sporemasterkaliena wrote:Everyone please feel free to provide detailed descriptions of your problems and solutions as you discover them.

In Cell Stage my creatures sounds are now delayed. I also notice that clicking on a creature in cell to get a sporecard is also delayed. The delay is about 5 to 15 seconds. For example, a mating ritual will occur but I will end up hearing the sound in the creator.

I have a sound blaster audigy 2. I was fine before the patch.

azrupl wrote:

karatta wrote:

That is a dangerous amount of space to be left on your operating system drive.

The problem you are probabbly experiencing is a lack of pagefile room, or any other overhead the program needs to install.

All hard drives act very strangely when they are at or below 15% space, freeing up some space there should solve your problem.

The thing is... C: partition is only 7.81 GB big in total, this disc was partitioned ages ago, and since then through all those years it didn't need to be bigger. Is 2.74GB of free space (35% of total) really not enough to instal a ~90Mb patch? I have 3 gigs of paging files on other drives... And if this will be necessary I will repartition the drive and reinstall Windows but it looks like a big sacrafice to install a small patch.

That's why I have to be sure that there are no other solutions for this.

Another solution is to wait for another patch, where the data is coded differently for installation. The files need to be unpacked, and they are probabbly larger than what is remaining on your hard drive, for installation to continue.

However, software engineers rarely completly overhaul their patching process, unless there is a widespread problem. In this case, all of the data is unpacked to the C: drive, there may be no way around it (but I have not explored this avenue myself, someone else may find it is possible).

If your problem turns out to be a widespread issue, you will just have to wait for the next patch. In my opinion though, that will not happen in this case.

karatta wrote:I have read on other websites that the patch was released at another time, so it is possible it may have partially downloaded files, causing errors with patching.

Sporemaster edit: The Creature Creator patch was released once and then pulled, then released again in a different format. This is the first and only Spore patch.

I have a few suggestions.


A) Go in game, see if the things from this new patch are in place or not. If so, then no need to do anything, except cancel out the annoying patch message till a new patch
B) If no one is willing to do a full reinstall, I will volunteer, give me a while to do file backups
C) If anyone has path/file tracking software, if they could find the file that is not patching correctly, it would be very helpful

Reinstall complete, patch process worked properly now, all files intact.

Please read the following before uninstallation:

Choose the option to not delete local content. You will only get this option once. All of your saved data, including saved games and all creatures/vehicles/buildings installed from anywhere will still be intact. So will your settings.


Another option, besides investigating out what file is not working correctly with the patch, is to wait for another patch to solve your issue.

Good luck all.

sporemasterkaliena wrote:Being a volunteer I am unaware of a direct download which is officially available from EA / Maxis / Spore.com . The www.spore.com/patch site refers to have EADM open and then launch Spore to patch. Please do know I have passed along everyone's desire for there to be a direct download.

Will I get sued if I host a direct download copy of this? Assuming I don't modify it in any way shape or form?

Note: Nevermind. Appears the EADM immediately deletes the file after a successful patch.

My game is still broken after the fact.
Black screen with UI.
Just like the release, all hyped up, all let down.

Failed again.

I have a different problem. After successfully downloading the patch through the game, I run the patch, and when it gets to the "Patching Files" it stops at 0% and never goes anywhere. It's been like this for an hour. I've never had problems running Spore, and I have 15GB of free space on my HD, and a 3GB "Commit Charge" whatever that means.

This patch has created a variety of new bugs. The sound, for example, is very delayed if it is the first time it is being used (i.e. the first time you ever make a mating call in the cell stage). The same for various graphics such as plantary scuplting tools, rare items and even your cell creature after it is first released into the water. The delay is about 5-20 seconds and if you open a menu in between that time, the sounds will play. When you exit out of the menu the graphics are there.

As much as I love this game, I'd rather not have to open and close a menu just to avoid the lack of sound an invisible objects I need :O(

I have reinstalled and the patch is progressing. Now that I have something to compare it against, it would seem the 'old file found' error is related to the start of the patching process and not the actually patch application itself.

AzruPL wrote:
The thing is... C: partition is only 7.81 GB big in total, this disc was partitioned ages ago, and since then through all those years it didn't need to be bigger. Is 2.74GB of free space (35% of total) really not enough to instal a ~90Mb patch? I have 3 gigs of paging files on other drives... And if this will be necessary I will repartition the drive and reinstall Windows but it looks like a big sacrafice to install a small patch.

That's why I have to be sure that there are no other solutions for this.

Third party partition software will allow you to increase partition size without having to reinstall, or you may try what i suggested on this thread.

Rauros wrote:I have a different problem. After successfully downloading the patch through the game, I run the patch, and when it gets to the "Patching Files" it stops at 0% and never goes anywhere. It's been like this for an hour. I've never had problems running Spore, and I have 15GB of free space on my HD, and a 3GB "Commit Charge" whatever that means.

