I am in the beta program. At 18:30 last night, I started MSFS2020 to test it, as I had friends over last night. At 20:00,I started it again, but this time I was forced to install 122Gb of the latest update, which was the version I was on already. Needless to say, we never got to fly at all. My question is, what happened here?
Hello,
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What probably happened (it happened to me several times) is that the update process didn‘t find the location of your official folder. The sim doesn‘t use the windows registry to look after these things so if there is something not going on as it expects it suggests you the default path to install the content. I assume that it downloaded the sim again into the default path and now you have the official content twice. Always (!) check the installation path on the update screen and make sure it‘s the path to your official and community folder.
122GB / 10,800 seconds = 11.3 MB/s * 8 = 90.4 Mb/s
That’s pretty speedy.
Well, that was with speeds up to 200Mb/s after using a VPN. But the real question is: what triggered the download of 122gb as I was already running the latest build?
Is there any logical reason for such a complicated update process? Why does Asobo not simply have the MSFS installer find the relevant directories, why do I have to check this by hand? Any addon-developer always finds the correct installation path by itself…
I’m asking because this whole redownload thing has happed to me two or three times in the past, costing a couple of days each time…
As I said above.
It’s not complicated at all, it has a default location in the appdata files. You can use any other location but if it doesn’t find this location for whatever reason (I’m the wrong to ask about a “why”) it will suggest the default path with an obviously full download if there IS no content. It’s on the page that tells you that there is an update and you click to download right below this path. I don’t see how this can be any easier, all we have to do is read a couple of words.
Other programs use the windows registry and read the path from there. I don’t know why MSFS doesn’t do that but I assume it’s how this XBox stuff on PC works.
Most likely what I wrote above. It’s the typical case what happens. My install path is simply E:\MSFS and if I see anything else there I point it back towards my installation, it recalculates and only updates what needed or simply nothing at all.
Nothing changed in that hour. I merely shut down for an hour. After the update that wasn’t an update, I restarted it and the update check ran fine. Also, as far as I know it is still installed where it was.
what I wrote above:
What probably happened (it happened to me several times) is that the update process didn‘t find the location of your official folder.
I don’t know why this happens, that question would need to go to the developers. But it does happen. Then the default installation path is suggested. If you told MSFS at any point in the past to install to any other location than the default one I bet that you’ll find your original installation where you placed it and the new one in appdata. If you have never told it to use another path the whole thing becomes really mysterious and I can’t tell you what happened.
Everytime you start the sim it checks if its files are complete and in line with what the online service asks for. If not it will tell you that you have to update, regardless of your current version. It will want to update your installation with the required files. If there are none at all in the location where it thinks the files should be it will obviously want to install the whole sim, 122GB in this case.
Risk of being in the Beta. After Beta 12 with SU12 being the only SU until August, I opted out. Glad I dodged this potential problem. Be glad it took 3 hours. Typically takes me half a day. Pro tip, once you have your Official folder downloaded, if space allows, copy it into a safe location. If this happens again just redownload like 1-2% of the game, close the download manager, copy over saved Official folder. Whala, games runs without needing to redownload everything.
I just got a new PC, first time trying to run MS FS, downloaded from Xbox, cool, first time playing, stopped at the splash screen, and I could not exit. Reboot. Load again, this time to a software update, mandatory. This was at about 8:00am, it’s now 11:00 and its only 90% done. NOT a very great entry user experience.