ESO Launcher Crashes on Update 9/04/2018

hobbes2424_ESO · February 2019

So I left this game for a few months and resubscribed to WoW since I just got fed up with having to deal with the launcher crashing every time I wanted to play. I decided to quit WoW again and try to see if they fixed this game's launcher yet. They still haven't. We're nearing the 6 month gap of no reply from Zenimax I believe? I think if they would just stop allowing the launcher to use port 80, or at least allowed us to set which port it would use, this problem would be non-existent. I'm gonna look into port forwarding this executable since I have no other real option. I really don't want to have to dig through the log files to find the URL of the file it's failing to download, rinse, repeat. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME this game updates. It's not worth logging in to just be met with a game that won't even update.

Devs, please, if anyone from Zenimax is actually reading this.

Can you explain?

Maximilian · February 2019

pintowrench_ESO wrote: »

Okay so hopefully someone from Zenimax is reading this, because it seems C O X seems to be a source of this issue.

They have more clout than a lowly customer would I think.

FYI, FiOs isn't working either

CeaseSphire · February 2019

I'm still having issues updating my game. It simply shuts down once it reaches ten percent. I'd love to renew my ESO plus, buy the latest chapter and more crowns but that's not going to happen until this issue gets fixed.

justsmurfitall · February 2019

So I’m doing as @Trelfar suggested. I DL the file from the direct link in game consultant using Chrome. When DL is done, I click it the set it to open through the launcher. It then DL and installs, then moves to the next update and stalls again. Guess I’m doing this as many times as it takes.

justsmurfitall · February 2019

After I got to the depot patches it was then English voiceover patch and after that the game is finally working. Granted, I had to switch to my husbands pc which is higher power, but I am happy again. 😃

justsmurfitall · February 2019

Cue the computer suddenly crashing and restarting while creating a character. Please let this be a fluke.

justsmurfitall · February 2019

Not a fluke @ZOS_GinaBruno I got a workaround to actually work but not the game crashes the computer. All minimum requirements are met and/or exceeded.

Allen1982 · February 2019

I have the same problem a launcher that freezes.I have been dealing with this problem since 2018 of September or October patch been a while can't really remember to be honest and not have played the game since. I am told to try this does not work or try this does not work, so what works who knows. Sorry I am not helpful but this is just completely frustrating when you have put almost 4000 hours in to a game and can't play anymore because of a launcher that keeps freezing and then disappears.

Allen1982 · February 2019

This happens all the time and I can't do anything to fix it when it freeze like this. Sometimes it even show download stalled in the Launcher. This has been going on for like 6 months now and I can not play my game! Here you don't even see a launcher patch bar it is gone and got to 1% WOW!

hobbes2424_ESO · February 2019

Zenimax, please respond.

Crimsonorion · February 2019

Zenimax doesn't give a f^#! about this issue. It affect a small group and doesn't hurt the flow of money enough to matter. If you need a workaround a few have been listed. I'm done trying to get Zenimax to respond to this, they don't care. They DO NOT CARE

nyguspleb17_ESO · February 2019

atm im getting blue screen plus memory dump after i try log on my toon

BitterClinger · February 2019

Another update, another poke in the eye. I'm done. I'm uninstalling until ESO no longer requires third party software for normal operation.

Fenice19 · February 2019

catastrofic issue. i'm using Windscribe free vpn with 10 gigs free for upgrades every month the other updades used 1 or 2 gigs max.
now with this upgrade in about 55 sec download the total amount of gigs is reduced from 10 gigs to 1.2 gigs remaining is it impossible. how big is this update ?

WhisperLFE · February 2019

Yep, still happening, and still annoying. Windscribe is a great fix...unless the patch/update is 20+ gb. Doesn't work so well then. Back to manually downloading. Thanks, ZOS.

