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-   -   Blu's Cataclysm Installation Guide & Common Fixes (https://www.wowinterface.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33934)

Bluspacecow 07-14-10 06:13 AM

Blu's Cataclysm Installation Guide & Common Fixes
 
Hi guys!

Don't know if any of you have noticed but I'm the guy that likes to write installation guides and FAQS on the various PTR's we've had. At least on wow interface that is :)

I've got quite a bit on my plate at the moment so I'm not sure when I will be able to sit down and whack up a proper grand ole super thread on installing the beta client , an FAQ on it , commons problems and solutions.

I haven't been around on beta since the beginning so I'm not sure what tech solutions actually work and what won't.

What I can offer you is a small quick guide , followed by a few observations based on what I did for my installation as well as a few tips for installing here and there. At least from the perspective of someone playing on a Mac.

First off once you get your key go to either us.battle.net or eu.battle.net login and go to "Add or Upgrade Game". Here you put in your beta code.

Once you do so you will have an extra "Box" under your games with a red Deathwing face going "Oh Hi". Click on that box (it may have WOW2(PTR) or WOW1(PTR) under it). This will take you to another page especially for the Cataclysm beta.

This is your account page for the Cataclysm beta. This is where you can download the client as well as copy a character over.

Secondly and this is very important (i'll even put it in bold).

Taking part in the beta requires a lot of patience especially in the installation stage. Installing the beta requires you download over 2.5 GB - 4 GBIsh of data (*). If you're not prepared at the outset to download that much data , have things crash on you and the possibility that you may have to redo some steps maybe beta is not for you.

I'm not being mean here I'm being realistic. There is a large amount of data to download and sometimes things can go wrong. Patience is a virtue:)

Ok back to the guidish :

Installing the client is a weeee bit complicated. If you've done other 3.x PTRs you should be able to muddle through just fine it's just that parts aren't immediately obvious

WOW_Cataclysm_Beta_enUS.zip is the first thing you download. Unzip it and you get a Downloader program with a blue Swirly logo. This kinda throw me for a loop at first as the PTRs didn't quote work this way.Personally I throw the zip file into a new folder "Cat Beta Installer" and ran everything from there.

Running the Downloader (either Downloader.app or Downloader.exe) it will ask you for a place to put the actually installer. For simplicty sake I just chose my "Cat Beta Installer". This will download some more installer files - a streaming installer to install 4.0.0.11927.

Streaming means it will be downloading and installing at the same time. There will be 2 bars - one showing you how much has been downloaded , the other showing how much you have installed so far. Now is the long wait for it to download around 2.2GB . The exact size of it can be found using a method I'll go into for the technically minded at the end of this post.

So you download and install that. What this does is install a base level of Cataclysm. Since there has been other builds pushed out to the beta as they work things out you will now need to download those as well. One by one by the Launcher looping again and again. So the installation process will repeat itself until it's at the latest build.

This is normal.

So you should now have a folder on your hard drive , in the Applications folder if on the Mac , in your Program files on Windows (unless of course you've put it somewhere else). Open the launcher program inside there.

This will trigger the launcher which will check if you are at the latest build or not. If not it will start to download it. Once the downloading has hit "10%" the Downloader button on the right becomes active. Using that you can check on how fast it is going , how many peers etc from the menu within the downloader. Once done downloading you should be able to go back to the Launcher and click the Updater button. It will install it then check if there's something else to download.

It's going to loop , loop , loop until Mr Launcher is satisfied that you are at the current build. Finding out what build that is should be fairly simple - just go to one of the fansites that put out information about the various builds and take the number of the latest one. For example on worldofraids.com the latest thread is talking about "Cataclysm Beta: Build 12479" from yesterday. The patch notes will also have a date updated.

Righto back to watching the download count down >_>

Nah just kidding I'm going to go back to doing my monthly back up :/

Bluspacecow 07-14-10 06:48 AM

Woops forgot my observations for technically minded.

1) When the Cata. Beta Launcher is updating it will have the current build as the last few digits after the "World of Warcraft v4.0.0" in the title bar.

EG mine says "World of Warcraft v4.0.0.11927" meaning I'm at build 11927. Current build as of this post is 12479. As you can see I have a bit to go.

2) in the "Cataclysm Pre-Release 11927 enUS" folder is a .mfil file. This will have a URL that if you put into a web browser will have the size in bytes of the various Installer Tomes , one of them being that large 2.2 GB file you download.

If you're wanting to confirm if you have more to download and have a possibly borked installation check that URL and check the sizes in bytes to what you have.

