Destiny 2 Astral Alignment not working: What to do during the bugged encounter
Some things to know around the currently bugged seasonal activity.
Destiny 2's Astral Alignment is the seasonal activity for Season of the Lost, running between August 2021 to February 2022.
Set in the Dreaming City, this six player co-operative event has you revisit the Blind Well and take on several differing stages in order to take out Xivu Arath's forces.
Though the lack of motes to collect makes for a nice change from previous activities, there is unfortunately the arrival of some bugs at launch - with the Astral Alignment activity not working some of the time.
On this page:
How Destiny 2's Astral Alignment works
The Astral Alignment event is a matchmade, six player co-operative event split into four phases:
- Crush the intruders in the Blind Well
- Collapse the Taken Rifts
- Either Prevent the Ether Harvest or Install the Batteries
- Defeat the Taken boss
Essentially, it'll play out the same each time except for the third stage, which will be one or two possible activities. It's these two which are proving the most bugged for players at launch.
If you load into the encounter and you don't start from the Blind Well and the Crush the intruders stage, then you have loaded into a bugged encounter that's already in progress - in which case, you must quit and start matchmaking. (Or, if you can, wait until reset on August 25th for the most bugged of the two activities to be disabled, or even longer until there is a full fix. That said, we know you might be keen to crack on with the quest...)
Prevent the Ether Harvest bug explained
In our experience, if you encounter the Prevent the Ether Harvest, then you will most likely have to reset your game at some point. Though you can play about three quarters of the event, enemies and objectives will stop spawning and you have no choice but to exit and start again.
(We recommend quitting out sooner than later, as the longer players are in the bugged activity, the most likely it'll be new players will matchmake in and will also be sitting there with you.)
This is particularly frustrating if you're trying to make your way through the Wayfinder's Voyage quest, and our only real answer here is you either keep trying until you get a (successful) Install the Batteries run, or wait until Bungie has issued a fix.
Speaking of which - Bungie has publicly acknowledged an issue and will be disabling this on daily reset (6pm UK / 10am PDT) on August 25th - until then, you must avoid destroying all ether wisps.
The Season of the Deep is here alongside the Into the Depths quest. You can know go fishing too! Don't forget to keep an eye on the Lost Sector and King's Fall challenge rotation schedule!
Install the Batteries bug explained
The Install the Batteries bug is a little different to the Ether Harvest one.
The aim is to carry heavy batteries and deposit them at the top of a hill, taking a break or passing them on to another team member along the way.
However, it's possible these batteries don't spawn - or are knocked off the edge of the map by nearby enemies - meaning you cannot carry them up, fill the gauge and move onto the next step.
As with Ether Harvest, if this is bugged, will have to quit out and reload the activity to try again. In our experience, we've had more 'success' with Install the Batteries than Ether Harvest, so if that is the route you are given, fingers crossed you will make it through to the boss encounter.
Again, it's a case of waiting for a full fix if you want to play it safe - but until then, kirbyislove on reddit also recommended not trying to dunk two batteries in one hole at the same time, which is apparently similar to a glitch we've seen from a previous season. This might be difficult to avoid if you are matchmaking with randoms that you cannot coordinate with, but it's something to keep in mind if you can.
If you do make it through, then after the next stage of the Wayfinder's Voyage quest you can pick up Tracing the Stars from the HELM - which has you find Atlas Skew locations.