Homecoming Launcher Public Beta

[UberGuy]

Bug(?)

Apologies if this has been reported before - there's a lot of chatter in the thread.

 

I occasionally encounter the problem, previously reported, where the launcher thinks I'm patched up but am not. So I log out and back in.

 

However, this resets my settings. Hidden installations of the game are unhidden, and Closed Beta-specific assets/* installations are removed. (This is the bug I'm reporting.)

 

I don't think the installer should forget existing installation information in this way when you log out.

 

In combination with whatever gets the installer out of synch with login, requiring you to log in and out, this behavior is a fairly significant inconvenience. While my base beta installation and data files remained, I had to entirely re-download assets/issue24 and assets/cryptic, which is 4.4GB of data. I am lucky and have GB internet, but lots of folks don't.

 

Notes

• I have a custom installation directory, in case it matters

Edited February 5, 2021 by UberGuy
Typo

[WanderingAries]

4 hours ago, UberGuy said:

Bug(?)

Apologies if this has been reported before - there's a lot of chatter in the thread.

 

I occasionally encounter the problem, previously reported, where the launcher thinks I'm patched up but am not. So I log out and back in.

 

However, this resets my settings. Hidden installations of the game are unhidden, and Closed Beta-specific assets/* installations are removed. (This is the bug I'm reporting.)

 

I don't think the installer should forget existing installation information in this way when you log out.

 

In combination with whatever gets the installer out of synch with login, requiring you to log in and out, this behavior is a fairly significant inconvenience. While my base beta installation and data files remained, I had to entirely re-download assets/issue24 and issue/cryptic, which is 4.4GB of data. I am lucky and have GB internet, but lots of folks don't.

 

Notes

• I have a custom installation directory, in case it matters

What is the actual file path you're using for the installation? That sounds like your files are in a protected folder in Windows 10.

[UberGuy]

8 hours ago, WanderingAries said:

What is the actual file path you're using for the installation? That sounds like your files are in a protected folder in Windows 10.

D:\City of Heroes Beta

 

They are not in a protected folder. I am a an IT professional with many years of admin experience with Windows. All my games are installed on their own drive, I created and set the recursive ownership of the installation root to full control for my user before running the installer and pointing it at those folders.

 

Moreover, that explanation would make no sense for a previously working installation. If I was trying to use the installer in a protected folder, it would never have worked at all without my running it as an administrator. This happened only when I logged out. The installer partially deleted an existing installation.

Edited January 29, 2021 by UberGuy

[UberGuy]

Using Sysinternals ProcMon: to log what the installer was doing, I logged out and back in. The attached happened after I logged in.

"8:47:16.4355314 PM","launcher.exe","22260","SetDispositionInformationFile","D:\City of Heroes Beta\assets\issue24\fonts.pigg","CANNOT DELETE","Delete: True"
...
< this continues for every pigg file in the i24 folder. It's failing because I marked it read only >
...
"8:47:16.4391322 PM","launcher.exe","22260","SetDispositionInformationFile","D:\City of Heroes Beta\assets\cryptic\bin_minimap.pigg","SUCCESS","Delete: True"
...
< this continues for every cryptic file, and at the end the binaries and piggs are all gone >

It also rewrites the settings file into a default state, forgetting what I had configured previously in terms of what was hidden and which versions of the game this installer is managing.

Edited January 29, 2021 by UberGuy

[WanderingAries]

17 hours ago, UberGuy said:

They are not in a protected folder. I am a an IT professional with many years of admin experience with Windows. All my games are installed on their own drive, I created and set the recursive ownership of the installation root to full control for my user before running the installer and pointing it at those folders.

 

Moreover, that explanation would make no sense for a previously working installation. If I was trying to use the installer in a protected folder, it would never have worked at all without my running it as an administrator. This happened only when I logged out. The installer partially deleted an existing installation.

That's certainly a 100% ideal setup for sure as you (now-obvious to me) know.

 

Just covering the basics as the userbase is quite varied. We've seen some rather odd behavior during the time of Post-Live and personally I've run into things that "shouldn't have a remote chance at happening", but have certainly done "the thing" in front of my eyes helping clients.

[UberGuy]

Any word on this? This still happens. I just had the launcher fail to login, and it once again completely removed my Cryptic assets installation and erased all my customized launcher settings (which servers are hidden, auto-update, etc.)

 

I know how to prevent it from deleting my i24 assets, but most people are not going to do this, and will have to reinstall everything every time this comes up. And even though I can save myself the full download, having to rebuild my launcher config each time this happens is frustrating.

Edited March 14, 2021 by UberGuy

[WanderingAries]

On 3/14/2021 at 4:07 PM, UberGuy said:

Any word on this? This still happens. I just had the launcher fail to login, and it once again completely removed my Cryptic assets installation and erased all my customized launcher settings (which servers are hidden, auto-update, etc.)

 

I know how to prevent it from deleting my i24 assets, but most people are not going to do this, and will have to reinstall everything every time this comes up. And even though I can save myself the full download, having to rebuild my launcher config each time this happens is frustrating.

 

I can't say I have, but in the event you haven't, certainly file a support ticket so they can look into it with you. I've not seen anyone recently mention the issue.

[UberGuy]

Six got in touch with me via DM. There was a brief problem last Saturday where the auth system decided (through a misconfiguration or bug) that no one had privs to play on the private servers. I had left my Cryptic-managing launcher running - something I don't normally do, and it apparently polls or otherwise gets notifications about changes like that, and decided to whack my install.

 

I'm not a fan of the installer actively removing installs in such a manner. Note that this behavior is by design, as is it removing your Cryptic/Paragon installations if you click "log out". When the game clients themselves are not a secret, I don't really see the point in these deletions.

 

Maybe it's to do with the current lack of association between the launcher and game login. Meaning you can be removed from the private server config for the launcher but, in theory, still have game login privs. That seems like something that could be solved by blocking game logins first, but maybe that's not always practical for some reason. I know if I really wanted back in, the launcher deleting client files would not keep me out of the game if I still had a login.

 

Here's hoping that once the launcher and game auth are more unified, the launcher can be less aggressive by design about whacking files.

[Pouncy]

Since October when i first tried this I decided now to try again.  Is Ok. 8Ð. Ima do for now. But keepin Tequila hidden in a drawer.

[WanderingAries]

2 hours ago, Pouncy said:

Since October when i first tried this I decided now to try again.  Is Ok. 8Ð. Ima do for now. But keepin Tequila hidden in a drawer.

 

Eh, so long as they're in two different Root folders, then feel free to leave it intact as they won't interact that way.