PDB required by autopatcher

[selkathguy]

The auto patcher throws a fatal error and aborts patching if the .pdb file is missing or was deleted. I understand the purpose of the PDB but it was deleted due to space constraints in dropbox at the time, which is where I run it from. I have manually redownloaded the .12 release for the interim.

"Error when opening [...Factorio.pdb] for reading: No such file or directory."

[FishSandwich]

If you deleted the file then this isn't exactly a bug, is it?

[selkathguy]

If you deleted the file then this isn't exactly a bug, is it?

Perhaps I'm not being very clear. The .11 .pdb was deleted. The auto patcher is trying to update to .12. Undoubtedly the .12 pdb is quite different. Regardless, can the autopatcher not simply replace a missing file? Especially since it knows exactly which file is missing. I am pretty sure the primary function of an auto patcher is to do precisely that (download and replace missing/changed files). So it seems odd for it to break by missing a file. @Devs, is it relying on a difference between the .11 and .12 manifests? I would think it would just index local files and compare that to the .12 manifest.

EDIT: If the reason is due to mods, then the operation could remain the same, except for a provision to automatically download a missing file that it is missing from the previous manifest.

[FishSandwich]

No, autopatchers patch files. They have the information in them to make changes to the files, not replace them.

This is why patches are generally smaller than a full installer.

[selkathguy]

Yes I am aware that a patcher can patch parts of files and this is how they work faster for very large files. But this is a feature that is more complex and all patchers which have capability to patch files in parts can also download whole files (all parts). This is why it seems very strange to me that the patcher doesn't have this capability. In fact I believe it does have this capability. For example tests/bin is a new directory which did not exist in my .11 version, yet there were no complaints there. So yes, patchers can patch files but they can obviously grab whole files. Factorio's patcher can too (normally), which is why I'm reporting this error as a bug.

[selkathguy]

Alright so I've been informed theres no way to retreive individual files from a release on the backend. In that case there's no easy fix and you can close this topic.