Yet Another Updater Thread

[Mr. Dave]

I don\'t think this is exactly the same problem others are having; if it is, please forgive me.
When I try to update PlaneShift, the updater begins to transfer files and then the update stalls. This is not the updater program hanging; Task Manager (XP Home SP2) reports the program continues to run, but network traffic drops to zero and never resumes. Last night this happened reliably at 45% into psclient; tonight it\'s 9% into the very first file, bttn_quit.wav. This problem is repeatable, and again I point out that it is not the updater program that is failing, but the file transfers the updater is supposed to perform.

[Seytra]

It\'s a new problem, at least to me. However, it indeed doesn\'t seem to be a problem of the updater itself, but more of the server or something inbetween. A very similar issue has been encountered by people while downloading the installer from the main site, and problems with the update server have been encountered occasionally as well, albeit different ones, so I think that there is nothing wrong at your end. Of course, you can try to reboot and maybe to reinstall (not redownload) PS, copy over the updater.exe file, but it\'s not likely to work any better.
Check if there is enough free space left on the drive at which PS is installed. Maybe your firewall is doing strange things, but I also doubt it, if it worked before.

[Kaseijin]

well if the files are on planeshift.it server...then it is the server problem... cause i have problems contacting that site at times even through a browser.... it get stuck at waiting for reply.... i have to hit reload a few times or just try later to get it to work. It\'s quite possible the server gets overloaded

[Serax]

I\'ve got the same problem, it says something like it needs to download 30 MB in 619 files, and then about halfway downloading the first file it just stops. I\'ve rebooted and tried again about 15 times. but it isn\'t getting anywhere

[Cha0s]

The updater updates from laanx.fragnetics.com (not planeshift.it).

[Mr. Dave]

I\'ve done some more experimentation, and here\'s what I\'ve found:

Neither my firewall nor my router is the culprit.

The transfer hangs with absolute reliability on either bttn_quit.wav or psclient.exe, regardless of whether other files are downloaded first.

Cycling my DHCP lease will unstick the update by failing the stuck file (and the next ten or so), but since it always sticks at the same file, this doesn\'t help complete the update.

It appears to me that for some reason laanx is timing out on the transfer and that the updater client is failing to recognize this.

Also, once I\'ve run the GUI updater I can\'t run it again (XP displays the Generic Program Failure/Send Your Personal Secrets To Microsoft alert). I can run it in batch mode with the -auto flag, but the transfer still stalls at exactly the same place.

[Seytra]

So it seems that this is an issue of the update files on the server, and / or that the update issues haven\'t been resolved yet.
I therefore recommend the following:
1) wait, occasionally (once daily) trying to update and see if it starts working again.
2) use of the outdated and unofficially patched and hosted (neither by me) updater file in case the problem is one of updater.exe and not of the server, and only if you don\'t have the original updater that came with your PS download (I think the installer should create a backup directory for the updater, as it breaks quite often ). This will then update the updater to the current version, so if your updater.exe was broken before (and maybe preventing you from updating it) and the server\'s version has been fixed, you\'ll have a working version.

Tedious indeed.

[Mr. Dave]

First, mea culpa for mentioning the GUI crash; that was not the issue I intended to raise and it should actually be in a separate thread. (In fact, I think it probably is in a separate thread.)

Anyway, I tried Socrates\' solution but it turned out to be the solution for a different problem from the one I was having. However, it did give me an idea...

To recap, the crux of my problem was that the updater would stall while downloading a particular file (either bttn_quit.wav or psclient.exe) from server laanx. After studying updaterconfig.xml, I was able to burrow into laanx and manually download psclient.exe; I dropped it into the PlaneShift folder, reran the updater, and was thrilled to find myself back in Hydlaa, face-to-face with a real, live Klyros.

I won\'t tell you how I did it, save that the clues are in updaterconfig.xml (>You have a quest!); if you can\'t figure it out from that, it probably isn\'t safe for you to try this.

I hope this helps someone, and that it isn\'t too long-winded to read...