Argh, this issue just keeps haunting me.
Once, again, when I start the latest build, it hangs on the Beta 2A splash screen for over a minute (if I fire up the task manager, it tells me that the program is not responding) and then eventually tells me:
Failed to download data file. Please make sure you're connected to the internet, have signed into Impulse and that no firewall or anti-virus program is blocking Elemental.
The Windows Firewall settings seem to be in order, but I also tried temporarily disabling the firewall and anti-virus, to no apparent effect. Reinstalling doesn't help. Deleting the Elemental folder in My Games doesn't help. The Impulse window being open or closed doesn't seem to have an effect.
If I terminate my internet connection before running the Beta, there is no hang, I get the error message immediately.
Beta 2 worked just fine and I upgraded to it the exact same way I did to 2A.
I've had this issue in Beta 1 as well and there it eventually stopped happening for reasons still unknown. Was it something that changed on my end? Was something changed on Stardock's servers? Or did I just find a time of day when the servers were in a better mood? *shrug*
debug.err
dxdiag
My Suggestion:
Make the data file download more explicit, when using this kind of system in the future. Have a popup explaining what is happening and how it's progressing.
The way it currently works, I couldn't tell why the game was hanging on the splash screen for minutes even when the data file was downloading correctly. I certainly had no idea what this error message referred to until I did some digging on the forums. Right now, I have no way of telling why the download fails. Does it fail to connect? Does it time out because the download is too slow? Who knows.
