Mac client Test Server issue?

Hello,

For some reason when I start the Test Server, the client starts downloading a patch (?) "cider-COHD-Updater-002591.tgz", a 12M file. Once it's downloaded, the client exits and then restarts, only to start downloading the same patch over again. This repeats until I quit the program, but never connects.

I can sign on to the live servers just fine, and I haven't had any problems getting onto Test before this. Is this happening to anyone else?

I was having the same problem on a Mac at work.

1. What happens if you right-click City Of Heroes test client, select Show Contents, and then navigate to Contents > Resources, and double click tgApplyPatch?

2. Open Console (Utilities > Console) and wait for the patch to download. Note if there are any error messages just before the client launches and begins downloading again.

The exact same issue is happening to me, and has been since the patch before this current one. If I remember correctly, it's the same file. And it's exactly the same behaviour. I posted about this in the patch notes thread, but it got lost amongst everything else.

CuppaManga, what exactly is clicking on tgApplyPatch supposed to do? What is that?

[ QUOTE ]
CuppaManga, what exactly is clicking on tgApplyPatch supposed to do? What is that?

[/ QUOTE ]

It finds the COHD file that downloaded and attempts to install it. Or if something is wrong it'll display an error.

Well, when I double-click on tgApplyPatch, absolutely nothing happens visually. With the console open, we can see that it is just echoing "Usage: <Patch tarball path> <Output path> <ProcessID>" and doing nothing else.

When I run the updater with the console open, every time it gets to the end and restarts these lines show up in the console:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Could not stat /Applications/City of Heroes Test.app/Contents
# /Resources/transgaming/f_drive (No such file or directory), ignoring drive F:
/usr/bin/tar: This does not look like a tar archive
/usr/bin/tar: Skipping to next header
/usr/bin/tar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers
/usr/bin/tar: Read 7653 bytes from /Applications/City of Heroes Test.app/Contents
# /Resources/transgaming/c_drive/coh/cider/cider-COHD-Updater-002591.tgz
/usr/bin/tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors</pre><hr />

If I let it go, it just keeps repeating the download-&gt;close-&gt;reopen-&gt;redownload loop forever, and keeps writing these lines to the console every time it restarts. Not sure what that means... somehow it can't read the archive once it gets it?

[edit: sorry for the wide lines. Fixed now; in the code block, if a new line is indented and begins with a #, it's a continuation of the previous line.]

[ QUOTE ]
/usr/bin/tar: Read 7653 bytes from /Applications/City of Heroes Test.app/Contents
# /Resources/transgaming/c_drive/coh/cider/cider-COHD-Updater-002591.tgz


[/ QUOTE ]

There's your problem. The COHD file I have is 12,674,533 bytes, not 7653. Something is interrupting your download before it's finished, and the Patcher doesn't really know how to properly handle unfinished download files.

Send a support request and point out this thread, they may have separate troubleshooting steps for downloads not finishing.

Thing is, it *says* it is downloading the full 12 point something megabytes - you can watch the download bar and see it creep up, and the numbers piling up until they get to 12 mb.

... and then somehow when it goes to look at the file it sees only 7.6k of it?

Oooook.... stupid computer!

Hang in there, I've actually managed to duplicate either this issue or a similar one last night, and I documented what I think the cause may be.

It's not so critical for me, it's just the Mac at work. I can still play on my laptop at home.

But some sort of workaround would be nice.

[ QUOTE ]

Hang in there, I've actually managed to duplicate either this issue or a similar one last night, and I documented what I think the cause may be.

[/ QUOTE ]

CuppaManga, can you send that to Avatea please. She's looking for more info on this issue.

Thanks

As Avatea noted in a separate thread, the problem should start to resolve soon. If your Mac client was damaged by the faulty patch server, you may have to wait for some files to re-patch before it works.

[ QUOTE ]
CuppaManga, can you send that to Avatea please. She's looking for more info on this issue.

[/ QUOTE ]

Already sent really late last night (not to Avatea though, to another dev).

Just downloaded a fresh copy of the test installer DMG from the FTP site. Ran the updater and got

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Assertion failed

Program: C:\coh\CohUpdater.tmp
Version: Coh Updater
SVN Revision: UNKNOWN
Time: Wed Jun 10 03:20:05 PM
Process ID: 8
File: c:\svn\coh\coh_source\updater\cohupdater\main.c
Line: 236
Expression: result

Error Message:

Heap is NOT corrupted
Last windows SYSTEM error: Child process has not completed</pre><hr />

Followed by

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Can't delete file C:\coh\CohUpdater.tmp some other program has it open! Aborting.</pre><hr />

EDIT: Hmm, ran it again and now it's downloading a 12.0MB TGZ file, presumably a Cider or Mac Updater update.

