Perhaps corrupted patch is due to NoCD?

[Banaticus]

Perhaps a repeated problem with a corrupted patch file is due to a NoCD hack? Those of us to work in cyber cafes know what a pain in the @^% it is to have to constantly run around with CDs so we find NoCD files very very handy.

Perhaps, if a person has a problem with a corrupted patch it can be traced to a NoCD file? Speculations are welcomed. :)

[TBS]

its certainly a possibility - nocd cracks are entirely unofficial so it wouldnt be a surprise to find that they cause problems with official patches. I know that if I had been using one and had experienced the corruption error then the first thing Id have tried would have been to do a clean reinstall without the crack.

[ÜberJumper]

No fucking DUH the patch will fail if you've got a no-cd crack installed.

However, that's not likely the problem if you're getting a corrupted patch error.

[Banaticus]

Nope, just tested it on a clean computer. You can install the patch over the NoCD hack. It's something else that is stopping the patches from being installed.

For Lord fof the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth, it was the nntray process (Net Nanny Tray program). After I stopped that single process I could download the upgrade whereas no other process being stopped allowed the upgrade.

I've deactivated Net Nanny from this computer and ended the processes (they keep running even after Net Nanny ends) but I still get an error stating that the patch is corrupted. The upgrade patch file works correctly on other computers, so something must be interferring somehow with whatever checks the patch to see if the patch was downloaded correctly.

I uninstalled Dawn of War on a computer, thinking that perhaps if I reinstalled it the problem would be fixed, but now on that computer (which kept thinking that the patch was corrupted) it won't recognize the second CD as the second CD.

UberJumper, one night I had 5 10 year olds come in, A, B, C, D, E. A/B/C played one multiplayer game. D played another and E played yet another. After 20 minutes C looked over, got out of his game and got into D's game. 5 minutes later B did the same. A was then left alone and joined E's game. A few minutes later F then came in on the original multiplayer game and A joined back in on that one. E then joined into C's game, as did D. Then C jumped into F's game. Then ...

Now multiply this by a full cafe of 30 young people, none of whom seem to be able to stick to a game for more than 30 minutes. Halo, Battlefield Vietnam, Dawn of War, the list goes on and on. After a frenzied hour of almost nothing more than running around either inserting CDs for the sole purpose of starting a game or checking out CDs hoping that no young kids scratch the bloody things that would take 30-60 dollars to replace (if we charged them that amount for a scratched CD their parents wouldn't let them come back), NoCD hacks start looking very, very tempting.

I thank God almost every day that Valve has a cyber cafe program that makes it so that we don't have to insert CDs to play their nice large list of Steam games.

So far only 5 people (including me) have played Dawn of War at this cyber cafe. If I can't solve the problem that's stopping the patch from being seen as corrupted and (more importantly, so that I can use my additional CD keys to install the game on more computers) solve the problem that sees the second CD as not being the second CD, this game will not continue to see the light of day in this cyber cafe. I have more important things to do with my time. That's not a threat, just sound business sense. I only have so much time and can only afford to spend so much time getting a single game to work correctly.

[Vertigo]

Banaticus, may I suggest using Virtualized CD (VCD) software rather than relying on NO-CD apps?

Assuming you've got the HDD space, it makes a HELL of a lot more sense to store CD images rather than risk downloading cracks. As I'm sure you know, more than one crack has been a trojan.

I can confirm that DoW can be used with the right VCD software flawlessly, as well as just about every other game I've ever tried.

(And, for the record, I own not one piece of pirateware, I even registered my copy of WinZip. But I prefer to play my games using a VCD app, and keep my CDs safe and sound.)

[Vertigo]

Just out of rampant curiosity, this whole corrupted patch thing started recently, right?

I don't suppose anyone has tried setting the date back on their computer, just as a "what the hell" check?

[TBS]

Vertigo: no, the corrupted patch errors have not started recently - as soon as patch 1.10 was released there were reports of the error.

Banaticus: the patch corruption error is one thing, needing the CD is another. See the thread in the MTL for every known fix for the corruption error and try Vertigo's suggestion for running the game (and others) without the physical CD being in the drive. If you run a cyber cafe then you have multiple machines, I would be surprised if you were unable to patch the game on any of them...when you get the game patched on one of the machines simply copy the install directory to all the other machines via the network and change the version number in the registry to 1.20 (or 1.10 if you only patch that far and then patch them all up to 1.20 the old fashioned way: 1.10 -> 1.20 doesnt seem to have this issue).

[Banaticus]

After the fourth or fifth unistall reinstall, things worked. I now have all 3 computers here with Dawn of War installed patched up to 1.2. I blame the problems on the NoCD file, but it's just a hunch -- I don't have hard proof like I do for Net Nanny stopping The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth from downloading its update.

[Edit: Fumaric stated that his corruptted patch was also due to a NoCD file -- further confirmation.]

There are 4 computers here, though, that I haven't been able to install on -- the install program won't recognize that the second CD is actually the second CD. I haven't tried more as I haven't come in outside of normal hours yet and the other computers that I'd like to install on have been in use.

TBS, what is the MTL? I have only encountered problems with patch 1.1. I have neither had any problems with patch 1.01, with or without a NoCD installed, nor have I had any problems with patch 1.2.

[Vertigo]

MTL - Master Troubleshooting List. It's a sticked thread at the top of this subforum.

[Mac_Bug]

Frankly I'm appalled that THQ would only fund patches going from 1.0 to 1.01, then 1.01 to 1.1 and 1.1 to 1.2, do a super shitty job of distributing 1.01 aside from gamespy autoupdate and then offering nothing for all of those suffering problems while trying to patch to 1.1. 1.2 supposedly has all these better troubleshooting messages regarding the patch status, except it's really of no use to anyone still stuck on 1.1 with no solutions. Yes, freeing up enough space does help in certain situations, but not all of them, and perhaps THQ just can't reproduce the problem, but Relic's guy who packaged the patch and THQ QA are the only ones with enough inside information to be able to troubleshoot and offer a programmer's insight as to what could possibly go wrong. I'm sure if they commissioned a study on how much money they are losing due to 1.1 patch errors, the priority on that fix would jump way over Winter Assault (gasp, what if you had to have 1.2 BEFORE you could even install winter assault?) - if I were in charge, I'd spend the 50 bucks to even get people like Banaticus to ship one of their machines over for a week - consider how much a QA is paid per hour and how many hours it might've taken them to try and reproduce the problem/ the tech support department spending hours walking 30 different joe schmoes through the same useless troubleshooting steps...

[TBS]

Banaticus: MTL (Master Troubleshooting List) (http://forums.relicnews.com/forumdisplay.php?f=126). Specifically, this (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=52145) is the thread which deals with the 1.10 corruption error.

As to those machines which dont recognise disk 2, could you try installing from one of the other machines on the network? (ie share their CD drives and try from there)?

[ÜberJumper]

Mac_bug:

You obviously weren't involved with 3dgamers bitching to Relic about how crappy it was to have 3 seperate patches and not a single overall patch.