3) Resuming it I am not completely sure about.

I've noticed that when the Installer is running and downloading that huge 2.2 GB tome it's actually running out of a private system folder on my HD . /var/somethingprivate/something something/Clean up at startup. It's not actually running the Installer program you double click on it's running a copy of it.

Admittedly I did have the installer stall on me a few times and stop. Not sure if this was due to my crappy computer and slow internet. I'm also not sure what I did to get it going again - if I deleted the installer out of that special system folder or if I did some other step.

I do remember running a ps -aweee | grep Installer command and picking up the folder the temporary copy of the installer was running on. Then wiping that. Or maybe I went into that folder and run that copy of the installer.

If you've done it successfully the Installer will say something about calculating the download size. As per usual with unknown , prickley, likely to explode computer stuff make backup copies of the files you are working on first - it would truly suck having to download that 2.2GB again.

4) Intially the installer will attempt to install temporarily into "World of Warcraft Beta.temp". Subsequent failed installs will pick a random set of characters and .temp eg World of Warcraft Beta. World of Warcraft Beta.ea240173.temp

You can check on the progress of your install by going into "World of Warcraft Beta.temp" and tunneling down , listing things by date. Remember to open folders and check modification dates of that.

5) The installer can sort of be paused and resumed. First you press "Stop" then will bring up a dialog box to say "Resume" or "Stop". If you push "Stop" here the installer will be cancelled. I am not sure if it gets rid of your current "World of Warcraft Beta.temp" folder or not.

Hitting Stop and just not pressing anything on the next dialog box seems to stop it momentarily. Hitting Resume and it start downloading files again.

6) I've discovered that like the PTR Beta copies data from Live. This means that if your Live copy has any corrupt data in it your Beta will as well.

So a really good tip is to run the Repair.app on your Live install first before installing it. Mac users try restoring from a pristine back up copy you made.

Techies if you're interested you can confirm this by running lsof | grep World.

This is the first line of my output (all the other lines pretty much just different MPQ files but fairly similar)

Installer 350 accountname 6r REG 14,1 438156720 92023811 /Applications/World of Warcraft/Data/enUS/speech-enUS.MPQ

6) The install was really really slow , even after I had all data downloaded.

Well most of the data downloaded. >_>. Will probably need to redo the entire thing in a few days or so.

7) Lastly I did get a "Unrecognized attribute "quit". (AttributeParser::Parse)" error right at the end when the Installer was all finished and it said installation complete.

For this I just took to mean the program couldn't find the "quit" menu item. "Here Grandpa I'll help you" *quits program*

Bluspacecow 07-14-10 07:11 AM

8) For the most part the downloading of the various builds to get your Cataclysm beta client updated to the latest Build is for the most part Automated.

I'm talking about once you have a "World of Warcraft Beta" folder and the Launcher is looping through downloading then installing the various builds..

You do not need to sit there and watch it or click anything else to get it to keep downloading and installing.

Your free at this stage to go do something else for a while while it downloads and updates everything.

For example I've set mine running , gone outside to do some chores , come back , started a backup running on my computer , had a bit of a lie down , catched up on some reading , come back , gone off to check Facebook in Firefox, wandered off to prepare a hot water bottle , gotten distracted by checking if I really did read last months parcel of comics etc etc etc.

Once it's gotten to the Launcher stage and assuming your Live install was all koshed and clean and stuff you should be ok to walk away and leave it. Feel free to turn the monitor off and get some shut eye if late at night. Most of the errors I know to affect installation happen at that initial getting it installed stage (before the launcher downloading all those build updates)

Use your "Downloader" or "Updater" buttons when they're lit up to check on progress but for the most part you can leave it to do it's thang.

PS Oh and woah O_O. Only finished this thread barely 10-20 minutes before it got sticked . zoom! zoom! wooooosh!

ricks322 07-14-10 12:49 PM

I thought I would as my .02c

I started the install at 6:23pm on the 13th.
And finished at 12:37pm on the 14th. (that is PM not AM)

Looking through the logs I noticed there were several timeouts early this morning.

Also remember that this was going at the same time as the newest build was being released.

I have seen posts on the Beta forums about have Disk size problems, so here is some info.

The Size of the Beta folder when complete is 35.6 GB (200 files).
There will also be a Pre-Release folder of 2.24 GB on your drive.

So plan ahead to make sure you have LOTS of free space. New builds can require several GB's of space to install, (even for a 300 MB build). This is due to the way Blizzard is handling the patches at this time.

