[Bug] Patch takes forever to actually patch

Comments: 99

• 11 Sep, '21
  seth Merged

  My friends and I noticed that after downloading the patch today that the install process was odd. Almost no disk usage for first 10 minutes while the expected time to completion shot up to 2+ years.
  
  Now its chugging along at 19 mb/s. Seems odd for a 76mb patch to need another 20 min after the dl

• 

  27 Sep, '21
  Neal Merged

  First, I installed the game on the local drive R, and then reinstalled it on the C drive. I noticed that when downloading updates, the old installation path is used, and then it is copied to the new directory. Perhaps this is a Steam problem, or perhaps not. I also noticed that both installation paths are present in the Windows Registry

• 02 Oct, '21
  Neal Merged

  This could happen because the first time I uninstalled the game simply by manually deleting the folder.

• 

  09 Oct, '21
  John Merged

  It is mostly done already after ~10 (maybe 35 cuz it was prob working while i was watching anime) mins so not a huge deal but it downloaded a 147 mb update to do a 36.1 gb patch and its running slow. around 90-150 MB/s disk usage. And now its verifying the files when that finished, great.
  
  I *thought* i clicked to install on my SSD C drive but it anded up installing the Beta on my HDD so after openingit once this morning i had steam move the install file. Guessing this is reinstalling the whole game on the wrong HD. i know kniow how to check what its doing, if it was too slow i was gonna click to verify my files but im waiting it out.
  Its done and i dont see it on the HDD so w/e.
  
  If this was the inteented update and its just a slow patching process for a small file my bad. The pic shows 17 hours in that snip but i didnt even notice it showing such a bad estimate, it was showing ~3 mins usually, took 15-45 mins.

• 09 Oct, '21
  SnS Merged

  Same problem here 150Mb of download and patching process time more than 10 min. Move to 5%-12% is the slow process

• 09 Oct, '21
  Windy Merged

  Update through steam doesn't work as should. work around: uninstall and install again. Entire process goes 20x faster.

• 10 Oct, '21
  Guest Merged

  Steam diff-pathes 40gb asset archive (which is somewhat weird because there are 17 pak files. Are all of them changed?). This takes a lot of time and disk bandwidth.

• 10 Oct, '21
  LordDrol Merged

  Downloaded updates through steam take 15-30 min to “patch.” Every. Time. Regardless of download size.
  I don’t have this problem with any other game. It’s literally just writing to the disk

• 10 Oct, '21
  Iulian Merged

  The update is not working right now for me... I can't play the game because of 25 MBS of updates. It mentions something about disk write error... I have to reinstall I guess.
  Resolved the problem by delleting :appmanifest_1671080.acf from D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps

• 10 Oct, '21
  Chrissy Admin Merged

  "[Bug]? Download patch" (suggested by LordDrol on 2021-10-10), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 12 Oct, '21
  Terry Merged

  My sons computer took over an hour to actually patch the game, so we missed an hour of game play at the end of the weekend which was sad. It downloaded it in a few seconds, but the actual patching process was horribly slow. Computer was essentially idle too, CPU/HDD/RAM were all basically doing nothing, so no idea what the patching process was actually doing.

• 13 Oct, '21
  MoD256 Merged

  I also think the patch/update times are a little bit long, but I guess this are high efficient compressed incremental updates, what would explain the little download sizes, but on the other side it needs much more time for uncompressing/merging/replacing the patches...
  
  Hard to say what's the better way. For one with volume-based internet connection it's the best what can happen, but for flatrate/unlimted users the download could be bigger, therefore the patch time could be faster.....
  
  So it would be rational to find an compromise, make the downloads so big that the patch speed is bearable, but not so tall that we everytime must download half of the game again.
  
  To find the best compromise can be harder than we think, because we don't know how much there is really patched... but I think it would make sense to find a way to shorten the patch time on "normal" hard disks to 5-15 minutes on a average-good gaming pc. 30-90 minutes are ways to long.

• 23 Oct, '21
  Derpy1 Merged

  The game requires to redownload and verify the entire game every update. Everytime I see the update, like the recent one, it said 50 something MB but really it was 20gigs. This is problematic because that eats up so much time that me and my friends could be playing.

• 23 Oct, '21
  Derpy1 Merged

  The game requires to redownload and verify the entire game every update. Everytime I see the update, like the recent one, it said 50 something MB but really it was 20gigs. This is problematic because that eats up so much time that me and my friends could be playing.

• 09 Nov, '21
  Elissa - Producer Admin Merged

  "update take long time on steam" (suggested by rayxon17 on 2021-11-08), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 

  04 Dec, '21
  Nathan Merged

  Why does it take an hour to update?
  This has been an issue since early beta!

• 05 Dec, '21
  Kevin Merged

  If you don't have enough disk space left, steam will fail to update the game and you have to redownload it again.
  This is also for 3 mb patches, steam will show "not enough disk space".

• 06 Dec, '21
  Elissa - Producer Admin Merged

  Hey! This isn't something we can fix, we've optimised it to the best of our ability, and it's now your internet and Steam's side to help you get it faster. It also depends on how many people are downloading at the same time! Thanks!