EDIT EDIT: Downloading files now. Very slow, probably my poor connection.

CuppaManga, is there any chance you could post any details about what you're thinking the cause may be? My version is still refusing to patch properly, even after completely deleting my test installation and trying to reinstall from scratch. I would love any help in figuring out how too get this dumb computer to cooperate.

[ QUOTE ]
CuppaManga, is there any chance you could post any details about what you're thinking the cause may be? My version is still refusing to patch properly, even after completely deleting my test installation and trying to reinstall from scratch. I would love any help in figuring out how too get this dumb computer to cooperate.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's pretty much what Avatea said. Actually I observed that either the Patch Server was sending incomplete files, or the Updater wasn't writing them properly. Thankfully it was the former, since they could fix the problem by pulling the bad Patch Server from the rotation.

You may have to run the Updater a *couple* of times, it turns out, to force it to patch correctly, but it should work.

Um... I've deleted my test server installation, re-loaded it from the downloaded .dmg, and tried to get it to run at least a dozen times since the patch server was fixed this afternoon. It hasn't worked yet. (and what exactly do you mean by 'run it a couple times', anyway - open it up, see if it loops, and close and try again if it does?)

And to answer your question from the other thread, I am running an administrator account (yeah, yeah, bad computing practice, I know...).

Oh, yeah - odd tidbit. At one point I went into the test server package contents and found the patch file it kept trying to download. Even though the console error messages said it was only 7k or so, the actual size of the file *was* the advertised 12-something megs. Very odd.

One thing that strikes me as odd, though. This problem first appeared for me with the 6/2 patch, the one *before* the most recent patch that broke all the windows people's test server installations and was linked to a bad patch server. Are we sure this issue was caused by that bad server? If it was, why did it fail for the mac people several days before it failed for the windows people?

[edit: I just spent twenty minutes futilely opening the updater, letting it loop a couple times, closing it, and repeating. No dice. There's something more wrong here than just a patch server which has already been fixed. Either there's still something wrong with the patch servers, or the bad download somehow has some lingering destructive effect on my computer that remains even after the complete removal of the old test server installation. Screw it, I'm booting into the windows partition, digging up that old external HD, and hooking up the test server there. At least the windows people seem to have had their problem fixed.]

Still having the same issue, even with re-downloading the client.

Everyone who's having the above problems, do this:

Go to (your user name) &gt; Library &gt; Preferences

Drag any folder that starts with "City of Heroes" into the trash (actually if you have one that says Test Server or Training Room, throw that out - the plain "City of Heroes" one is your Live client's).

EDIT: Then launch Terminal from Applications &gt; Utilities and type this:

dscacheutil -flushcache


Empty the trash, and then launch the Updater.


You may have to reset your display preferences in your CoH clients.

I downloaded a fresh copy of the Mac version of test today and it worked fine for me on the first try. Wish I could say the same about the Windows version.

Um, when I type "dscacheutil -flushcache" it throws an error, saying "dscacheutil: command not found". Any suggestions? I'm on OSX 10.4 tiger, if that makes any difference.

For 10.4 it's:

lookupd -flushcache

All I did to find both commands is google "reset dns cache mac".

I got the same error as Muon. "command not found".

Dumping my old test installation and downloading a fresh copy didn't correct the problem either.

WARNING: I bold names.

Documenting steps as I go:

username&gt;library&gt;preferences
city of heroes preferences: trashed
city of heores training room preferences: trashed
applications&gt;utilities&gt;terminal: lookupd -flushcache: no error (OSX 10.4.11)
trash emptied
updater launched
stuck in a loop in repeatedly downloading "cider-COHD-Updater-002591.tgz"

Problem unresolved.

WARNING: I bold names.

No dice. Deleted the city of heroes test server folder from preferences, flushed the dns cache, emptied trash, and even deleted my most recent attempt to install test and loaded up a fresh one to boot. Still looping endlessly on that #^&amp;%@)!&amp;%@% "cider-COHD-Updater-002591.tgz" file. Tech support has run out of things for me to try, too. "The issue has been reported to the development team", but in the meantime they have no idea how to fix it either.

This is really getting annoying. What the heck did this dumb patch *do* to my computer that's so persistent?

On the (sorta) bright side, at least the test server works on the windows partition, if I go to the bother of hooking up the external HD where it resides. I don't *like* using that side of the computer, though... The Mac side is in general more stable, less prone to overheating, and (usually!) less prone to doing random wacky nonsense crap for no particular reason. Not to mention that on the mac side, my headphones work.