Very very slow Download of R37 patch.

Ive been trying to dl the patch since 10:30 this morning. It has dl 2%. It keeps disconnecting or refuses to even start dl. This is on 2 of my computers. I have an Alienware i7 17" windows 10 pro R3 and a windows 8 pro desktop. Nvidia 980 graphics card. I have them connected to DSL line. At this rate it will be late tonight before it finishes. I took the desktop and connected directly with cable but that has not improved it. It just stopped again.
Do any of you have a suggestion to make?

Edit by Berek - From Soylent Green:

 

This is typical. I have 2 installs of SOTA for my 2 accounts. One is the SOTA client and one is steam. I can patch with steam in 5 minutes, the sota launcher over the past many releases takes me up to 4+ hours. If you bought the game with steam, use it to do your patching and you will be a happy camper.

 

No, I didnt buy it through steam so I will just crawl along. It usually does take mine hours to dl but this is the slowest so far.
Thank you for responding. I was hoping there was a button I guess to push to make it dl faster.

 

We've been making progress in our patcher times, but obviously we still have work to do here . Apologies about the lengthy download time.

 

the torrent was available yesterday evening. i got it overnight and copied it into the patcher's directory so it would apply it.

 

At least you know its not you. I have 25meg up and 250 MEG down internet and have hit numbers of 90 MEG/sec download speeds and my patcher will bounce between 50K-150K speeds so it still takes me as long as you

 

If you've already got the files from steam just copy them to the SotA directory, that'll alleviate some bandwidth for others.

 

Generally I've heard this is the best way to handle the patch. Long ago in this game's development a dev stated that the seeding process that happens after you download the file is part of what allows patching to move at a decent pace. That model may need to be revised/enhanced prior to mass marketing.

 

I observe that it's usually slowest right after the patch. It sometimes helps to restart it after while when more people are fully patches up.

 

I've been complaining about the patcher (slow speeds, locking up of machine when patches apply, etc.) since the earliest of releases. I'm sorry, but it's inexcusable that the VERY first thing a user sees of the game (the patcher), is so patently horrible. I shouldn't have to use a .torrent, I shouldn't have to go through Steam. My relationship with SotA is with Port and only Port.

Please bump up the priority on fixing the patcher once and for all.

 

AFAIK the patcher uses bit torrent or similar P2P behavior, and your ISP may be throttling / packet shaping your download speed based on this type of activity -- I think you can turn off the BT option in the launcher

 

I don't think I bought it through Steam but I use Steam for my downloading and updating the game.

 

Sorry but no, I did not see any progress in the patcher times. ( since day one )
Maybe the devs should work on that, instead of putting more stuff in the store.

 

Here is what I do: I got this from another thread when I was having slow download. @rednought posted some instructions in that thread

• So today i checked in after 4 hours after starting it and it was at 5% so I did this.
• I close the launcher then open the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Portalarium\Shroud of the Avatar\Downloads
• right click on the newest torrent and I select open so it uses my default torrent client.
• After it is done I copy the new patch patch file back into the SOTA downloads folder
• tell windows, it is ok to replace the partial file.
• reopen the launcher and it will 'download' 0-100% really fast and then start the patch.
• It took like 20 minutes to get to 100% vs 4 hours to get to 5%.

It is easier than it sounds

 

What is strange is that I kicked off the patcher about 10:30 when the thing went live, it pulled down a 0->519 patch. I immediately closed the SOTA patcher and popped up Utorrent, let it download while I left the house. 5 hours later I come home and see that it is seeding, but only a 3.2GB file. And of course the SOTA launcher doesn't know what to do, just tries to redownload it. I redownloaded it with uTorrent a few minutes ago, got the full 6GB, and now the SOTA patcher is applying it. I'm just wondering if there was a bad build that I grabbed at 10:30 that got fixed midday?

 

Other thread with a tip was closed.

I keep relaunching until something useful happens. 13 tries this release.

To the Launcher's credit I've only had to reinstall the whole game once or twice in 30 releases + QA downloads regardless of how many times I open and close the thing while it's pretending to patch.

 

Holy GODS thank you for this. I get 80MBps on Speedtest and my launcher downloads at like 150 KBps. It's like I'm back on AOL dialup days. This, though? Zipping along now at 5 to 10 MBbs.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

 

For those who don't know:

http://patchserver.shroudoftheavatar.com/sotalive/torrents/SotATorrentFeed.xml

I also like to check this every now and then during the week after a new release so that I can know if a new patch is ready.

Stick the .torrent and .sotapatch files in the Downloads directory (which is in the horrible location "~/.SotA.GameTMP" on OS X, you may have to use the "open" command in Terminal to even see it in the Finder) and start up the launcher. Note that it will not start patching until the patch gets green-lighted by Port. For most incremental updates, this is so that they can make sure the patch works before everyone starts downloading it.

The patch is usually up before midnight. Thanks to QA, I knew that this was going to be a big one and not an incremental, so I made double sure to start the torrent before going to sleep. Also, by using a proper bit torrent client, you are still sharing out while the launcher applies the patch. But this time I forgot to increase my upload limit, so after all day I'm only at 27% ratio with 50KB/s up.

And wow, the patch itself was fast this time, I wasn't watching it, but I looked up about 15 minutes later and it was done. I'm sure it helped that it wasn't incremental, but it's a lot better than 45 minutes with SSD from two (?) months ago. Also, first-load startup time is incredibly faster, at least with SSD.

On the negative side, it looks like they completely scrapped the OS X 0-519 file, and I have to download it all again as 0-520. But I normally play on Windows, so it's not urgent.

 

You can link your SotA account to a Steam account from your User Account page. You won't then be able to sell the entire account, however.

 

I started the download 8 hours ago. Restarted launcher at least 20 times. Had the first 20% at 2MB/sec max, but averaging about 84 to 150 KB/sec now. Pretty disgusting IMO. My system is top notch with latest drivers and cable internet. I don't use Steam or anything that loads from computers other than Ports. My fault I guess for being so paranoid... I worry that too many people have sold their soul to these "free" applications that make your life easier.