• 07 Dec, '21
  Big Gay Merged

  every update or patch etc i have to reinstall the game or patch the 48 gigs every time? very fun game

• 

  07 Dec, '21
  Snoochy42 Merged

  For whatever reason whenever I download the updates my game does a full file verification and steam stalls out for about 10-30 minutes. IF it resumes normal operations, if spikes up and down constantly and takes about 4 hours to verify the files. Sometimes it takes more than 12 hours. but in general Steam tries to tell me it will take "> 1 year" to verify my files. The Game itself however downloads and installs in about 12 minutes. Please do not make File Validations a forced requirement every single patch if able.

• 07 Dec, '21
  Mantauk Merged

  I've noticed this is mainly an issue with HDD speeds vs SSD speeds. For example, on my computer (WD_Black 2T PCIe 4.0), the game takes about a minute to download, install and verify. Meanwhile on my girlfriends computer (which has 2 Samsung Pro SSDs and 1 WD hybrid HDD) the installer seems to prefer to write and read the entire archive to the HDD before install can complete. This can take upwards of an hour for a simple 32MB update. With a goal of daily updates, this means I have to log onto her computer an hour before she gets off work every day or we don't have time to play. This is the only game we own (out of a few hundred on Steam) where this has proven to be an issue. A fix or workaround is needed.

• 08 Dec, '21
  Mike Merged

  It is verifying AND moving 50GB, not just verifying... This results in up to two hours of waiting.

• 08 Dec, '21
  Ariel Masciotta Merged

  This should definitely be a more upvoted suggestion.
  SSDs, DO have a finite life. It's called TBW(Tera Bytes Written). Anyone who has mined Chia, started to realize that their SSDs have a lifebar that is constantly decreasing.
  So, I took a close look at the performance counters while patching, and here's what I found
  5 minutes patch:
  Average writes of 500MB/s, with peaks of 700MB/s.
  Let's say, 500MB * 60 * 5 = 150.000 = 150GB.
  Every time the game patches, you're spending 150GB of your SSD life.
  Most low end SSDs have a lot less TBW in their life, for example:
  WD Green M2 SSD:
  240GB - 80TBW
  WD Blue M2 SSD:
  240GB - 100TBW
  500GB - 200TBW
  1TB - 400TBW
  HP EX950 M2 SSD:
  2TB - 1400TBW.
  
  Patching process should definitely get patched :)

• 

  08 Dec, '21
  JGIGame Merged

  Hello. On the steam platform, when the patch is released, the entire game is loaded (48GB). This happens for all users and brings huge inconvenience. Please fix this issue. Sincerely, a player with the nickname JGIGame =)

• 

  08 Dec, '21
  Iván Alfredo Fraire Garza Merged

  Im having problems downloading or updating the game, it says i have not enough free disk space but i have 600 GB free disk space.
  
  If i try to download another game i can download it with no problem.
  
  I tried verifying integrity of game files but it says all the files are ok, then i uninstall to try reinstalling the game but now i cant download it because it says i have not enough free disk space, any idea of how i can solve this?
  
  i tried too cleaning steam download cache and switching download region but not a success.

• 08 Dec, '21
  Matt Merged

  Looks like the game is only 51gb on disk. Seems odd.

• 09 Dec, '21
  Kasper Merged

  Every time Icarus is updated in steam, the download goes to 100%, but it never finishes installing. At least not within an hour or two, because that's how long I've waited until I've decided to reinstall the entire game instead. Download works fine, game plays fine, but so far I had to reinstall the entire game with every hotfix.

• 09 Dec, '21
  JGIGame Merged

  Updating the data. I contacted the Steam platform and received the following response in a brief form described below:
  
  Hello!
  
  Thank you for contacting Steam support and the information provided, including the screenshot.
  
  It is impossible to launch the game on Steam without installing the latest updates before that. 48.7GB is the total amount of game files. This does not mean that all of them will be overwritten, but the files will be changed according to the update algorithm set by the developers.
  
  In response, I indicated that all the specified data is overwritten with any update, the answer has not yet been received to this effect.
  
  As I understand it, there is some inconsistency in the algorithms for updating the game on both sides. I hope my information will be useful for you in solving this problem. Sincerely, JGIGame.

• 

  11 Dec, '21
  Andrew Merged

  Great game, lots of fun, however, patch update file size grows after the patch installs and continues to count up until my computers memory fills up or crashes. I can work around this by reinstalling the game, but honestly cannot in good judgment rewrite 50 gigs on my SSD every time this game needs to patch. This is unfortunate because I enjoy playing this game.

• 15 Dec, '21
  Erik Merged

  Fix the issue where you download the whole game (49.1 gig) for a 32.8 meg patch.

• 15 Dec, '21
  Boris Merged

  Another update 14.8 MB, and another 49 GB to reinstall after that...
  
  This is really a pain in the ass.
  
  I've read that "it's not the developpers fault, Steam is the problem"
  
  Mmmmm yeah, may be, but it would be much appreciated to find the source of the problem and bring us a solution !!

