Update 4 Orange Sidewinder Workaround and Investigation

masterflinter

M
Last night I logged out in the concourse of Bates' Pride. This morning I could not launch Elite Dangerous: Odyssey due to Orange Sidewinder. I also could not exit the game - it would just give me a black screen until I CTRL+ALT+DLTed.

Verifying the game files did not resolve the issue.

I launched Horizons and was able to enter the game. I then quit and relaunched in Odyssey, but was met with Orange Sidewinder again. I launched in Horizons once again and flew away from Bates' Pride, then relaunched in Odyssey. This time I got in, but when I tried to go back to Bates' Pride I was dropped from the game, getting Orange Sidewinder once again. It appears that in Odyssey I am unable to visit planetary settlements.
 

Flexman

F
I was given the OS while doing a mission. I saved myself with login into Horizons, but of course failing the mission, because it was a Odyssey one. Frontier Launcher only, never had ED on Steam.

ticket REF: (90217) raised 6/10, no response.
 

Cmdr G0tt

Cmdr G0tt
masterflinter said:
Last night I logged out in the concourse of Bates' Pride. This morning I could not launch Elite Dangerous: Odyssey due to Orange Sidewinder. I also could not exit the game - it would just give me a black screen until I CTRL+ALT+DLTed.

Verifying the game files did not resolve the issue.

I launched Horizons and was able to enter the game. I then quit and relaunched in Odyssey, but was met with Orange Sidewinder again. I launched in Horizons once again and flew away from Bates' Pride, then relaunched in Odyssey. This time I got in, but when I tried to go back to Bates' Pride I was dropped from the game, getting Orange Sidewinder once again. It appears that in Odyssey I am unable to visit planetary settlements.
Click to expand...
I will try this
 

Sakashiro

Sakashiro
sallymorganmoore said:
We currently believe that the reason why loading screen timeouts and 'Orange Sidewinders' are occurring, is because some of the resource files for Odyssey appear to have initially deployed to Steam incorrectly, during the update process.
Click to expand...
This should be easy to test. Validate with Steam, make sure the validation is successful. Then validate with the Frontier launcher. Then validate with Steam again. If Steam finds differences on the second run, you'll know that some bad files were deployed to Steam.
 

Deadly Grandma

D
This worked for me, I had the preparing for update for a little while but it finally got to the usual next steps of an update and bingo, I'm back in the game.
 

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Jazzlvraz said:
Another infinite "Preparing for update" experience for me. Thank you very much for all the communication today; I echo whomever it was that said you're putting on a masterclass in community management.

I hope your best practices will spread to the others FDevers with their faces presented to the public.
Click to expand...

Gahhh this is a common one isn't it too?! This one I don't know about....I need to figure this one out - Tricky because it's not easy to diagnose with just a stuck steam...interface. Let's try anyway.
 

Jazzlvraz

Jazzlvraz
I apologise: Steam verify files ran fine, but very slowly. "Preparing for update" in the ED launcher is the one that sits there and does nothing for tens of minutes. I'm now leaving it, in case it's just incredibly slow or not displaying progress.

EDIT: typo
 

JosefIsHere

J
Hi, I am getting infinite loading after I log into game, wanted to switch ship and then it all started... I am fully avalible to any tests you want to perform to help fix this issue :)
 

dsquaver

D
Jazzlvraz said:
I apologise: Steam verify files ran fine, but very slowly. "Preparing for update" in the ED launcher is the one that sits there and does nothing for tens of minutes. I'm now leaving it, in case it's just incredibly slow or not displaying progress.

EDIT: typo
Click to expand...
best to leave it - i have been over 30 mins but now getting something happening
 

Nyundungma

N
sallymorganmoore said:
Greetings Commanders.

Thanks for your patience and diligence in helping us narrow down a cause for the ongoing 'Orange Sidewinder' issues being faced today, when attempting to play Elite Dangerous Odyssey following the deployment of Update 4 (primarily affecting Steam users).

We're not out of the woods with it just yet, but thanks to your help we have confirmed along with many Commanders active in discussions, that the following workaround holds a good chance of getting you back in game.

We are naturally continuing to look into a full solution in the meantime.

