Sudden Problem with Launcher

[TemporalVileTerror]

Today my launcher looks like this:

 

I have no Shard Status or game launch buttons.  Shutting down and restarting the launcher has no effect.

[rookery.]

I noticed the launcher was really slow coming up this morning. Bout three hours ago. Almost felt like it wasn't going to come up at all.

[Number Six]

1 hour ago, TemporalVileTerror said:

Today my launcher looks like this:

 

I have no Shard Status or game launch buttons.  Shutting down and restarting the launcher has no effect.

What OS? That was reported by someone else as well, but after a wine update on Linux.

 

Can you PM me a copy of your launcher.log file?

[WanderingAries]

If that's taking the Whole screen, then double check your screen resolution as well to make sure that didn't get adjusted. It's a stretch, but eh

[TemporalVileTerror]

Nah, that's not the problem, @WanderingAries.

 

Operating system is Windows 10.

Logs sent to @Number Six.

[Number Six]

@TemporalVileTerror

 

It looks like you have an old hcinstall.exe in your game folders somewhere and are running from that rather than the main launcher.exe in bin/win(32|64)/

 

As a result you’re running quite old code that’s missing some functions needed by the UI.

 

Delete any copies of hcinstall.exe you can find and run the launcher out of the bin/ subdirectory instead.

[TemporalVileTerror]

That seems to solve it.  Thank you for the assistance.

 

Although, I do have to say I'm not really a fan of how this software keeps changing without any kind of indication that its downloaded or applied any version changes.  I would feel a lot more comfortable if the software didn't make any changes without user input.

[Number Six]

Run it with the -noselfupdate flag. That will suppress even checking if launcher updates are available, much less installing them.

[TemporalVileTerror]

Thank you.

Is there an option (now, or in the works) for the program to have a "check for updates" button while running with that option flagged?

[Number Six]

It's not something that was on the radar, but may be possible to look at adding.

 

The biggest hurdle there is that the self update mechanism is completely independent from the UI. There are a couple of reasons it's designed that way. The core of the launcher is a small executable with a package management system, while the UI is a separate component that is not required for that base functionality. The UI handles more complex higher level tasks like managing launch profiles and settings. That component can also be swapped out -- see launchercli for a barebones text interface.

 

The launcher's self-update capability doubles as its self-repair function... and also installation for that matter. The "install" consists of it copying itself into place, then initiating an update which downloads the package with the UI code. If the files are ever corrupted, it automatically verifies the package and uses the updater to replace any that fail verification. That has to be able to work without a UI since the UI itself could be broken.

 

So to give the UI any sort of control over the self update process will require building some new interfaces, so that it doesn't interfere with the health check and repair that begins at a lower level before the UI even starts.