• 15 Dec, '21
  Nsanehunter Merged

  Why must we update the whole game each patch? This is 49 gb that counts toward data cap each time.

• 16 Dec, '21
  darkness3691 Merged

  Please Fix your patching system. Should not have to download the entire game to update a 2.5mb file

• 16 Dec, '21
  OhYeah Merged

  That's not what its doing. It running a verification process

• 16 Dec, '21
  LedZeppelin Merged

  The updates are very welcomed and thank you for this for this. Every game in Steam update is downloading very fast, every single ICARUS's update , even if is a 2.5 MB is taking half an hour. What is happening ? BTW,

• 16 Dec, '21
  LedZeppelin Merged

  And the update is over ! Corrupted update files. Try again :)))

• 16 Dec, '21
  Vex Merged

  Ask Steam/Valve :)

• 16 Dec, '21
  Maoam Merged

  You're not installing the whole game. Due to file corruption issues Steam just verifies all game data after each patch.

• 18 Dec, '21
  Owl Merged

  With every update the whole game (> 40GB) will be moved. That takes a lot of time and isn't healty for solid state disk who are limited in their writing processes. Maybe it could be changed ...
  
  Best regards

• 18 Dec, '21
  Arellya Merged

  for 3 days in a row now ive had updates. i download it in less then a minute for the smaller ones but it takes almost 30 minutes forthe patch to install. every patch requires the game to reinstall every single bit of 46.4 GB. sooooo unoptimized. it wouldnt be so bad if it wasnt literally every single day. optimize your updates because 30 minutes to apply a patch less than 1 mb is ridiculous.
  
  Also while wearing leather armor, the helm clips big time and gets in your vision in first person view. it seems to only be in the arctic biome, but i have not tested it in others yet. its to the point you cant see anything at times in first person, and are forced to not wear the leather helmet or only play in 3rd person.

• 18 Dec, '21
  Jacob Merged

  We cant have the whole game re-written after every update guys. Yall have pushed like 20MB updates, only for all 48.9GB to be re-written to disk after the update is downloaded. This is thrashing drives for no reason. This process leaves much to be desired.

• 20 Dec, '21
  The Unknown Merged

  so i already made a post about this and wish your website would start sending me notifications again about if i post was autherised (i haven't been gettting emails from my OP's since the first week of release)
  
  So every single time we update - we get *Updating game* which updates the entire 40+Gig THEN it says *Installing* the entire package... then VERIFYING the entire package - NO OTHER GAME does 3 passes!!! and it is KILLING my system and drives... do you want to buy everyone a new pc???

• 

  20 Dec, '21
  Hilte

  I have been having the same issue, however even to extremer lengths. Every single time an update comes out I have got the chance of this taking closer to 10 hours to patch, sometimes even completely flatlining as seen in the picture below. I cannot play this game when there is a daily update taking a day to patch. I am running my game on a Samsung Evo 960 m.2 SSD, so these times are completely ludicrous.

• 

  20 Dec, '21
  Baalzamon Merged

  Please fix your patching structure....for every little patch or hotfix the whole game overwrite himself...so every 2 days with 50gb change....this kills ssd's slowly

• 20 Dec, '21
  Elissa - Producer Admin

  "Patch Download" (suggested by Nsanehunter on 2021-12-15), including upvotes (5) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

• 20 Dec, '21
  Elissa - Producer Admin

  "[Bug] Patch is taking a while" (suggested by John on 2021-10-09), including upvotes (46) and comments (11), was merged into this suggestion.

• 21 Dec, '21
  W2D2 Merged

  Modern SSDs can be overwritten daily for years before it becomes a problem. So calling it an SSD killer is an overstatement.
  
  I've seen this patching problem in other games and they eventually fixed it. I would expect them to solve it if it is really a problem.
  
  As I read it there is a 2.1MB file making changes to 6.6GB subset of data (files) in a 48GB total set. So it's probably only just a few data pages being modified.

• 31 Dec, '21
  Andrew Merged

  To note, I see posts suggesting that this update cycle involves how steam interacts with unreal engine 4, suggesting that all unreal engine 4 games need to patch the whole game like this. However, google "steam patches whole game" and you'll find a load of hits from Nov 2021, somewhere around the first patches of Icarus and not much else. The suggestion that this is how steam interacts with unreal is nonsense. I've never had this happen for any other game, unreal or otherwise. I personally refuse to play the game until this is fixed I am not wasting my SSD rewrites, which ultimately leads to early degradation of my computer storage, it's like running a defrag on 50 GB of your solid state drive just so you can play the game. This isn't just an "oh wait out the patch install time you whiner" issue, this is going to lead to a lot of people running into storage failures, and possibly complete loss of their computer and it's files.

• 31 Dec, '21
  Robert Merged

  Whether this is a steam issue or a Icarus issue it needs to be addressed.

• 14 Jan, '22
  Raul Motta Merged

  I have same problem , last update, i desinstall and reinstall to play, today another update stuck in steam