Workaround (thank you again o7):
  • Open the Elite Dangerous Steam launcher.
  • Select Options > Validate Game Files.
  • You should now be able to play.

  • AS AN ADDITIONAL step to try (thank you to several Commanders more on this), some success has been found by disabling the Elite Dangerous Cache prior to validating:
    • Steam > Settings from the top left client menu.
    • In the Settings panel, select the Downloads tab and you'll find the "Clear Download Cache" button at the bottom.
    • Then select "OK" to confirm and acknowledge that you'll need to login to Steam again.

We currently believe that the reason why loading screen timeouts and 'Orange Sidewinders' are occurring, is because some of the resource files for Odyssey appear to have initially deployed to Steam incorrectly, during the update process.

Please do let us know if this does not work for you and we will reach out for some extra info, to try and narrow down on the issue further.

Similarly do also let us know if you're experiencing these issues as a non Steam launcher user, as we continue to look into a full solution as a priority.

Thank you so much for your support.

o7
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, using the workaround appears to create a different problem where the Elite Dangerous Steam launcher brings up a static progress bar (with 'preparing for update') and then freezes. Now trying same process after diabling virtual cache in Options. This seems to have allowed the validation process to commence.

Can report that the process of validation in the Elite Dangerous Steam launcher has fixed the problem (but only worked after temporarily disabling virtual cache).
 
Last edited:

JosefIsHere

J
sallymorganmoore said:
Gahhh this is a common one isn't it too?! This one I don't know about....I need to figure this one out - Tricky because it's not easy to diagnose with just a stuck steam...interface. Let's try anyway.
Click to expand...
Hi, yep it is common I guess, validated steam files went perfectly. Clicked to validate files in the launcher and I am stuck on preparing for update...
 

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Commanders experiencing long waiting times for "Preparing Update"

A little bit of insight into what's going on here! I found it pretty interesting anyway so thought I'd share...
  • This step is Steam checking for what it needs to download.
  • To build that check it has to read every byte of every file to find out what it's currently got. That can take a long time on mechanical hard drives, slower SSDs and anything with a virus scanner installed.
  • Then it compares that to what's ready to download, and downloads it.
That first step doesn't have a progress bar, it just "does its thing" without updating the UI.

Hope this helps - even for interests sake at this point - BUT of course I hope the preparing stage ends for you all eventually. That's ALL I want, in fairness.
 

Oddy-B

Oddy-B
sallymorganmoore said:
Greetings Commanders.

Thanks for your patience and diligence in helping us narrow down a cause for the ongoing 'Orange Sidewinder' issues being faced today, when attempting to play Elite Dangerous Odyssey following the deployment of Update 4 (primarily affecting Steam users).

We're not out of the woods with it just yet, but thanks to your help we have confirmed along with many Commanders active in discussions, that the following workaround holds a good chance of getting you back in game.

We are naturally continuing to look into a full solution in the meantime.

Workaround (thank you again o7):
  • Open the Elite Dangerous Steam launcher.
  • Select Options > Validate Game Files.
  • You should now be able to play.

  • AS AN ADDITIONAL step to try (thank you to several Commanders more on this), some success has been found by disabling the Elite Dangerous Cache prior to validating:
    • Steam > Settings from the top left client menu.
    • In the Settings panel, select the Downloads tab and you'll find the "Clear Download Cache" button at the bottom.
    • Then select "OK" to confirm and acknowledge that you'll need to login to Steam again.

We currently believe that the reason why loading screen timeouts and 'Orange Sidewinders' are occurring, is because some of the resource files for Odyssey appear to have initially deployed to Steam incorrectly, during the update process.

Please do let us know if this does not work for you and we will reach out for some extra info, to try and narrow down on the issue further.

Similarly do also let us know if you're experiencing these issues as a non Steam launcher user, as we continue to look into a full solution as a priority.

Thank you so much for your support.

o7
Click to expand...
Carried out recommended actions No change cannot get to Main Menu
Still getting Infinite Loading
 

CMDR Von Abrahart

CMDR Von Abrahart
1C135CB2-1EC7-41D8-87EB-B336E4474C94.jpeg

Sally - Have a cake to go with your cookies
 
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