ESO Launcher Crashes on Update 9/04/2018

Ainle

@Trelfar You are a lifesaver my friend. I really appreciate you taking the time to post this fix on here so that the less knowledgeable can play too lol.

Lifendason

Well, not sure how, but I had two version of ESO on my HD. I renamed the one and then used the instruction Trelfar gives and its downloading. Thanks Trelfar for the help.

Rasdro

Yeah having this issue as of 3/7/19 >_>

Vakhtang

Still happening for my wife who is unable to get any resolution.

What worked on my machine won't work on hers.

She hasn't been able to log in since Zenimax pushed the latest patch.

And Zenimax is completely refusing to take responsibility for, program a fix, or offer fluffy kind words even to make up for the fact that they make a game that rewards logging in, every single day, and then doesn't give a flip when someone can't.

Is anyone awake over there???

itsfatbass

It's BACKKKKKK!!!! Todays patch REFUSES to download on my Mediacom cable internet. Turning on my VPN results in INSTANT success. This issue had no resurfaced for many months and randomly today it is back. This is 100% on ZOS end, confirmed by cable company multiple times that nothing is being blocked on their end.

Andreakos

Solved

Sicsoo

you should sticky this thread. there are plenty of ppl dealing with this problem just every patch, is better if they just come here, download the right files and don't even start the launcher. because we know it's been months that it doesn't work and it won't work the next months either.

chaz

Hello,


So haven't you guys fixed this issue yet?

I still need to use windscribe (((VPN))) in order to download patches.


I live in the Hawaiian Islands. I'm really surprised this is still an issue.

Kharnsjockstrap

Welp can't even find the missing file because notepad hangs every time I try to open the log. I have two days left of ESO plus and was going to resub but I will no longer do so. My advice to Zenimax is this issue should be priority one for resolution at this point going forward as its going to do nothing but cost you guys customers. There is absolutely no reason that I should need to download, and possibly pay for, third party software just to be able to download an update from your own "out of the box" launcher.

If the issue is truly with the ISP's then *** is lying which certainly isnt impossible. Zenimax if you can prove the ISP's are blocking your files and there is no good reason to be doing so then you need to bring legal action against them as its pretty much the only way you will get them to talk to you.

Trelfar

Kharnsjockstrap wrote: »

Welp can't even find the missing file because notepad hangs every time I try to open the log.

Two things to try:

1. Delete the host.developer.log and start the launcher again, then kill it using Task Manager quickly enough that the log doesn't become giant.
2. Use Notepad++ to open the file

Trelfar

OK, today I tried something a little different and it worked perfectly for me, so I encourage you to give it a try and I'll be very interested to see if this works for others.

The whole time I've been working around this problem by downloading manually it's been bugging me that using a VPN also works around the issue. I figure that using a VPN means it can't find an ISP hosted mirror that breaks the download, so it pulls from the OG live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com, which works. Then it occurred to me: what if I cut off access to the ISP mirror?

So I did.

Now, bear with me because there are a few steps here and it may well be stuff you're not familiar with, but I've included step-by-step screenshots and and you should only have to do it once (hopefully).



1. First you need to know what the IP address of your ISP's awful mirror is. This part is straightforward: you just look in your host.developer.log and you'll see it a thousand times right after the http://

http://151.205.4.95:80/data/046f7c60b3945d28/live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_273to275/depot_273to275.z01

This IP will probably be different for you so DO NOT just use the one I found in my log (151.205.4.95). You must use the IP address from your own log in the steps below (specifically step 8).

2. Now we're going to cut the ESO launcher off from this IP address forever. Go to the Start Menu and type firewall with. This should bring up a search result for Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security. Click it.



3. You may never have seen this program before, but's it's about to become your BFF. Right-click on Outbound Rules and click New Rule...



4. Click Custom, then Next



5. Click This program path then Browse to locate your Bethesda.net_Launcher.exe (It will probably not be the same location as mine because I have mine installed on a second HD.)



6. Just click Next on the Protocols and Ports page.



7. In the second half of the Scope page, select These IP addresses and then click Add...



8. Copy & paste the IP address from your log file (NOT THE ONE FROM THIS EXAMPLE unless they really are the same) and click OK.



9. Once you are back on the Scope page, click Next, then make sure Block the connection is selected on the Action page and click Next again.



10. Just click Next on the Profile page.



11. Lastly, give your firewall rule a friendly name and click Finish



12. Delete your host.developer.log, load the launcher, and enjoy your patching.


So to recap, we blocked the launcher (and only the launcher, nothing else on your PC will be blocked) from accessing its 'preferred' download site hosted by your ISP, which forces it to download from somewhere else. Which means it knows how to do that already if it can't access the mirror. So my question to ZOS devs is WHY CAN'T THE LAUNCHER DO THAT WHEN THE DOWNLOAD FAILS instead of just filling the log until it crashes?