I'm currently experiencing this problem too; It IS installing, but you can't see the progress bar for much of the time, as it seems to hang at each new step of the install. Occasionally you'll see the bar quickly move from 0 along, but then it hangs at the next step again. It's hogging enormous amounts of CPU time, and has taken about 50 minutes so far, with no signs of stopping yet.

Alright. After a little testing, I found the problem, on my side at least, with the "Old file not found... etc".

It seems the patcher doesn't like those that modified one or all of these three files:

ConfigManager.txt
Properties.txt
VideoCards.txt

If you don't have a backup here's how to fix it if you have downloaded Spore with the EADM.

Open two instances of Windows Explorer. Open the first one where Spore's config files are installed. ie: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\SPORE\Data\Config" (If you're on Win XP, it should be "Program Files" without the x86.) You can either delete the three files mentioned above or rename them. Don't close that explorer yet.

Open the second Explorer and go where the EADM is installed. ie: "C:\ProgramData\Electronic Arts\EADM\" (that's for VISTA users. I don't know where it is on XP, sorry.) Next, click on CACHE, then on "{ 2263259817 }", etc until you end up in \spore_dd\Spore\Data\Config The three files you deleted in the first explorer are there and untainted. Copy those into the first explorer window and launch the Patch installer. It should work.

Hopefully I'm clear enough. It might not work for everyone though, but if you have that error message, it's worth a try.

NOW, the big question is: Since those three files are ONLY configuration options/settings/scripts, why EA/Maxis simply didn't just create NEW ones instead? Renaming the old ones? This is, again, a lack of foresight. I'm sorry if lately my comments are almost hostile, but one has to wonder how many blunders and oversight are tolerated but the managing staff. I mean, doing what I just suggested might have, what?, added a couple of Ks to the whole download at the maximum?

Anyway, I know it's falling on deaf ears but I had to say it.

titler wrote:

Rauros wrote:I have a different problem. After successfully downloading the patch through the game, I run the patch, and when it gets to the "Patching Files" it stops at 0% and never goes anywhere. It's been like this for an hour. I've never had problems running Spore, and I have 15GB of free space on my HD, and a 3GB "Commit Charge" whatever that means.

I'm currently experiencing this problem too; It IS installing, but you can't see the progress bar for much of the time, as it seems to hang at each new step of the install. Occasionally you'll see the bar quickly move from 0 along, but then it hangs at the next step again. It's hogging enormous amounts of CPU time, and has taken about 50 minutes so far, with no signs of stopping yet.

Same problem here- it seems to hang on the third file (I briefly glimpse the progress bar go from 0 to 100% twice before it hangs). Then it just hangs and sits there until I check active processes and it returns a 'Not Responding' message. Similarly there is plenty of space on my harddrive and all scanners have been disabled.

Some additional notes:

In cell sometimes my cell won't load now. If I go into the history "T" key or click the button and come back my creature will show up. I am also having texture delays. My creatures textures after cell wouldn't show up. I did a mating dance and it finally worked itself out.

So texture, sporecard and sound delays so far.

beghemot wrote:

titler wrote:

Rauros wrote:I have a different problem. After successfully downloading the patch through the game, I run the patch, and when it gets to the "Patching Files" it stops at 0% and never goes anywhere. It's been like this for an hour. I've never had problems running Spore, and I have 15GB of free space on my HD, and a 3GB "Commit Charge" whatever that means.

I'm currently experiencing this problem too; It IS installing, but you can't see the progress bar for much of the time, as it seems to hang at each new step of the install. Occasionally you'll see the bar quickly move from 0 along, but then it hangs at the next step again. It's hogging enormous amounts of CPU time, and has taken about 50 minutes so far, with no signs of stopping yet.

Same problem here- it seems to hang on the third file (I briefly glimpse the progress bar go from 0 to 100% twice before it hangs). Then it just hangs and sits there until I check active processes and it returns a 'Not Responding' message. Similarly there is plenty of space on my harddrive and all scanners have been disabled.

Exactly what happens to me.

beghemot wrote:

titler wrote:

Rauros wrote:I have a different problem. After successfully downloading the patch through the game, I run the patch, and when it gets to the "Patching Files" it stops at 0% and never goes anywhere. It's been like this for an hour. I've never had problems running Spore, and I have 15GB of free space on my HD, and a 3GB "Commit Charge" whatever that means.

I'm currently experiencing this problem too; It IS installing, but you can't see the progress bar for much of the time, as it seems to hang at each new step of the install. Occasionally you'll see the bar quickly move from 0 along, but then it hangs at the next step again. It's hogging enormous amounts of CPU time, and has taken about 50 minutes so far, with no signs of stopping yet.

Same problem here- it seems to hang on the third file (I briefly glimpse the progress bar go from 0 to 100% twice before it hangs). Then it just hangs and sits there until I check active processes and it returns a 'Not Responding' message. Similarly there is plenty of space on my harddrive and all scanners have been disabled.

If your hard drive is chugging away it is installing. It took about 20 minutes on my old system. It gave a "Not Responding" but in time it installed. As long as that hard drive light is cranking away you are fine.

I'm having sound/graphics lag as well with the new patch.