Trelfar · February 2019

Today's patch steps (2/25) without VPN:

Kill the launcher from Task Manager once it hangs
Open up the host.developer.log from the Launcher folder and find the URL that is repeated 49,183 times in the log (not an exaggeration, that is the actual count for me). In this case it is http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_269to271/depot_269to271.z01
Paste that link into Chrome and download it.
Open the The Elder Scrolls Online\depot\patchdata.depot folder and delete the bad partial download of depot_269to271.z01. Replace it with the Chrome-downloaded depot_269to271.z01 file.
Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.
Check host.developer.log again and find the next URL that failed: http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_269to271/depot_269to271.z02
Download it in Chrome and move it to patchdata.depot as per the first file. Delete the bad partial download of depot_269to271.z02
Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.
Check host.developer.log again and find the next URL that failed: http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/vo_en/vo_en_265to267/vo_en_265to267.z01
Download it in Chrome and move it to The Elder Scrolls Online\vo_en\patchdata.vo_en. Delete the bad partial download of vo_en_265to267.z01
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.)

@ZOS_GinaBruno, I have a Wireshark trace of my network activity during the failed download if you can get someone in the Launcher dev team interested. For the love of Stendarr, I'm less than an hour's drive from ZOS HQ, they can come to my house and see if first hand if they want.

Sicsoo · February 2019

1 week ago i tried reinstalling the game and got this problem and i didn't give care about downloading stuff nor opening my ports on the router (i can give a *** about ESO if i need to download 60gb using a text log). today i launched the launcer again and everything looks fine. maybe my "ISP" fixed it... yeah they sure were aware of my problems with ESO.

Sureshawt · February 2019

Coming up on six months since this problem was reported and still no fix.

Once again the ONLY game I've ever played or currently play that I can't regularly update without a VPN. Clearly must be an ISP issue ....LOL!

Andreakos · February 2019

Solved

Andreakos · February 2019

Solved

WhisperLFE · February 2019

If this is truly an ISP problem, has anyone had success contacting their ISP about it to see if any changes can be made, and what those changes would need to be?

rasthedoctor · February 2019

Trelfar wrote: »

Today's patch steps (2/25) without VPN:
Kill the launcher from Task Manager once it hangs

Open up the host.developer.log from the Launcher folder and find the URL that is repeated 49,183 times in the log (not an exaggeration, that is the actual count for me). In this case it is http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_269to271/depot_269to271.z01

Paste that link into Chrome and download it.

Open the The Elder Scrolls Online\depot\patchdata.depot folder and delete the bad partial download of depot_269to271.z01. Replace it with the Chrome-downloaded depot_269to271.z01 file.

Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.

Check host.developer.log again and find the next URL that failed: http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_269to271/depot_269to271.z02

Download it in Chrome and move it to patchdata.depot as per the first file. Delete the bad partial download of depot_269to271.z02

Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.

Check host.developer.log again and find the next URL that failed: http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/vo_en/vo_en_265to267/vo_en_265to267.z01

Download it in Chrome and move it to The Elder Scrolls Online\vo_en\patchdata.vo_en. Delete the bad partial download of vo_en_265to267.z01

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.)

@ZOS_GinaBruno, I have a Wireshark trace of my network activity during the failed download if you can get someone in the Launcher dev team interested. For the love of Stendarr, I'm less than an hour's drive from ZOS HQ, they can come to my house and see if first hand if they want.

What if I can't find the Launcher folder..? Doesn't seem to exist even after searching through hidden files and whatnot.
Edit: I think I figured it out. I uninstalled everything and hadn't run a repair yet, so no log had been created. Hopefully running the repair will create it
Edit Edit: Nope, didn't work

Edit Edit Edit: aha! https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/25196/~/how-do-i-find-my-host.developer-file?

justsmurfitall · February 2019

Andreaa wrote: »

It's 2 days already i've been trying to update the game, it always stops, freeze and then close itself.
I have the Steam version of the game, if i knew it was going like this i would've never bought the game, there's always an issue.

I even tried to uninstall and downloaded the game again, and still doesn't works.

As Steam users, we will never get anywhere with ZOS.

Junkriid · March 2019

Trelfar wrote: »

Today's patch steps (2/25) without VPN:
Kill the launcher from Task Manager once it hangs

Open up the host.developer.log from the Launcher folder and find the URL that is repeated 49,183 times in the log (not an exaggeration, that is the actual count for me). In this case it is http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_269to271/depot_269to271.z01

Paste that link into Chrome and download it.

Open the The Elder Scrolls Online\depot\patchdata.depot folder and delete the bad partial download of depot_269to271.z01. Replace it with the Chrome-downloaded depot_269to271.z01 file.

Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.

Check host.developer.log again and find the next URL that failed: http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/depot/depot_269to271/depot_269to271.z02

Download it in Chrome and move it to patchdata.depot as per the first file. Delete the bad partial download of depot_269to271.z02

Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.

Check host.developer.log again and find the next URL that failed: http://live.patcher.elderscrollsonline.com/products/eso/874DCDCF-C40C-4956-92FE-E39B8DC4764E/vo_en/vo_en_265to267/vo_en_265to267.z01

Download it in Chrome and move it to The Elder Scrolls Online\vo_en\patchdata.vo_en. Delete the bad partial download of vo_en_265to267.z01

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.)

@ZOS_GinaBruno, I have a Wireshark trace of my network activity during the failed download if you can get someone in the Launcher dev team interested. For the love of Stendarr, I'm less than an hour's drive from ZOS HQ, they can come to my house and see if first hand if they want.

Hi, thank you for the response, happy to see that some people got the problem fixed this way. Do you have any suggestion if it doesn't work for me? And when I try to reinstall the game, the launcher freezes after few seconds?
It's ridicolous that players must help players because of the lack of information, competence, interest from the devs. SIX MONTHS! I play since may 2015 ffs and it always worked until now! Wtf is wrong with Bethesda-Zos? First, the launcher broken and them not freaking caring about it, then fallout 76 and same behavior from the devs.. Are we living inside a nightmare where the products we buy are meant to not work anymore?

Trelfar · March 2019

WhisperLFE wrote: »

If this is truly an ISP problem, has anyone had success contacting their ISP about it to see if any changes can be made, and what those changes would need to be?

It's not - at least not in the way ZOS have implied. The response many users have got, and the official response on this thread is 'your ISP is blocking the patch files'. If that were true, downloading the failed files using a web browser wouldn't work. It does. I can also see both from examining the failed downloads and from a Wireshark trace that the launcher does begin to download the files correctly, but it wigs out after a few hundred kB and starts writing null data to the disk. If the ISP was blocking the file, the launcher wouldn't even be able to get started. Then it gets stuck in a infinite loop and generates log files that are 100s of GB in size if you don't stop it. For support to come back and blame it on the ISP without acknowledging there is clearly something wrong with the launcher is either lazy, insulting, or both.

But if the ISP wasn't a factor at all, using a VPN would have no effect either, yet clearly it does. My money is on it having something to do with how the CDN redirects the launcher to download from a mirror on your own ISPs network (which the CDN does to reduce peering costs). The biggest question in my mind is why the problem is not widespread given that it's happening to customers on multiple major providers such as ***, Spectrum, and FiOS. I don't claim to have all the answers, I just know there's more to it than what we've been told by ZOS.

Andreaa wrote: »

I am amazed as how a single person managed to fix what BROKEmax cannot do...

Thank you very much again !

My patching steps are based on those posted by a couple of other users back in September when this all started, so I can't take all the credit. But as long as I'm playing I will endeavor to post my patch steps so that others like yourself have a slightly easier time of things.

WeaselGod · March 2019

WhisperLFE wrote: »

If this is truly an ISP problem, has anyone had success contacting their ISP about it to see if any changes can be made, and what those changes would need to be?

I've tried contacting mine twice while leaving the launcher open as it freezes in hopes that it would pop up on whatever they're using to track whatever's being connected. Both times they came up with nothing and told me it has nothing to do with them.

Lifendason · March 2019

Okay having the same issue, cannot get past 9 or 10%. I tried the steps above on downloading from the link in the host file, but the .z02 file I do not see.

Any fixes for this cause it's been an ongoing issue now.

Andreakos · March 2019

Solved

tbonewatson_ESO · March 2019

Had no problems downloading the game in 2018, quit and then tried to download the game last month. Didn't work, found out this is a big issue. So I downloaded the game successfully last week without any issues and without a VPN, but suddenly after this patch I am back to the same problem.

What the heck is with this?

Trelfar · March 2019

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

Kill the launcher from Task Manager once it hangs
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
Paste that link into Chrome and download it.
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.
Restart the launcher and wait for it to hang again.
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
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
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.)