Many people have been asking for help with this, or have run into issues using the open beta downloader, so here are some instructions to get around it.


1. Open the FFXIV open Beta client, allow it to get to the step where it begins downloading files. This will ensure you have the torrents downloaded on your computer.

2. Open whatever application you use for downloading torrents. If you do not use one already, I would suggest uTorrent ( http://www.utorrent.com ). In Utorrent, File > add torrent. Point Utorrent to the following:
Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta Version\downloads\ffxiv-beta\d96437e6\metainfo

In the metainfo folder you will find files that have the same name as the patch your FFXIV was trying to download. Select these files, and hit open.

3. Utorrent will now begin downloading these files to your computer. Based on your internet connection and security settings this should take less than 5 minutes. By default Utorrent downloads to the "downloads" folder in your documents folder. After it is complete there will be a folder called D96437e6, inside of this folder there will be a folder called patch, and inside the patch folder, there will be the actual patches

4.Copy these files to Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta Version\downloads\ffxiv-beta\d96437e6\patch

5. Open FFXIV, it will try to patch again, realize it already has the information, and prompt you to log in.

6. Win.



If anyone has questions let me know. If it gets too crazy ill just post screen shots to make it easier.

This helped alot. Thanks!

Yah, I used it last night, as well.

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New update today: 2010.09.04.2000

Confirmed this method still works as of now.

Thanks nayoz your a big help and I hated to wait until its done then gets stuck!!!!

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Worked great!! thank you ; )

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Thanks for the post Nayoz! worked for me too.

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If this continues to work even after launch ill make a more extensive explanation, no point in wasting time on it now if it does not remain a possibility.

Problems with SE's updater:

- They're using D3D rendering for seemingly no reason other than to make the progress bar animate, which eats up an entire core of your CPU.
- It has no upload throttling. In the majority of cases, maxing out your upload speed will "choke" your download speed, preventing you from downloading anything more than a few kilobytes per second while your upload is maxed out.
- It can't seem to use uPnP properly. Clients like uTorrent these days can use uPnP to (providing it's enabled on your router) automatically open ports on your router, meaning you never again have firewall problems.
- Some people simply don't download torrents very fast, because of ISP throttling or other situations. There should be a HTTP fallback to download the patch, built into the patcher, if the patcher detects it isn't downloading properly.
- (Optional) Why not have (or at least a link to) the update notes for the patch it's doing.

They need to fix all these before it won't be a pain in the ass to use the damn updater.

Small patches are annoyingly harder to download than big ones. SE's updater never allows clients to seed, they download their 2MB of data and instantly disconnect, so your updater spends forever connecting to people who, by the time you connect, are already (or very close to) finished. This is why we need the HTTP fallback.

Back in the days of FF11, I used to stare at my 20 minute direct download update with a bleeding heart. Wishing for the day SE would implement torrent updates like any other MMO title out there.

Now that they have, I stare at my 20 hour update and wish with teary eyes they'd revet back to direct download and think myself silly for ever hating it.

So today's patch throws in a small change to the above steps. Use the BCA2A8AE folder instead of D96437E6.

Edit: Red background during download = BCA2A8AE. Blue = D96437E6.

So today after running through this same process i am getting an error 2054 while it is installing. Going to look into it when i am at work.

JK looks like this caused by hardware mouse.

Do you mean 'An update error has occurred - 20524' ? Did you patch your mouse using that hardware mouse thing? It prevents you from being able to update unless you put your backed up ffxivgame.exe file back.

Yeah forgot about that. And resolved by just copying over my .exe and launching again.

So now I read SE is telling sites now to stop making the patches available any other way then using their downloader.

It's like they dont want anyone to play their game.

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So... we may want to drop this sticky. The client has been running great for me lately, have not had to use this method. Can anyone confirm the same?

If we need this again ill be more detailed about it, with screenshots, but realistically at this point it is not necessary.

I haven't had problems with their client, but I don't think they've released any patches as big as what the beta ones were except for that initial one.

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[In Yarr we trust.]