So here we are TWO patches on from the one which BROKE my game and causes it to continually give me the "failed to Download Data" file error and then CTD's when trying to launch the game and still we have NO FIX for this? only a temporary workaround.
Seriously? Is noone at Stardock even looking into this issue? I know im not the only one who has the problem as I've seen the posts, not to mention another poster provided me the temporary workaround.
As much as I loved Gal Civ 1 and 2 I can't help but feel there is a whol different level of acceptable "standard" being allowed for an actual retail game when it comes to Elemental.
As a consumer promise of a free expansion or not I feel I have been MORE THAN considerate and patient with this game and its developers and still MANY months on all I have to show for it is an electronic paperweight that doesnt even launch anymore.
Not happy, not happy at all. these guys have now gone from a company I was happy to buy from sight unseen to one I would definitely read the reviews before purchasing from in future.
These are beta patches. Unofficial releases. You have yourself chosen in Impulse to "show unreleased versions". They are not supposed to be stable, they are supposed to let us help the development.
Its not a bug. Its fully intentional that elemental needs to be able to connect to Stardock in order to run the beta patches. If you have issues with this stick to the release patches. Most likely this is user error of some type.. your firewall blocking elemental etc.
Once the changes are finalized.. they will release 1.2 which being a full release patch will not require you to connect.
Come on...its TWO BETA patchs that are in open testing, if you have issues running betas, rather than complaining about beta patches run the release version. The Official release version as of now is 1.11
The only time I ever receive that message is when I need to update Impulse. As soon as I do that, Elemental runs fine.
Perhaps SD should change the error message to read something like:
"Wow this is embarassing. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you must be a friggin moron. Why don't you first try connecting to the internet with the latest Impulse and then pop off?"
hur hur.. except my computer is ALWAYS connected to the internet, and my Impulse is up to date.. but thanks for sharing
My Impulse is up to date it checks for updates every time is launches.
Its not a user error, check the forums the SD guys even provided a temporary workaround which I mentioned in my OP, which another poster orginaloly told me about. this is also a problem that is not affecting everyone so is definitely NOT by design. And no it isnt my firewall, my anti virus etc.. I have checked.
Beta patch or not your kind of missing the point as to the purpose of patches in ANY form, i.e to make things better and fix things that were nto working right before. And yet despite this we have new issues liek the one I am having issues with turning up and also old issues like the OOM issue that is affecting masses of people which are still in and have stayed in since release. Meanwhile SD's seems to be mainly focusing on features for the Fallen Enchantress.
Im all for new stuff, but FIX the old stuff first.
Ummm, firstly what people are trying to get at here is that the connection problem only exists in beta patches. Once we move out of beta it will no longer exist. Secondly the workaround just shuts off the need to connect in betas, if you can't connect it is still probably a firewall or internet problem. Can you connect to impulse normally using Elemental?
Secondly, OOM issues are indeed a problem and SD recognizes this. They have stated multiplt times that the purpose of 1.2 is to fix those issues. I doubt they could be doing much more then they already are as the entire team is bascially dedicated to fixing OOM issues right now....
It may be that the auto-login is failing. Two common causes of this are stale data stored in the registry (like if you changed your password or username) or if you purchased Elemental using a different e-mail address than the one currently associated with your Impulse account.
To determine the problem, please try this:
1) Create a shortcut to Elemental.exe
2) Right click on the shortcut and choose properties.
3) Click in the target field and hit END, then space.
4) Type /logxml then hit OK
This should cause files to appear in C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic\ImpulseReactor. When you're done with the debugging, you'll want to turn this back off to avoid any possible performance hit from the files being written to the hard drive.
Look for files beginning with CVPLoginResponse. Open the file. If the ResponseMessage is not Success, the autologin is failing so it can't download the data files.
If the error is because the password is incorrect, (say perhaps because you changed your password) you can try overriding the values it's pulling from the registry by adding the command line parameters /username <username> and /password <password>, replacing the text in <> with your actual username and password. This will not save the values to the registry if they are succesful, but you can pull up the login dialog in game by hitting shift + Tab and then clicking on the settings tab.