Also there is a bug in the download right now were it does not seam to be checking for free space. The download will crash when the drive get full.


Good Luck all...

Gello 07-14-10 01:29 PM

If any are curious, there appear to be 8 patches after the beta client install:

old build number to new : size of download
11927 to 12025 : 334 mb
12025 to 12065 : 130 mb
12065 to 12122 : 171 mb
12122 to 12164 : 266 mb
12164 to 12232 : 1156 mb
12232 to 12266 : 165 mb
12266 to 12319 : 537 mb
12319 to 12479 : 308 mb

As mentioned above the amount downloaded has little correlation to the hdd space the game needs to patch. You'll need over 35gb for the whole process.

It's been a very smooth install for me.

Bluspacecow 07-14-10 06:20 PM

Ty Ricks & Gello.

If anyone else has little tips just keep them coming :)

Bluspacecow 07-14-10 09:23 PM

Tools update today guys.

Just login to get it. It should download an update.

It should then auto apply itself then bring up the launcher. If you want to check if it's done anything check your Blizzard Updater Log.html in World of Warcraft Beta->Logs

The latest tools update I downloaded today was up the top under "World of Warcraft Update Tools (2.1.2.1542)". Here is the log if you're interested.

Also if you are presented with a list of accounts to log into , choose the account for Cataclysm beta.

To figure out which open up a web browser to battle.net and login. You should see a list of games under "Manage Games". Look at the Box for Cat , the one with Deathwing on the box in some myspace pose (*hold camera above self* *strike a pose* *click*)

Immediately underneath that box will be either Wow1 or Wow2. To the left you may notice a box for Live with your live account name and maybe a box for the PTR. The account name to use for Beta is in the same place but under the box for Cata.

Everglow 08-01-10 10:49 AM

space issue
 
Hey Blu. Thanks for the great info. I need some advice. I have a 2 drive system running Windows 7. My main [C:] drive is 74 GB and my D: drive is 300 GB. I have Live installed on C: and it has only 28 GB free.

So my question is: Do you think I could install the Beta on my D: drive, leaving the Live installation on C:? Alternatively, do you think I should move my Live installation over to D:? Thanks for any insight on this :)

Bluspacecow 08-01-10 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everglow (Post 200980)
Hey Blu. Thanks for the great info. I need some advice. I have a 2 drive system running Windows 7. My main [C:] drive is 74 GB and my D: drive is 300 GB. I have Live installed on C: and it has only 28 GB free.

So my question is: Do you think I could install the Beta on my D: drive, leaving the Live installation on C:? Alternatively, do you think I should move my Live installation over to D:? Thanks for any insight on this :)

Not sure .... I'm a Mac man >_>

But I do have some experience in the windows area. AFAIK You should be okay putting both Wow and Cata on the D:\

I have seen an issue or two running the clients from an external HD as it sometime doesn't behave come patching and installing time.

I'm just wondering why you have such a small C Drive. IMHO Get a bigger drive, ghost the C drive to the new drive then install it. Ghost is where you can get this utility that makes an exact copy of the drive from one HD to the other (I think it's like dd on linux).

Then install the left over 74GB to an E: or even better make it recovery disk partition complete with all the software you need to rescue your other 2 drives.

Vis 08-01-10 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluspacecow (Post 200981)
I'm just wondering why you have such a small C Drive. IMHO Get a bigger drive,

The 74 Gb drive sounds like it's most likely a WD Raptor style. One of the high performance 10,000 rpm ones :)


I'm not sure how much different the clients are between Live and Beta, but I know in Win7 I am running two installations of Live on the same HDD with no issues whatsoever. Seperate directories of course though.

ricks322 08-01-10 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everglow (Post 200980)
Hey Blu. Thanks for the great info. I need some advice. I have a 2 drive system running Windows 7. My main [C:] drive is 74 GB and my D: drive is 300 GB. I have Live installed on C: and it has only 28 GB free.

So my question is: Do you think I could install the Beta on my D: drive, leaving the Live installation on C:? Alternatively, do you think I should move my Live installation over to D:? Thanks for any insight on this :)

No problem, I have live on my C: drive and the Beta on D: (the only thing installed on it).

They are totally different installs.

Bluspacecow 08-21-10 11:56 AM

Okay guys I just got word of a new error with the latest build , build # 12803.

I'm going to post about it here as this is the most visible thread , as well as updating my little FAQ.

Moving file pointer before the beginning of the file error :

If you get an error that looks like this
Quote:

This application has encountered a critical error:

An attempt was made to move the file pointer before the beginning of the file.

