Cannot download on weak connection - 403 Forbidden

[rectifier]

Hi guys,

I live in a rural area and have absolute GARBAGE internet via satellite. It is slow, lossy, and when it does work, is throttled by an unknown method that often breaks TCP connections.

However, I downloaded the demo with no problems via the torrent in about 4 hours.

Unfortunately, after paying my money, I cannot get the full version to download from the site.

I'm using DownThemAll on Firefox for the resume support and ease of use. But it cannot resume. When the connection drops a few minutes in, I get a 403 when it tries to pick back up. I've also experienced some weird "size mismatch" errors that I've never seen.

I tried using the old standby of wget but it will give me a 403 right off the start. Seems some kind of security is getting in the way.

I'm in the unfortunate situation where I am tempted to download an "unauthorised" copy via torrent despite having paid for the software! However, I feel like doing things the right way. Can you guys help me out?

Thanks for making a game that actually works under Linux by the way. Unfortunately I am downloading the full version for Windows because I have an ATI card, and the framerate is poor. Keep up the good work, as my next card will be NVidia for sure!

[sal_vager]

Hi rectifier, please don't go down that route, I don't know how to fix your internet but maybe someone will have a idea, and that kind of "distribution" isn't allowed to be discussed here.

You could try downloading it at another location, there is no DRM tying KSP to a machine so you can pop it on a USB stick and take it with you.

[rectifier]

Unfortunately we all use the same bogus ISP out here. It's all we have. Only other download site is to attempt at the library in town, which is not open until Monday and a half-hour's drive away.

Probably makes more sense to try to get the resume support working properly.

Doing some more experimentation with wget I need more information as to how the authentication works. I tried wget --load-cookies using cookies copied from firefox and still got a 403. Tried using basic auth to no avail. Looks like it will be a pain to download with wget unless more information is supplied, so I will have to use a plugin-based download manager.

It must be that the authentication does not carry over to DownThemAll for some reason. Perhaps I need to try another plugin-based download manager.

[sal_vager]

I have heard that DownThemAll can fail with KSP so it may be worth trying another download manager.

There is a patcher for KSP that can resume after a failed or interrupted download, it's worth a try

[lokinghon]

maybe download the game thru steam? They support all kind of fancy reconnects

[sal_vager]

I don't think it's posible to convert a store purchase to Steam anymore, that was a pre-Steam release thing.

[rectifier]

I think the patcher can only repair a damaged install, so that would mean my zip would have to be good enough to unzip something. Previously I could only get about 2MB before failure.

Regarding Steam, I'm really impressed that Squad would make KSP available for regular download with no DRM. So I decided to give the money right to them and not to a middleman, we've got to encourage this kind of release!

The other problem with Steam (and XBL Arcade for that matter) is wanting to download big updates before you can do anything, and doing them as full replacements instead of patches. And doing so in a non-resumable manner! Yes, out here 200MB is a big update My Xbox lives disconnected from the internet unless I want to download a new game from XBL Arcade. Then I set it up and leave it overnight (or worse) to pull all of the updates before I can download the game!

So, I used FlashGot to pass the download link with cookies/auth to wget and it is running. I find wget is much more forgiving of long spans of packet loss than most downloaders and so far I have received 30MB. If it does drop out, I at least have a partial file that I can try to pass with wget -c.

Only 8 hours before I can play, barring any dropouts. Yay!

So, don't use DownThemAll to get KSP.

[Deddly]

I don't think it's posible to convert a store purchase to Steam anymore, that was a pre-Steam release thing.

I just checked on my account on the KSP store and I can confirm that the option to transfer to Steam is still available. I haven't clicked on it (don't use Steam) but it's definitely there.

[sal_vager]

It'll be there for purchasers prior to the May 2013 cutoff, after that I don't know.

[rectifier]

Still coming along. So it dropped connection 233MB in, threw a 403 and died. Unfortunately, the incomplete file had the token name in the filename, so I couldn't just try to restart it (though flashgot automatically passes -c, the filename has changed.)

Are you kidding, Flashgot has no documented option to set the output filename!

So I had to:

- rename partial file to ~/Downloads/ksp.zip

- login to kerbalspaceprogram.com with Firefox

- right-click -> Flashgot link

- Ctl-C to immediately kill the script it starts running

- find the script (flashgot-*.fgt) in the directory set as temp

- chop off everything but the wget command, add "-O ~/Downloads/ksp.zip"

- run the script before something changes!

It picked back up and we are trucking along with 5hrs remaining. Hopefully I don't have to do this too many more times. Good thing it's winter and I have time to .... around with stuff like this!

The problem is that kerbalspaceprogram.com is just not set up for resuming of these downloads, especially when the download speed is slow. When it tries to resume, the cookies have already gone stale, and the server throws 403 Forbidden. Perhaps it should be fixed, but there are just not that many of us out there on poor connections these days.

[RocketPilot573]

I think the patcher can only repair a damaged install, so that would mean my zip would have to be good enough to unzip something. Previously I could only get about 2MB before failure.

Regarding Steam, I'm really impressed that Squad would make KSP available for regular download with no DRM. So I decided to give the money right to them and not to a middleman, we've got to encourage this kind of release!

The other problem with Steam (and XBL Arcade for that matter) is wanting to download big updates before you can do anything, and doing them as full replacements instead of patches. And doing so in a non-resumable manner! Yes, out here 200MB is a big update My Xbox lives disconnected from the internet unless I want to download a new game from XBL Arcade. Then I set it up and leave it overnight (or worse) to pull all of the updates before I can download the game!

So, I used FlashGot to pass the download link with cookies/auth to wget and it is running. I find wget is much more forgiving of long spans of packet loss than most downloaders and so far I have received 30MB. If it does drop out, I at least have a partial file that I can try to pass with wget -c.

Only 8 hours before I can play, barring any dropouts. Yay!

So, don't use DownThemAll to get KSP.

Can the patcher not install the entire KSP? Last I checked it searches for missing files and downloads them. So it should be able to do a complete install.

[sal_vager]

The patcher can download the whole game, just run it in an empty folder, it'll see that all the files need to be "replaced"

[rectifier]

Hmm, should have done that. I didn't look into the patcher much in detail as I assumed it would authenticate against an existing copy of the game. When I read in detail I realized you have to provide credentials for it to log in.

In any case I now have my copy of KSP, it only took 5 re-login and resume attempts. From here on out I will use the patcher to keep it up to date! Thanks

[Deddly]

Well done Rectifier! Looking forward to seeing your results in the future =)

[rectifier]

A year later I'm reviving this thread for the same issue. As a farmer I mostly play KSP in the winter, which means I now want to update to 1.0.5 instead of my old copy of 0.90.

Unfortunately, the patcher is now dead (killed?). Are there any plans to revive the patcher in the near future, or should I go through this tedious procedure again? Or, is there a set of patches I can download and apply to 0.90?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, rectifier said:

A year later I'm reviving this thread for the same issue. As a farmer I mostly play KSP in the winter, which means I now want to update to 1.0.5 instead of my old copy of 0.90.

Unfortunately, the patcher is now dead (killed?). Are there any plans to revive the patcher in the near future, or should I go through this tedious procedure again? Or, is there a set of patches I can download and apply to 0.90?

You probably should have just made a new thread, but there has to be a way to fix it.  It might just the the internet being the internet.  

[sal_vager]

There are plans to revive the patcher, I'm hoping it'll work for 1.1 as unfortunately Squad is averse to separate patches.