Game patch... a request for guidance

[FacePlant]

First... If this is in the wrong spot Mods please move.

OK, after way too long away from the Lair I am trying to come back. I still recognize some familiar faces from my UT2K4 days (I know... thats a long time).

So to be brief... I bought a retail CD copy of BFBC2 and installed it. Great game but without the patch I can't play online. Tried the online updater and downloaded the "standalone" patch. Both fail. The log states the failure is unable to find patch.xml . The updater is looking in the correct spot. I can download the online files with a web browser. I have tried running the updater as admin, PC is in the DMZ so its probably not a port problem.

I am running out of ideas. I am not looking for someone to solve my problems but if you could share any ideas or success stories I would appreciate it.

Thank you and I hope to be killed by you soon

[SIR Rossy]

turn off all firewalls ,malware protection, virus protection go into program files,Electronic Arts,BFBC2 the run the updater is administrator mode should work fine

[Qicmee]

Hi! I don't recognize this problem at all. So, I'm just kicking the can down the road.

This default instruction has solved many patch problems. Worth a quick try if it's relevant on your system:
1) Go to your BFBC2 folder.
2) Right click "BFBC2Updater-MCE"
3) Choose "Run as administrator"

= = = =

The last patch is huge (2.5 GB or so). Is that about the size you downloaded?

I'm assuming that you've already tried reinstalling the game.

= = = =

A previous thread about a patching problem:

http://www.cainslair.com/showthread....ighlight=patch

[FacePlant]

Thank you both for your responses. I have run the updater as Admin and the log shows admin privileges. I may uninstall the antivirus completely for troubleshooting purposes. The firewall is built into the DSL interface but I have the PC sitting out on the DMZ. That is (almost) the same thing as it being direct wired to the net. The standalone I DL'd is ~2.5G and I verified the integrity with a compression program.

So this is the reason I am almost out of ideas. I checked the customer support and other forums for answers before turning to here. Direct support is just a crew of script readers. Fine as far as it goes but no real knowledge. I may go the really hard way and try to reverse how the files are packed in the *.p files. That would be more of an academic exercise but I like a challenge.

Anyway, I will poke at this more when I get home. Thanks again.

[Brian is Huh?!{CLR}]

what if we upload the patch.xml somewhere and u can download it from there?

[FacePlant]

That is the strange part. I have the patch.xml file from the standalone. The updater goes to get it AND it is looking in the exact spot it is at but still can't find it. It almost feels like some long filename handling issue. But since the directory seems to be coded into the updater and I haven't found any command line switches to pass parameters to the updater I can't experiment with that.

As for updating direct from the net... The updater again cannot find patch.xml. But if I point a web browser at the URL the updater is accessing then I am prompted for the location to save patch.xml in.

Just before I needed sleep last night I did discover some weirdness. I tried the rename the updater exe in the game folder so I could replace it with the one from the standalone DL. It would not let me rename the file. Thats when I discovered several files in that directory that were like that. It is not a permissions issue and if I had to guess it would be an anti-cheat measure. Understandable but annoying.

Hopefully I can get this figured out before BF3 rolls around. Especially since it looks like I will need to upgrade my OS to be able to play it.

[Qicmee]

Just more conversation here...

In this type of hopeless situation, I focus on the reported error and strip away distractions. For example:
- Is the error affected by disconnecting Internet, booting in safe mode, etc.
- If updater cannot find the file, then the file is in the wrong place, the updater is looking in the wrong place, or the message is bogus. "Wrong place" could be due to hidden/encrypted directories, uncommon registry information (different from most other PCs), unusual drive management scheme (versus assumptions built into the patch software), etc.

Rule Of Little Finger: The successful fix is always the last thing you try. Save time; do that first.

[Cain]

Welcome home ....

[mapes]

Have you checked permissions on the patch.xml file?

[Qicmee]

... tried the rename the updater exe in the game folder so I could replace it with the one from the standalone DL. It would not let me rename the file. Thats when I discovered several files in that directory that were like that....

That aspect could be important. Maybe the original installation or the update process is unable to edit & save to a "read-only" file that is intended to provide the current file locations. In my top-level "Battlefield Bad Company 2" directory, I have 16 files. Only GL.ini & paul.dll are marked as read-only. I deselected each with no problem (they retained my new selection). My point is that, on a Windows XP system, I doubt any installed software can refuse a Windows administrator's command to change an attribute. My guess is that something is odd with Windows permissions.

I don't have a lot of experience with file permissions, so the rest is speculation...
Is it possible that the original game software was installed under a different account? This might make the files read-only for another user, even as an admin. Perhaps an aggressive anti-virus tool auto-protected the files?

This link describes this "To view or to remove the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows Server 2003 or in Windows XP", but apparently this DOS command is not recursive to sub-directories.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=326549

This link discusses taking ownership of a folder; but if ownership is a problem, in this case I'd rather reinstall.
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/why_is_...read_only.html

[Brian is Huh?!{CLR}]

or maybe you could try one of these:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/1003919.page
or
http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/m...-manually.html

that standalone installer from EA should work.

[FacePlant]

Thank you all for your help. The problem is now fixed. Mapes you were very close to the answer. It looks like the drive that I installed the game on is really fubar. Its not a hardware problem but a problem in software. Since this is a personal PC it is not part of a domain. But it looks like some sort of domain permission structure is limiting file access. Probably a corruption of the ACLs. It will take forever to try to recover from it but I can at least work around it. Watch for V1triol in game

Sir Cain... for the welcome home! What a long strange trip its been. It does feel like a homecoming. With you, Duke, Rand and Bliss around and looking forward to getting to know the new (to me at least) faces there should be many hours of fun here.

Oops the patch is about finished... time to look for a good server. Bah why settle for good when I can join CainsLair and be on a great one!

[Brian is Huh?!{CLR}]

glad u got it resolved!

[Qicmee]

Nice!

[mapes]

Eeeeekk! corrupted ACL's and inherited ACLs in Windows can be a PITA. Glad to hear you got it sorted