Vancali

Andreaa wrote: »

Trelfar wrote: »

OK, here we go again (3/4) without VPN:

1. Kill the launcher from Task Manager once it hangs
2. Open up the host.developer.log from the Launcher folder and find the URL that is logged with failures: http://151.205.4.93/data/004b016d41e19ef1/live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_271to273/depot_271to273.z01
3. Paste that link into Chrome and download it.
4. Open the The Elder Scrolls Online\depot\patchdata.depot folder and delete the bad partial download of depot_271to273.z01. Replace it with the Chrome-downloaded depot_271to273.z01 file.
5. Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.
6. Check host.developer.log again and find the next URL that failed: http://151.205.4.95:80/data/064beb717ca87f4a/live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/vo_en/vo_en_267to269/vo_en_267to269.z01
7. Download it in Chrome and move it to The Elder Scrolls Online\vo_en\patchdata.vo_en folder. Delete the bad partial download of vo_en_267to269.z01
8. Restart the launcher and watch it finish patching.

(If you get stuck at any point, delete the host.developer.log - if it gets too large it will hang the launcher even when it has all the valid download data it needs.)

Here we go again !

Today missing file is this
http://151.99.111.197/data/056dc3955c84adba/live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_273to275/depot_273to275.z01


This is me right now

Damn, thanks for this! Was getting frustrated with these patches the past few weeks and this worked like a charm! Just be sure to copy and paste only to the ".z01" in the log. The rest of it after it isn't the link.

Nadoregis

I left a long support ticket a few weeks ago offering to help fix this. I am a fairly well educated network engineer and while YES Verizon and other ISPs are in-fact returning some of the CDN traffic from addresses that are different than what the client is expecting, all of the traffic that is sent to their analytic servers that shows this problem exists all fails. They weren't even interested in fixing that, they told me to submit a game feature request through the in-game support system.... Are we a joke to you Zeni???

I would think you might be interested that your own analytics, the only way you could possibly know how many users are affected by this are busted. They all return:

GET /products/analytics/WebGetError?launcherType%3Dpublic%5ClauncherBranch%3Dlive%5Cerrortype%3D3%5Cerrorcode%3D956%5Curl%3Dhttp://151.205.0.23:80/data/04e3f6b57643816c/live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_268to269/depot_268to269.z01%5Cremoteaddress%3D151.205.0.23:80 HTTP/1.1
Cache-Control: no-cache
Connection: Keep-Alive
Pragma: no-cache
Accept: */*
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.11; Windows NT 6.2.9200.0; en-US)
Host: analytics.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Apache
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Length: 16
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2019 21:55:33 GMT
Connection: keep-alive

File not found."

File not found." your endpoint is clearly busted.

In a world where host.developer.log STILL GROWS to the 100's of mb filled with repetitive and useless logs, I'm sorry Zeni, but your launcher code needs some work. And it's clear that you wont even fix that little, tiny thing, that loads up our hard drives.

Please just Un-whitelist your patching server IP, maybe try hosting the depot files the same way you do your ads for the crown store, they always load fine, without issue. Reach out to akamai, I'lm sure they'd be happy to help. Dumping it on the ISPs and hoping their engineers will re-design their backbone infrastructure for you is childish and un-professional.

Yes I also realize you outsource your patcher to https://www.solidstatenetworks.com/, hold them accountable! please stop making us beg to play this game!

Vakhtang

This is B.S..

I was running a Darkbrother quest only yesterday. Got my event ticket.

My wife, using a 3rd VPN, managed to log in too.

Today, must be another patch, and I can't get past the launcher freezing up on me.

Looks like I need a 3rd party VPN just to patch this $)(%* game?

Who else requires this?

We're $#)(%r* paying VIP customers. We just bought the DLC. Both of us.

Obviously Zenimax has programmers.

FIX THE LAUNCHER CODE ALREADY!!

peacenote

This issue resurfaced for me today. Used VPN to update the game. I've had a few updates where this wasn't necessary since everyone started seeing this in September but now the problem is back. Happy to give more details about my setup if it helps solve this for the community once and for all.

I used ExpressVPN.

Modki

Vakhtang wrote: »

FIX THE LAUNCHER CODE ALREADY!!

34287562455266th

Sureshawt

ESO makes history by becoming the only MMO to require a VPN to patch.

