete vortex.data.microsoft.com from your hosts file if it present (Windows/System32/drivers/etc). If any other entries are present in the hosts file that contain "vortex", deleting those as well will help resolve achievement progression not registering
  
• Whitelist vortex.data.microsoft.com if you are using a Pi-hole device.
  
• Reset Windows Firewall to default settings.
  
• Revert any Windows privacy settings set in programs such as OOSU10 or WPD.
  
• Try to change your DNS server back to your ISP's default

If you have been affected by the bug
It appears if you have attempted some achievements while having the issue, after fixing the issue some of those achievements will not be possible to get (possibly due to the game tracking it as already done?). Additionally, people in the comments mentioned that some achievements are inherently bugged (such as some of the "complete a level in this amount of time" achievements).

If after 72 hours it still won't unlock try create a support ticket at Halo Support[support.halowaypoint.com] detailing your case and they may be able to sort it on their end.

Possible solutions from comments

• Derejin:
  "BIG ONE for me: finally found out months after release.
  
  Discord! If Discord is open for me, it blocks stat tracking and achievements.
  Have to crash it/close it completely, or never open it after restarting, then everything runs normally."
  
  
• Dwisler:
  "1) Try to play version with Easy Anti-Cheat;
  2) If first step didn't work - try to delete (make backup!) the folder steam\userdata\xxxxxxx\976730, where xxxxxxx - is the folder named some long number;
  3) Try first step again."
  
  
• Lulach:
  "In my case I was using ProtonVPN. Having NetShield set to "Block ads, malware & trackers" will prevent achievements from working. Setting it down a level to just "Block malware" fixed it."

[jimmyjamjar]

For those of you in 2025 still having this issue - this solution worked for me https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/epcoom/psa_fix_for_buggedunlockable_achievements_on_mcc/ you will know it worked because you will be able to see the daily and weekly things popping up as you play

[Tachikoma]

[2025] Discord still blocks stat tracking and achievements.

[Ship Master Utze 'Vordam]

instead of recieving a "request time out" I am instead unable to ping the host and getting: "Destination host unreachable" any possible solutions to that problem, other achievements seem to fire however specifically the par time ones love to give me guff.

[Douglas]

my problem was nextdns blocking the microsoft ips, i solved it changing to cloudflare dns

[cyb3rkn19ht [CSPK]]

Deleting used data is what worked for me. I also removed the host file entry and verified the game without any resutls.

[Drizzt]

Many of my ODST achievement were not firing, then I read
"jimm0thy 11 Feb @ 5:02pm
MSI Afterburner blocked them for me, after closing it and reopening the game the missing ones unlocked"
Disabling that and starting the game popped a pile of them all at once.

[Cr@ckerJ@ck (PERÚ)]

Posible solución que funciono para mi:
1) Desactivar el guardado en la nube del juego.
2) Borrar la carpeta ubicada en:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\xxxxxxxxx\976730
3) Volver a iniciar el juego.

[Softshine798]

I was having this issue as well. I tried everything in the guide to fix, but it did not work. I finally closed Hamachi since that was running in the background, alongside disabled VPN, and that seemed to fix the problem.

[fadster]

Achievements stopped unlocking altogether for me even though they worked 6 months ago. What could have changed?

[error13376]

Turns out my Pihole was blocking this domain and the achievements I was missing (47/700 from 0/700) instantly popped LMAO.