Program: D:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft Beta\WoW.exe
File: character\goblin\female\goblinfemale.m2
Then you need to go into your World of Warcraft Beta folder -> Data folder and wipe the Cache folder there.

Be careful to wipe only the Cache folder and not the Data folder itself. Take a back up copy of the Data folder first if your unsure that you can delete the Cache folder without taking out the Data folder.

PS the subtly underline part is the important part. I've seen crash reports on the beta forums mentioning different files but with the same error. All were fixed by this fix.

Bluspacecow 08-21-10 11:58 AM

Another tech support tip :

If you feel your streaming launcher is lying to you quit it and go into the WTF folder of the World of Warcraft beta folder. Wipe the launcher.wtf file inside there.

Also turning off P2P downloading in the Live launcher will effect the one for teh Beta.

Bluspacecow 09-07-10 07:49 PM

Debug Details : Check this section of your crash report for a path to an MPQ file in /Data/Cache/

EG

[1] err=0 text=SFileReadFile - Interface\GlueXML\GlueBasicControls.xml - Data/Cache/enUS/patch-enUS-12694.MPQ

The file it refers to for the SFileReadFile may be different. It may also list a different MPQ file in Data/Cache/other then patch-enUS-12694.MPQ . What matters is your error report listing a difficulty reading a file out of /Data/Cache.

If you see this type of crash go into your "World of Warcraft Beta" folder and wipe the Cache folder that is inside the Data folder. Not the Data folder itself only the Cache folder inside it.

Bluspacecow 09-07-10 07:54 PM

Renamed the thread. Also this guide will only get better with your guys inputs. So let me know what you want me to add and I'll write something up about it :)

Also you install addons by putting them in the World of Warcraft Beta->Interface->Addons folder.

Just like you do in Live except beta has it's own folder !!!

KK Have fun you guys !

Seerah 09-07-10 08:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluspacecow (Post 205433)
Renamed the thread.

Finalized the thread rename. :)

yoshimo 09-12-10 09:54 AM

Maybe someone of you can help me.
My BetaClient is at 12857 , one patch before the most recent.
When i start the launcher, it gives me a downloader timeout.
I tried to start the patch through wow.exe but that logs in without problems, but then fails at character selection screen. No surprise its outdated.

Then i downloaded the 15mb wow.update 12954 mpq and stored it,
didnt really help much.

Launcher.log says

Quote:

#-----------------------------------------------------------
# System started at 2010-09-12 14:01:08.2799
# system: AVALON
#-----------------------------------------------------------
14:01:08.2813 Launcher version 4.0.0.1854
14:01:45.5222 Starting PatchOnDemand system...
14:01:45.5222 Retrieving torrent information from the server.
14:01:56.5182 IPC Monitor Cancel Patch: Timeout, State = ready_downloader
and the downloader log says:
Quote:

#-----------------------------------------------------------
# System started at 2010-09-12 14:01:45.8618
# system: AVALON
#-----------------------------------------------------------
14:01:46.0056 [CommChannel] Client channel open failure.
all connections for downloader blizzupdater launcher and wow.exe are allowed in my firewall.

Any ideas how i could get my beta updated?

ricks322 09-18-10 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yoshimo (Post 205920)
.....

all connections for downloader blizzupdater launcher and wow.exe are allowed in my firewall.

Any ideas how i could get my beta updated?

Have you tried to "run as..." and selected an Admin account?

IQgryn 10-15-10 04:24 PM

Any hints for dual monitors since the last patch? I used to have it running Windowed (Fullscreen), which worked well, but now it's running fullscreen on one monitor, but with everything squished as though it were sized for both monitors and then scaled down. After much finagling (the mouse seems to be offset too), I've changed the settings back to how they were...but they don't seem to stick.

EDIT: It seems this was on Blizzard's end, and was fixed today.

Myrlidion 10-31-10 10:07 AM

Having a problem with moving the file pointer crash
 
I have a crash that happens when I try to open wow to the main screen when you click on "PLAY". It says "Error, tried to move the file pointer before the beginning of the file". I searched around and was told to delete the WTF folder and my CACHE folder in the data folder, but not to touch the data folder. I did and still get the same crash and error. Can ayone help me with this?

This application has encountered a critical error:

An attempt was made to move the file pointer before the beginning of the file.

Program: G:\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe
File: DBFilesClient\Achievement_Category.dbc

78BFB2F45D415C3DA703A5115A621822 7956 0
Data\enUS\patch-enUS-2.MPQ


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