Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

New tdm_installer and dev builds


stgatilov

Recommended Posts

If you're updating from 2.09 to 2.10 say, then cancel can only mean to undo everything and go back to how things were. From a new install it could mean either, "I changed my mind, I don't want TDM at all anymore" or "This mirror is glacial. Let me switch to a new one". I suppose both options would be useful.

My missions:           Stand-alone                                                      Duncan Lynch series                              

                                      Down and Out on Newford Road              the Factory Heist

                                                                                                  A House Call

                                                                                                  The House of deLisle                                                                                                  

                              

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems like the best fix would be to add another checkbox to the "Advanced settings" area on the initial installer screen for the option to keep already downloaded files if the user cancels.

Edited by Xolvix
  • Like 1

A word of warning, Agent Denton. This was a simulated experience; real LAMs will not be so forgiving.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/12/2022 at 9:53 PM, datiswous said:

In fact I just tried installing on a linux laptop. It installed fine till 100% and gave an error that it couldn't open a pk4 file (one of the starter missions). Then it deleted all files, that took the installer 12 minutes to download. I wonder if I should try again...

So what you actually want is corrupted files to just get redownloaded from another mirror instead of cancelling the installation?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is this something that happens often enough to be concerned about?

My missions:           Stand-alone                                                      Duncan Lynch series                              

                                      Down and Out on Newford Road              the Factory Heist

                                                                                                  A House Call

                                                                                                  The House of deLisle                                                                                                  

                              

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't mean to suggest it's definitely not worth the effort. Just trying to get an idea of how often data corruption does happen. It seems like the kind of thing you could have a checksum to verify. If any individual file fails its checksum, delete only it and try downloading it from another mirror. This would be better than assuming the whole download is kaput and starting from scratch.

 

I guess as TDM gets bigger the odds of something going wrong increase but it's likely to affect mostly new users because those of us who've already been playing will usually only be updating an existing install rather than downloading an entirely new one.

  • Like 1

My missions:           Stand-alone                                                      Duncan Lynch series                              

                                      Down and Out on Newford Road              the Factory Heist

                                                                                                  A House Call

                                                                                                  The House of deLisle                                                                                                  

                              

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, thebigh said:

I don't mean to suggest it's definitely not worth the effort. Just trying to get an idea of how often data corruption does happen. It seems like the kind of thing you could have a checksum to verify. If any individual file fails its checksum, delete only it and try downloading it from another mirror. This would be better than assuming the whole download is kaput and starting from scratch.

The updater knows the checksums - it scans the installed files and compares checksums to known ones for the desired version to select the files to download. So only replacing the corrupted file and continuing with the downloading is the logical thing to do.

Almost every web server and browser out there also supports resuming of partially downloaded files - so if we had checksums for individual chunks of N MiB in size, only at most N MiB would need to be redownloaded on corruption or disconnect.

Some of TDMs pk4s are hundreds of mega bytes in size and there still are regions (like Australia, China or Germany) where a stable and fast internet connection isn't the norm yet.
I myself only had a slow and shaky wireless "broadband" connection for some months last year. I had to surf the web with images disabled sometimes... Downloading TDM would have taken days (but i would have still tried if i hadn't it installed already).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, resumable downloads are not implemented yet.

The main problem is that if you kill tdm_installer with task manager, you will have corrupted data on disk. Trying to use this data on future run will cause unavoidable errors. Aside from that, I'm not sure these __download__XXX.pk4 files are valid zip archives when they are saved, which means that some more code has to be added to support loading them. And yes, leaving all these weird files after cancelled installation might confuse user too.

I think the main problem here is that tdm_installer fails after downloading data.
Normally, this should not happen unless mirrors are screwed, or you have software/hardware problems. And I think it happened very rarely in the past, but there were several reports of such errors lately. I could not reproduce the error, and thus far nobody has even shared a log file of such an error.

  • Like 1
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Ansome

      Finally got my PC back from the shop after my SSD got corrupted a week ago and damaged my motherboard. Scary stuff, but thank goodness it happened right after two months of FM development instead of wiping all my work before I could release it. New SSD, repaired Motherboard and BIOS, and we're ready to start working on my second FM with some added version control in the cloud just to be safe!
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer  »  DeTeEff

      I've updated the articles for your FMs and your author category at the wiki. Your newer nickname (DeTeEff) now comes first, and the one in parentheses is your older nickname (Fieldmedic). Just to avoid confusing people who played your FMs years ago and remember your older nickname. I've added a wiki article for your latest FM, Who Watches the Watcher?, as part of my current updating efforts. Unless I overlooked something, you have five different FMs so far.
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
×
×
  • Create New...