Update 4 Orange Sidewinder Workaround and Investigation

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
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
 
Last edited:

Sethiest

Sethiest
space%20cookies.jpg


Sally, you are doing an amazing job.


Please take all the space cookies.
 

stringtheery

stringtheery
I'm reposting my other post here, in case it helps anyone. :)

Thanks Sally for the great work! Here is what fixed the Orange Sidewinder for me.

1) In the ED launcher selected Options | Validate game files
2) --> This ran for ten minutes and gave me an "Incorrect manifest checksum" error
3) I launched ED but still got the Orange Sidewinder
4) I closed out of everything then in Steam did a Verify integrity of game files
5) Then in the ED launcher I did Options | Validate game files again. It seemed to work this time.
6) --> I launched ED and was able to get in the game normally

Have a great day! :)
 

CornishCracker

C
Hi Sally, Frontier gave LEP'ers a Steam key for Horizons when it released. Why is it not the same for Odyssey? It's a pain to have it on Steam and to download the files from Frontier. This is why you are having file errors when you update your steam version.
 

Cmdr G0tt

Cmdr G0tt
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.
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...
It doesn't work for me.
 

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
dsquaver said:
Have tried this numerous times and it does not work / the Elite launcher just sits continually at "Preparing for update" - for over 30 minutes at least. Is there an alternative?
Click to expand...

That's what we're currently working on right now (the alternative). Sorry to here this - frustrating for all, I can appreciate.
 

CMDR Gwillem

C
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.
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...
Thanks for your quick response! Much appreciated!
 

Jazzlvraz

Jazzlvraz
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.
 
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