If the error message is that you don't have access to this title, your Elemental serial is not associated with the account whose credentials are stored in the registry, and you will need to contact support. (This can happen if you bought Elemental using an e-mail not associated with your Impulse account.)
If the error message is something else or you need further help, please zip and e-mail the xml log files to me at carielf at stardock.com .
Hi Neo,
Try checking the thing between the chair and the keyboard.... hehe. Just kidding with you Neo. Computers should just work every time we use them...that's why I hate computers.
I can connect o impulse just fine, what I can't do is connect from Elemental as elemental crashes before it ever gets to the title screen in order to alt+tab to get to the log in. As n launch before the main menu during the dragon load screen I get the "failed to download data file" error I mentioned in my OP and then it closes the game to desktop.
The only way to play elemental at all right now is as I said via the temporary workaround in the shortcut, which is essentially playing it offline, and even then the infamous OOM error occures after a few dozen turns..
from a stability point elemental is in a real bad way right now.
done
done, clicked apply then ok but I assume that is what you meant.
nope, no such luck it didn't cause any file by that name or similar to appear in my Impulse\Elemental\ImpulseReactor directory. It couldn't put it in my stardock\impulse folder folder as I have elemental installed on a different drive to impulse itself.
I should note my login and password havent been changed and I still have the same email as I bought this with so that cant be it, also all my other Stardock games work just fine, Gal Civ2, Space Rangers, sins of a Solar Empire etc.. and Elemental DID work fine until the last 3 beta patches.
It has me stumped.
Did it create any xml files? You're sure you looked at the ProgramData folder? It's a hidden folder. Or if you're on XP, it's C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic\ImpulseReactor
Please send me the log files if it's actually creating them.
The shortcut didnt create any file by the name you indicated?
There are no xml files in the elemental\Impulse Reactor folder, as I say Elemental itself on my machine is actually installed on a different drive to Impulse itself, but I've checked both the game directory and Stardock\impulse directory and there are no files with the name CVPloginresponse. I've even done a file search across all my system and its drives no such file name exists on my machine.
And I have vista (64bit) as my OS
its due to your firewall blocking it. Elemental and impulse are 2 DIFFERENT programs as far as your firewall is concerned. Allowing Impulse doesn't magically make a firewall exception for elemental and vice versa. Also if your windows firewall is active as well as a 3rd party firewall you'll have to make exceptions on both. You don't have to Alt+tab to log in.. it simply attempts to connect when you start it up, your firewall says no.. so it tells you it cannot connect. I've gone through this with 15 diff people every beta patch... and its always the same thing. (including myself the first time i ran into the issue. When I update elemental its considered a new EXE so I have to reapply firewall settings with every update)
So i would suggest double checking your firewall settings in relation to elemental(not impulse).
Nope its not my firewall as I've already said I already checked, it has been on my exceptions list since it was installed and the game worked PERFECTLY fine (despite the OOM crashes everyone gets atm) until 3 beta patches back, now it won't launch at all except via the offline workaround shortcut the SD folks have already provided other who are having the same problem.
I repeat this is DEFINITELY not a firewall issue.
It doesn't make a difference what drive Elemental is installed on. I'm asking you to look in you program data folder, which is a system folder on the same directory as windows is installed. If you can't see it on that drive, it's because it's hidden. Searches also exclude system and hidden folders by default. Also, once you are in the proper directory, check to make sure that the folder is not read only. It's not supposed to be, but sometimes Windows does odd things. If you want a quicker response than on these forums, zip up all the log xml files and e-mail them to me at carielf at stardock.com
lol no i'm not that dense. I am saying that when I ran the shortcut with the extension carielf asked me to add no log files were created in the indicated folder of the name that was given AFTEr running said shortcut which launched the game and crashed out at the same point.
I realise it makes no difference I was merely pointing out I could not look in the exact location you indicated because my game isnt installed in that location.