I don't think they plan to fix this as it requires skill to patch their game so now it is a feature. Sound familiar?

Vakhtang

Sureshawt wrote: »

ESO makes history by becoming the only MMO to require a VPN to patch.

I don't think they plan to fix this as it requires skill to patch their game so now it is a feature. Sound familiar?

Maybe they can put some of their artists to work on this. (They're awful good. If the programmers aren't up to snuff, let somebody with some talent try.)

Vakhtang

Trelfar wrote: »

OK, today I tried something a little different and it worked perfectly for me, so I encourage you to give it a try and I'll be very interested to see if this works for others....So my question to ZOS devs is WHY CAN'T THE LAUNCHER DO THAT WHEN THE DOWNLOAD FAILS instead of just filling the log until it crashes?

Worked for me. Thanks

Medivh50

I see that this is still an issue. I cannot return to a game and pay a sub if this kind of issue persists. Love ESO, my favorite MMORPG but this is completely unacceptable. As they continue to release content updates.

Armyoftronb14a_ESO

Hello, I am doing the workaround from Trelfar where I download the files manually from the URL bar...the firewall fix did not work for me. However with today's patch I get something wierd from http://68.106.66.71:80/data/01926e591057430c/live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/vo_en/vo_en_271to272/vo_en_271to272.z01

Instead of download it like the other files, it opens a new webpage of total gibberish.




what am I doing wrong here? I already did this successfully to reinstall the game about 3 days ago. Now the same process is not working. I do include the I.P. addess in the URL but as you see...for some reason on this particular file it is cutting it out.

Trelfar

Armyoftronb14a_ESO wrote: »

what am I doing wrong here? I already did this successfully to reinstall the game about 3 days ago. Now the same process is not working.

Try a different browser. What you are seeing is the text representation of the start of a zip file - for some reason the browser is trying to render it instead of downloading it to disk. I clicked the link you posted in Chrome and it downloaded a file as expected.

Armyoftronb14a_ESO

Thank you. Firefox allowed the normal zo1 files, but not the VO zo1 files.

something to note, when I reinstalled the game form scratch, I used firefox exclusively to dl ALL the files, but didn't work this time for the file I listed. Chrome did.

dirkhed

Trelfar wrote: »

OK, today I tried something a little different and it worked perfectly for me, so I encourage you to give it a try and I'll be very interested to see if this works for others.

Finally! Something that works besides the VPN fix I've been using for the last 6 months!

I blocked the "bad" address on my router, since my girlfriend and I are *both* affected by this at my house. I saw a little blip about a GET error to the bad IP address, and a little pause, and then *poof* the rest of the patch downloaded and I was in business.

In my case, the bad address was 74.84.109.242, which the host.developer.log clearly complained about with lots of "WebGet Error" messages and "Hostname not found in whitelist (74.84.109.242)" messages. Mediacom is my ISP, and it sure looks like Mediacom owns that IP address.

Trelfar

I'm glad the firewall workaround is working for others too. I can confirm that after implementing it last week, this week's patch came down for me with zero intervention needed.

I've expanded the instructions slightly and published them as a public guide on the Steam community. The link is here and also in my signature:

GUIDE: Stop the ESO Launcher from hanging every time there is an update
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1680900985

Good luck everyone!

Trelfar

dirkhed wrote: »

I blocked the "bad" address on my router, since my girlfriend and I are *both* affected by this at my house. I saw a little blip about a GET error to the bad IP address, and a little pause, and then *poof* the rest of the patch downloaded and I was in business.

Blocking it on your router will definitely work, but one thing to remember is that the IP will be blocked for any application, not just the launcher. Potentially, other websites or apps that use the same content delivery network (Akamai) could be affected. It's entirely possible you will never notice any problems, but I chose to block via Windows Firewall because it has the ability to block an IP for an individual program.

dirkhed

I would have blocked the IP on more of an application layer, but I am one of those crazy people running ESO through Steam using Proton on Linux, and I honestly did not want to wade that far into it. Plus, we know that the CDN is going to be fixed up any second now, right?

Nyaera

The network guys for this game are simply incompetent. I can't think of a different explanation. Some of the support folks have been nice, but they have no power to hire new programmers. VPN works, but just downloading individual update files without a VPN works as well (if you know where to put them). It must not be affecting enough people to force the company to seek some knowledgeable help.

fjord55b14_ESO

Still having this issue :DDDD wtf is the problem here

Trelfar

Nyaera wrote: »

It must not be affecting enough people to force the company to seek some knowledgeable help.

The tragedy is that ZOS don't even really know how many people it's affecting because, as @Nadoregis has found, the analytics that would tell them are broken.