Yes,this stupid error...I dowloaded the file by following the link in the faq, but the error kept appearing. I just bypassed the launcher and it worked. I never use the launcher for playing amyway.
You guys might want to check the official help for the manifest error. Try to download the manifest yourself and place it in the folder pointed out in the help: WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I RECEIVE A "PATCHM
Ignore the error, close the launcher, and start the game using eso.exe from whichever folder eso is installed to. (Better yet, put a shortcut to eso.exe on your desktop).
You could try to find such a sequence in the more recent log files and look for errors that would indicate connection problems. You could also try to ping the hosts tracker.snxd.com and live.patcher.e