Truly horrible download times

[Kraggy]

I'm trying to patch two PCs each connected to a different ISP and both are showing 4% after an hour, this is absurd because we're in the small hours JP time and only early evening NA, I've never seen anything like this horrendously slow patching before and I always do it at this sort of time of day.

Tracerts on both show nothing abnormal, ie. times of 250-300 for the JP hops are standard, clearly the problem is actually on SE's patch server.

[bungiefanNA]

The problem is that nearly EVERYONE tried to start the patch as soon as it was available. The files contained in the patch are available in a ZIP from the first people to complete the download. Takes 5 minutes to download, instead of the 10+ hours the server says because its upload capacity is maxed out between thousands of people. The first few months after JP and NA release, patch days used to be like this. The bottleneck is the update server, it can only handle so many people at once. Swarming the update by providing additional download sources will reduce the load for everyone.

BTW, you don't need to download on both PCs, you're actually hurting the problem, doubling your connectings to the server. DOwnload on one PC, and when it is done, copy the FFXI folder to the other PC, and then you will only have to check files, with no download needed.

[Kraggy]

I don't believe the servers can be seriously overloaded, when that happens POL-1160s and others abound. Also, the patches were available 12 hours ago so the initial rush is long gone.

Like I said, I've never seen it as bad as this, certainly for years, something changed SE's end, I'm sure of it.

As for patching one and copying .. I tried that several years ago, it failed totally and I ended up having to completely reinstall the second system, never again!

[tumz]

I never patch from the offical servers. It will take hours for just 100-200 MB patches. I download my patches from blue garter forums and tehkrizz.net/FFXI/downloads.php for old patches. Instead of taking hours it takes about 1-5 minutes to go through its checks.

[bungiefanNA]

I don't believe the servers can be seriously overloaded, when that happens POL-1160s and others abound. Also, the patches were available 12 hours ago so the initial rush is long gone.

Like I said, I've never seen it as bad as this, certainly for years, something changed SE's end, I'm sure of it.

As for patching one and copying .. I tried that several years ago, it failed totally and I ended up having to completely reinstall the second system, never again!


Copying my install over from my external drive backup is how I've always updated when I reinstall my OS or use it on another computer. It can't break the OS. The process is copy your Final Fantasy XI folder to an external drive, run the core game installer on the target computer for the new install, and then copy the Final Fantasy XI folder over it, and boom you have all expansions and an up-to-date install that just has to check all the files once. You don't replace PlayOnline Viewer's folder, just FFXI's. I've been doing it for almost 10 years on PC, and it has yet to fail for me. It has saved at least 5 friends that have started the game rom an 8+ hour patch on a fresh install.

[darkmoon]

I was at 99% then I get a fucking pol error and it timed out...10 hours down the drain and now I have to restart it completely.

Utter bullshit.

Why doesn't SE just have a folder we can download ourselves so this nonsense doesn't happen - PoL is the worst thing in this world.

[bungiefanNA]

If the download fails during downloading files, say at 1990/2000 files, and you restart it, it will still have to do the full file check, but when it gets to the downloading step, the file count will now say dowloading file 1/10, because you only had 10 files left undownloaded. Then when it gets to installing files, it will say installing file 1/2000. Their downloader has always supported resuimg the download where it was interrupted, as long as it was allowed to do teh full file check first.

That 10 hours isn't down the drain, but you do have an extra 20 minutes or so for the file check to happen.

[lllen]

12 hours and still only at 81% complete

[Kraggy]

The download ran from 17:00 last evening till 06:00 this morning, utterly dire.

[Kraggy]

Copying my install over from my external drive backup is how I've always updated when I reinstall my OS or use it on another computer. It can't break the OS.
I didn't say it broke the OS, I was referring to the FFXI installation on the second system being totally broken, it said it couldn't validate it (or something) and wouldn't run the game, so I had to vape it an re-install from scratch.

Also, your instructions clone one system to the other, I don't want that, my two systems are different (different settings, different accounts).

[Kraggy]

So, I just tried your suggestion bungiefanNA:

1) Save the USER folder from my FFXI folder (inside the Playonline folder) on PC1.
2) Delete the FFXI folder on PC1.
3) Copy the FFXI folder from PC2.
4) Delete the USER folder and copy back my original on PC1.

As far as I can see those are the steps you're saying should work ... I am getting a POL-1168 trying to connect to the game!

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID HAPPENED BEFORE and ended up my having to reinstall the whole damned game. :mad:

[bungiefanNA]

You can back up your settings to the server and then load them after the update.

You will get an error once while clicking the Play button, and then afterward, clicking it again will do a file check.