I have looking in the folder you indicated many times now and have ensured the folder is not read only (and all sub folders) and I am saying that even after creating a new shortcut for the game and adding the /logxml tagline you indicated and running the game to the failed launch i have been getting, that NO such file by the indicated name of CVPLoginResponse exists in the Impulse Reactor folder you indicate, or indeed ANYWHERE within the whole Elemental game directory and sub directories and I have manually checked by eye every folder within it.
So as much as I would love nothing more than to send you an email with the requested log xml file you are asking for so i can get this "game" working again I am unable to comply because it does NOT exist.
I have also since uninstalled and reinstalled the game and tried the shortcut you indicated again and searched AGAIN and still no such log file by the name you have asked exists anywhere in the elemental game directory and sub directories including the stated impulse reactor directory again.
On a side note, I recieved this error several times last night - It was timing out on trying to connect to the internet because I had too many background processes running. Even though my computer was running fine (Quad core, radeon 5850, etc) for some reason Elemental lagged because of everything I had running. Nothing that I was running at the time was even touching the internet or the drive on which it was installed either.
I was extracting a 14gb file on my storage drive, so the only thing it was utilizing was a bit of ram and processing power. I was able to play Mass Effect 1/2 while it was extracting but not Elemental because it could not download the file.
So I'm wondering if maybe instead of having to do with the connection itself it has something to do with the file or the file location. Try making a restore point and then going to both your MyDocuments impulse/elemental directories and your Program Files impulse/elemental directories, and using administrative access make them fully read only and affect child objects, then uncheck it so that it should make all of them non-read only (Even though I believe they should be in the first place, I know sometimes Windows Vista/7 are touchy about installed programs and their program folder access capabilities). I've had incidents where I've saved files in a program folder and even though I could see it from the program, as soon as I closed out Windows deleted the file without asking or telling me, or even putting it in the recycle bin.
It may be doing the same thing. Impulse may be downloading the file, then when Elemental tries to access it, Windows has already wiped it. Once that's done to both sets of folders, try again. If that doesn't work then it's something to do with the file getting onto your computer, not the final source.
I think what Cari is trying to say here, is that no matter where you installed the game, you WILL have that directory on the C drive. It's a hidden windows directory, it doesnt change locations. I have Elemental installed on a different drive as well, but I still have that directory on my C drive.
I have Stardock installed on my C:\ and I have Elemental itself in the impulse directory on my D:\ I have searched both with read only unchecked in order to see all hidden files and folders and what Carielf is asking for is just not there in either location. There are no other locations on my drives that I know of that have ANY directories related to stardock or impulse besides the other SD games I own and there is no reason the logs from elemental would be turning up in those games directories.
I don't know what the issue is, why im not getting the logs and why they aren't turning up in the location carielf says they should, all I know si they aren't.
All I do know is the game worked perfectly fine and all my other SD games STILL work perfectly fine and that elemental only stopped working three beta patches ago at which point it would no longer launch. Nothing has changed my end, no password changed etc.. nothing that would cause any obvious issue. Which to me says the problem lies in the patches themselves.
Now obviously they could narrow it down more specifically with the logs that tell them the error but as I'm not getting those logs for whatever reason im kinda stuck. The only way i can use the game atm is offline via the shortcut workaround they posted for others with this problem elsewhere on these forums as im not the only person having this problem, so they MUST have some diea as to what is causing it to have provided the temporary workaround.
Yank out the entire installation and reinstall with 1.1 non beta.
alternatively try reinstalling your C++ runtime library, I had to do that for some odd reason to get my other games to work after installing Elemental. Could have been some previous file corruption that I did not notice before, but all I know is that it got my games to work.
The location she wants you to look at is not related to where Elemental nor Impulse are installed.
Try this:
[start button] -> [Run] -> (then type) C:\ProgramData
(you can replace the C: with whatever drive windows is installed to on your PC, most people have it set to C).
Anyway, there should be a "Stardock" folder in that directory, and an "Elemental - War of Magic" subfolder within.
This is where CariElf is asking you to look for logs at. And from the looks of your responses, not where you have been looking.
Hope that helps.
~C
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