Blu's Cataclysm Installation Guide & Common Fixes

Bluspacecow · 07-14-10, 06:13 AM

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

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

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

Myrlidion · 10-31-10, 10:18 AM

Okay, well I found out how to fix the last problem, but a new problem comes up.. It was something to do with having old installation files and deleting them. I get loaded up as far as clicking accept the new terms of agreement for the new patch download, but then it crashes and I get this error:

This application has encountered a critical error:

ERROR #132 (0x85100084) Fatal Exception
Program: C:\Users\Andrew\Desktop\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe
Exception: 0xC0000005 (ACCESS_VIOLATION) at 0023:0035B7FB

The instruction at "0x0035B7FB" referenced memory at "0x00000038".
The memory could not be "read".

Can someone help?

Bluspacecow · 10-31-10, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by Myrlidion

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

Are you sure you're deleting it from the right folder ?

Don't forget that if your on a flavor of windows that uses UAC then you're effectively going to have two wow folders. You need to be deleting it out of the right one.

The only other thing i can suggest is to wipe the file at wow folder->Data->enUS->patch-enUS-2.MPQ then go to the WTF folder and wipe Launcher.wtf

Then open the Launcher and let it stream it back in.