Stuck on "Checking for updates" : one definite cause (and manual fix) identified

User Support Hub Install, Performance & Graphics
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:wave: Thank you for using the Bug section, using templates provided will greatly help the team reproducing the issue and ease the process of fixing it.

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?

No

Have you disabled/removed all your mods and addons?

Yes

Brief description of the issue:

In the event of a power cut or reboot during the download of an update, the manifest.json file in the folder being downloaded may become corrupted. This is evident as the file is no longer human-readable. See screenshot.

When the check next happens, the process goes into an infinite loop, presumably because of an error in trying to read the corrupted file.

Right now, the solution is to delete the partially-downladed folder (which can usually be identified by last change date on the folder in the /Packages/Official/<Steam/Store>/ folder). Then restart. This is a lot easier than the time and bandwidth-consuming (and mostly useless) suggestions in the KB article

Please log this as a bug as it is easily reproducible and easily fixable. The update checker should identify the problem and remediate. Judging by the number of search results for this problem it is also not infrequent. (Although there could be other causes).

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

image

Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

Occurs if download interrupted. To simulate, create a malformed manifest.json in any package folder.
PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:
N/A

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

Current

:loudspeaker: For anyone who wants to contribute on this issue, Click on the button below to use this template:

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

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Good find! I think this is the tip of an iceberg - simple trapping for errors would prevent this type of thing. There is a pattern of issues due entirely to data corruption, and it’s so frustrating. Asobo needs to hire a code QA auditor to review error handling across the board.

Of course on Xbox we have no way of inspecting or fixing - other than to uninstall, factory reset, and clean install.

1 Like
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Thanks. It took a while to track down.
You’re right that this is part of a larger, systemic problem. To debug this I used a monitoring tool (procmon) that shows what is going on within a running process (file access, library calls, etc.). Well, it’s not pretty (and, to be fair, for Windows programs (I include Xbox in that, same codebase after all), it never is).
I would never have expended the effort if it were not for the fact than, when it runs error-free, this sim is glorious. The in-flight experience, and the install/menu environment are different beasts.
It’s like Mr Hyde is bringing you the good medicine from Dr Jekyll, after ****ing in it.
It took me a week to install on release because of installer bugs (needed to throttle internet speed).
And numerous subsequent CTD issues. And hard crashes causing a reboot. The latter due, it turns out, to a failing power supply.
I see you’ve had a similar problem. I know nothing of Xbox - is there no way to access the filesystem directly?

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The Xbox is a closed system - even the developers have no way to inspect the files system on it, and instead use an emulator.

But there is now a clear pattern here - and after 9 months on Xbox and MSFS, I think YOUR post here is the most significant in terms of identifying the underlying problem:

There is a lack of proper error trapping, examination, handling and messaging - AND there is data corruption still happening.

For me this started with SU9 rendering MSFS unplayable on Xbox, and then Jorg Neumann (in a Dev Q&A video) talked about bringing in the best coders from Microsoft to solve the issues - which added up to “memory oversubscription” and “cache corruption”, among a list of other things. I do acknowledge they made huge improvements to stability - which shows they can do it. But it required outside help - and I think the code culture needs fixing. Error trapping and examination needs vast improvement.

My experience has been that on Xbox (a closed system) with only MSFS, when things start to behave badly and others don’t seem to have the issue, I uninstall, factory reset, reinstall - and the problem tends to go away. And if it doesn’t, then I am confident in reporting a bug. But it clearly demonstrates that data corruption is STILL a huge issue. Just today 2 others on this forum (PC users) posted that MSFS had corrupted their Windows User accounts - and Microsoft’s own support told them they had to wipe them out and start over! That’s incredibly bad code!

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Thanks, this worked for me!

The download/ update process for this game is cancer.

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I’m glad it worked for you.
Yes the infrastructure is poor. But better than it was.
It’s frustrating though that something like this (a concrete, reproducible bug, with a solution) gets ignored.

All the best.