[Known]Client Download impossibly slow

Title: Client Download impossibly slow

Reproduction Rate: 100%

Blocker? YES

Details: Luckily, I am able to download SotA via Steam. Otherwise I would still not be able to play R37.

Yesterday it took Steam 20 minutes to download the game, and I was able to log in as soon as build 519 went live. When I woke up this morning, Steam had already automatically downloaded build 520.

Yesterday every download attempt to download the client from the Portalarium server failed. I let the launcher run overnight, but it stopped at 43% and by morning another patch was available anyway. Today I have been trying for hours to download build 520, and this is the result so far:


My computer doesn't have problems downloading any other software. The Portalarium client has always been slow, but now it is impossible and you really should do something about it.

Steps to Reproduce: Try to launch game from the Portalarium server when a new build is available.

User Specs:
OS: Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (8) System RAM: 16324
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 GPU RAM: 3020

 

We've been advising guildies who don't use Steam to use an external torrent client to download the patches. In case you haven't seen it, @Soylent Green posted a how to video.

 

i dont't want Steam related things on my pc and and i can't understand why a project that have millions of dollars can't make a functional downloader... i see that the code used for the torrent client is the opensource MONO torrent... well.. the issue is probably that no one are SHARING the bandwith for upload ... i see for me from 3 to 20 actives nodes for SOTA... (what?) but where are the 100.000 and more citizen? all on Steam?
probably it's necessary to make a SPECIAL DOWNLOADER for who are not on Steam AND CAN'T DOWNLOAD THE GAME like now.... with a forced 5K of upload (a very very low value) this probably adds houndrd of new torrent nodes.

I've also an IDEA...

create multiple patches with SCENES choice... this lower the size of the download to 500 Mbyte to start playing (SOTA GAME - NOVIA OVER WORLD - HIDDEN VALLEY OVER WORLD)

when downloaded this BASE ... a player can login ad interact with otherplayers...

after taht users can JUST download ... OWL HEAD SCENE... .. DEEP RAVEN SCENE... and maybe NOTHING ELSE... and starting gaining XP

 

Because they're game developers. The money is for developing the game, not for developing a content delivery platform.

That is not the issue because, as I posted above, using an stand alone torrent client works much better.

 

and i'm using a STAND ALONE torrent.. and things are not working well... and i know that the MONO TORRENT used by SOTA have NO BUGS about download speed.

 

Bug Logged about impossibly slow (e.g. 0kb/s) download speed @Kara Brae, although we should be aware of the Known Issue:

1. Launcher sometimes cannot apply update patch. (This issue can sometimes be troubleshooted by having the game client closed while patching. Also, make sure you have enough disk space to download and apply the patch.)

Also, not to detract from the bug, which should be fixed, in addition to the suggestion passed along by @Wintermute of CoF, you can try closing and restarting the launcher. It's kind of like playing Russian Roulette. After restarting, it figures out where it left off then tries to resume from there, and each time you connect there is a chance you'll get a good download speed or a bad download speed (as low as 0%). In my experience, the 0% speeds have become a little more prelevant in R37, but also with the this release and R36 I have been seeing fantastic speeds I'd not seen prior in the several Mb/s range, including when the 0-520 build became available for example.

 

As a point of reference. I downloaded the 0-519 in about 10 -15 minutes. For me and others I was speaking to it seemed a LOT faster then in the past. I was averaging 8-14 mps. I live in NY. A friend from Germany said heer rate, while not like mine, was definitely higher than normal. **shrug**

 

Thanks for your reply. I'll provide some more information:
1. I did try closing and re-starting the launcher multiple times. At one point yesterday the speed was even more than 1 MB per second. However, it slowed at 42% and after it had been running all night it was at 43% and 0 kb/s. Maybe this was due to there being a new patch since I started the launcher. In any case, it should not be necessary to keep closing and starting a patch installer
2. I ran the launcher when the Steam installation is not running. Just re-started and it is now going at around 800 kb/s, which is lucky for me.
3. plenty of room on my system.

 

Thanks for the additional information Kara, there is also discussion on the topic from a number of users here.

 

Ya I will pile on here. The issues that I have been having with the patcher have been getting progressively worse with each release.

I feel this problem should be escalated to a top priority for 1Q... talking about first impressions for a new player if it had been this bad when I first started playing I might have just left and never came back.

Restarting the patcher a bagillion times is a lame "fix" and downloading from Steam is not really an acceptable solution for people who don't want to use the service.

Patching through a 3rd party torrent works great, but again, asking players to use or install any 3rd party software to play the game is less than ideal.

At the very least, please add a note to the patcher window directing people to information about these temporary "fixes". Leaving people out in the lurch and hoping they find the answer in the forums is not just bad development, it is bad business.

 

We are continuing to review this issue. Thank you forthe continued reports and keeping this in our radar.

35107

 

@Attenwood
The download that started so promisingly 7 hours ago is currently still only at 62%. The download speed is shown at 44 kb/s. I'm going to bed now. I'll let it keep running overnight and see what happens.

 

2% in about 1h for me so a long way to go....

 

I left my computer patching, went to sleep then went to work and after 24 hours its ony at 79% for build 520.

 

@Attenwood
The download I started when I wrote my last post before going to sleep is now at 82% (10 hours later). So it has taken 17 hours to get to that 82%.

 

I was working on the 520 update going into the 36th hour. I stopped it and restarted hoping to jog the program somehow and the updater now shows the update as 0->522 instead of 520. I have to start over but I am at 43% @ 1 hour 15 minutes.

Much better.

Also my download speed went from 0/30ish to 400 + KB/s.

 

Thank you for the continued reports. The issue is submitted and will be reviewed asap. 35107

 

Why wasn't this reviewed earlier? R36 had the exact same problem

On topic, I've been trying to DL since R37 was released. I gave up for a bit in the hopes that less people would be DL'ing it and that perhaps the issue had be eliminated. And as I said above, this exact issue existed with R36.

I'm currently on my fourth attempt for the day, it's 11am PST and I started at 7am PST . Getting 44kb/s to 170kb/s and at 6% of 522 for the last 45 minutes, progress bar has not moved.

**edit** Restarted launcher 3 times and looks like after days of trying I finally got a good DL server.. Currently at 1% of step four - was downloading at 4-5mb/s.

This situation actually makes me chuckle a bit as it reminds of 1998 where you had to start the game multiple times before you could log into a server. But then again that was a 486 running on dial up.

 

R36 had an observable fix for many players. Significant changes occurred for R37 that may have reopened the issue unexpectedly. The issue is now being revisited, reviewed, and will be resolved asap.

Thank you for reporting.