Frogboy Frogboy

Downloading Help here

Downloading Help here

Some of these games are pretty big and some of you are downloading from very very far away. So if you do run into any problems, let us know here. We'll be monitoring this thread.
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Reply #26 Top
Well never mind that last post. The archived Disciples II file (and even the movies file for that matter) are far too big to fit on a burned CD (well over 700 MB) anyways so I guess the only way to do this would be to copy the entire directory to multiple CDs, transfer that to my home computer and try to alter the registry....far beyond my skill and understanding. Sigh, I guess its back to overnight download sessions and praying that I can get all 1.48 GB without an error.

Is there no way possible to get Disciples II direct from stardock on a CD, I'm sure many of us would gladly pay a nominal fee to avoid the downloading fo such large files.

Reply #27 Top
I agree with Paul, I would gladly pay a fee for a CD/DVD with the larger games included to be mailed to me.

I have tried to download Disciples 2 on dialup but sometimes when I resume the downloads itstarts from scratch.

Reply #28 Top
Yup, that's been my experience. In fact, I'd gotten to 22% of Disciples II downloaded (quite a victory, considering it'd taken about 15 hours to get there) until just now, when it inexplicably started over again. I appreciate the concept that is being pursued here, but, unfortunately, unless the delivery technology improves, it should come with the caveat that if you're on dial-up, you might not want to sign up.
Reply #29 Top
I just bought Totalgaming.net 2 days ago. Tried to download Disciples II and also ran into problems. Now, I am on a satellite connection that is capable of download speeds of about 60 KB/s even up to 100KB/s at times. But I am only getting 14-16 off SDCentral.

I cannot afford to have my phone tied up for 30+ hours, so after 30 MB I thought I would try and see if downloads will resume.

I have SDCentral set to download and archive. When I broke the connection, SDCentral informed me that I have not enough space to install the game (BS!) and when I insisted on going ahead, it proceeded to archive what files it had downloaded so far.
I then tried to reconnect to see if the download would resume. It did not, it restarted from scratch
Reply #30 Top
The saga continues. Just for a lark, I changed my options from 'download and archive' to 'install'. I did a partial download of thie first file, then hit 'cancel'. A while later I reconnected, hit install again and wonder of wonders, the download resumed where it had left off the first time. So I went away for a few hours ( I was on a dialup connection this time, and that doesn't count against my data allowance) but when I came back there was a big error message splashed across SDCentral: installation failed. After downloading the first or second file, it appears to've tried to finalize installation, didn't find the second file (or an incomplete one), concluded it couldn't extract it and crashed out. None of the downloaded file(s) are present in the SDCentral temp directory any more, nor has anything been put into the target directory. Back to Zero.

-Peter
Reply #31 Top
Eamerial:
What version of StardockCentral are you running? Please be sure that you are running build 58. Here is a link to it: http://storage.stardock.com/files/stardockcentral20.exe
That should clear up your problem. If it does not please email the \Program Files\Stardock\SDCentral\Installed\dc2dp.log to [email protected] with a note on the issues you are having.

Paul Lephart:
You can use the spanning features in WinRar to rar up the \program files\stardock\sdcentral\backup folder. You can set it to span across CDs, so it will make as many .rar files as it needs to get all of it. Then when you get home, copy them to the hard drive and then unrar them. Then you can delete the .rar files. Now in stardockCentral go to File->Restore Archive and point it to your new files.

Peter Huebner:
What version of StardockCentral are you running as well? Can you send the dc2dp.log file to [email protected]? I will also talk to the project managers on what we can do about your suggestions.

Thank you,
Jake
Reply #32 Top
Thanks JakeC, I will try that tonight, sounds like it should work. I can't give enough credit to you guys at stardock for your great support!
Reply #33 Top
Jake, thanks for the reply. It's good to see someone actually reads this and that some thing is being done. Considerably lessens the frustration factor

Now to matters on hand: I am running 2.00.293 build 58 of SDCentral. I am afraid I cannot send you the logfile - I think I must've cleaned it out with the rest of the temporary files after installation failed for the second time. Sorry. I may make another attempt tonight, and if I get another abort I'll send the log to you - provided one is generated.
No excuse for not thinking of hanging on to it
Reply #34 Top
Back to a pressing question for dial up subscribers.

Is there any chance of getting the games on CD for a nominal fee?
Reply #35 Top
Jackey:
As it turns out, there will be this option for subscribers in the future. We are currently working on all of the logistics that go along with that type of media distribution. You will have that option in time.

Peter:
If you could, please give it another shot and send the log file along. Its going to be tough to figure this one out without it. Also if you could check on it every once in a while and see if it takes a really long pause before the error occures. If so, press cance, and then install again. It should pick up where it left off and get past the sticking point. (we are working to resolve this issue for the next release)
Reply #36 Top
I just tried to log in with StardockCentral again. SDCentral connected and updated to version .294 - restarted and now I can no longer log in.
Aw shucks (getting connection error 1001) . SDCentral makes the connection to wingate all right ( I use wingate as a proxy to get around the firewall problems SDCentral has and up to now it's always worked fine. Maybe your server has just become unavailable.

I retried the download anyway, and so far I am about 175 MB into the download, having restarted twice without problems. Interesting fact, it's still downloading the first file, so when I had the failures in the past I obviously mus've had an incomplete download of dc2dp.sdc (e.g. not finished) yet the error messages given referred to another file, I remember that much.

I will try again later today, may have to uninstall and reinstall sdcentral - fortunately I have copies of the current download of Disciples II.

-P.
Reply #37 Top
Would it be possible to add an error-recovery thing to SDCentral? A couple of times I've got 100-200 megs into a download only to click on the wrong button (eg the News tab) and have SDCentral crash, losing all the progress with the download. I don't know the mechanics of how the whole thing works, but if there was some way the program could remember every few minutes where it got up to, and then be able to start from there at any time regardless of errors, that would make downloading a whole game a lot easier.
Reply #38 Top
First to SDCentral: I still cannot log on with the new 2.00.294 - reinstalled 1.3 but that would not update to 2.00.294 (aborts half way through) nor will it download
Disciples II (gives http error -8 after downloading the xml file). I then downloaded SDCentral from Stardock (v.2.00.293) and am currently running that again.

I am by now 395 MB into downloading Disciples II. I have developed this workaround which seems to work for now:
download a goodly chunk of data, then hit the cancel button at the top of SDCentral. Make a backup copy of the data file in the /sdcentral/temp directory
(dc2dp.sdc) then resume the download. This has already saved my bacon once, in the middle of all that upgrade fuddle, because SDCentral tried to restart the download; from scratch -- I cancelled, copied the backup data file into the temp directory and the next time it resumed properly.

I do not really understand why SDCentral's download speed should be so slow. I have no problem getting 67 KB/s off Stardock's download page, but SDCentral will not go over that 14-16 KB/s
Reply #39 Top
Peter:
Glad to hear that you have found a way around the Download speed issue. In any case, there will be a new version released today or tomorrow that should solve many of the issues, including: Pause and Resume, Stability Issues, and a few other minor bugs.

Cactoblasta:
SDC should be much more stable with this new release. Please give that a shot when it comes out either today or tomorrow.