The unreliability of Publisher and/or Steam Workshop

[Undeceived 392]

BIS, I really would prefer to express how p***** off I am because of this situation, but no - I won't do it. :p :)

To make things short: I can't update my MANW project - a SP campaign, which (as every SP-project) relies on comments and ratings in the Steam Workshop in order to hopefully gain votes and entrance to the finalists. But Publisher simply fails updating it and I can't find a way to release and promote my work on Steam Workshop. I created a ticket here, but hell... Hundreds of tickets are created every day, isn't it? :j: (edit: Cool, it was assigned!)

So what if it was 25th of October and yeah! --> Publisher does what it always does (at least for me, since my first upload of my project, no shit!): Nothing, aside from crashing, failing, ignoring, etc.

The deadline is on 28th of October (IIRC) and ok, I can be supercautious and try to upload my gold version three days before. But who knows, if that will work? :)

Is there a idea how to deal with this? Thanks.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Undeceived

[Undeceived 392]

Does updating work for everyone else?

[John Spartan 89]

@Undecived - you have missed BI's statement regarding this issue. Publisher is not fully functional = true; but please read this and contact BI directly.

[Undeceived 392]

Thanks, John, but it also says in the statement that SP projects still have to be submitted to the SW. Or am I missing the point completely?

But apart from the technical problem: The thing also is that even if I could upload it again on SW as a new entry, this new submission would lack all comments and ratings and would have to "start from zero". Well, it's not the end of the world but still very significant. And there will be more updates to come in the coming weeks. I don't want to make a new submission every time. :) (provided that I can submit it at all).

Therefore: Please vote here: :)

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=21026

Again, thanks for the link with the newsletter - I'll contact BIS via the support email.

[Kydoimos 916]

Feel your pain - I can't actually upload my PBO at all via Publisher - just keeps failing - any ideas, suggestions?

[IndeedPete 1038]

Strangely, I don't experience this issue lately (and I'm pretty glad I must say). But that doesn't mean the workshop would function anywhere close to smooth. I really think about giving up my content on the steam shop post-MANW, it's just too unstable and horrible to use. All these limitations, issues, failures, non-availabilities - no thanks. It is a nice concept and I understand that BI wants contest content to be "easily accessible" for users. (Though I'm not sure how content from the pre-workshop era uploaded on traditional hosters was inaccessible for the community - just because one had to copypaste a donwloaded file into the Missions/Campaigns dir? oO)

So, one time Publisher in combination with Steam Workshop is enough for me. I'd much rather stick to one-click hosters, Armaholic and the BI-Forums - all these platforms are doing a great job, no need for all that steam hassle.

[Undeceived 392]

Kydoimos, even if you create a completely new SW entry???

[Kydoimos 916]

@Undeceived - yup! I've tried over 500+ uploads - seriously, pulling my hair out now! :(

[Rydygier 1317]

I think, when something is going wrong during Workshop entry update, issue from now on has permanent nature and will block any further attempts, no matter, how numerous. Only theory of course. This way I completely lost ability to update my first Workshop Pilgrimage entry (pre-MANW). Solution was to upload Pilgrimage again, as new, separate Workshop entry. Now I'm during final tests under 1.32. After that I have to make last update of my submission before deadline. I can only hope to avoid this problem (seems kind of lottery or "Russian roulette"). If no - I'll try to make third Pilgrimage entry on Workshop and relate it with MANW entry.

[Kydoimos 916]

@Rydygier - thanks for that, I think you might be right. My problem is I can't even get my Workshop campaign to upload at all - let alone update! :(

[IndeedPete 1038]

Maybe there's a filesize limit? My project is a bit below 100MB but I don't have voices and such. I could imagine the Resist PBO is bigger due to more custom textures and all that voice acting. Undeceived's is also 10 or 15 MB bigger than M.E.R.C.S. if I recall that right.

[Rydygier 1317]

My blocked in such way Workshop entry has 2.5 MB, so IMO it's not due to any size limit, but it was half year ago. However perhaps the bigger the file, the bigger chance, something will go wrong.

[Kydoimos 916]

My project's 416 MB - so, I'm beginning to wonder... okay - freaking out a bit now! :P

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hm, maybe try to see if a much smaller dummy file works? Not sure where this experiment is going but it might be worth a try.

[Undeceived 392]

Kyd, make sure you contact the devs and the MANW support now, one week before the deadline! BIS says in the newsletter that we are responsible to make it available on the Workshop (in other words: Don't upload too late!), but I fail to see where the responsibility is ours when there are such technical problems and the devs know about the problem one week earlier.

---------- Post added at 16:17 ---------- Previous post was at 16:16 ----------

Btw. did you check your file, if everything is correct in the addon structure?

Edited October 19, 2014 by Undeceived

[Kydoimos 916]

@Undeceived - hi, thanks! Yes, I've sent an email to MANW support and opened up some threads here on the forum! I think everything is correct on the Addon structure - IndeedPete has been very, very patient / helpful! (Thanks, mate!). I've got a PBO called Resist. Inside the PBO I have the Config.cpp and a standard folder called Resist. In that folder I have the missions folder, description, and stringtable.

@IndeedPete - thanks, good idea, I'll try that later! :)

---------- Post added at 16:22 ---------- Previous post was at 16:18 ----------

Thanks guys, for the support too - I really appreciate it! Quite a stressful process with Steam Workshop, huh? :P

[IndeedPete 1038]

If your PBO works from a "traditional" mod folder with a custom A3 launcher or shortcut it will work from the shop as well. I'm not even sure if the steam shop can actually check a PBO's contents.

[Kydoimos 916]

Yeah - that's the weird thing - it works fine as an addon! Basically, I'm just trying to upload the campaign PBO without the addon folder :S I'd be surprised if Steam reads the PBO too, but who knows! :P

[IndeedPete 1038]

Well, steam certainly changes the PBO (or at least is lowers the name). The fact alone that steam touches uploaded content is giving me the creeps, imagine they'd start to actually change the PBO names - it would cause nothing but trouble. I guess your problem really isn't the PBO though, it's the workshop and all its funny bugs.

[Kydoimos 916]

Hiya - right - thanks, IndeedPete, I've just successfully uploaded a test PBO with my campaign structure - no problem. It must be the size of the file that is causing issues!!!!

---------- Post added at 17:13 ---------- Previous post was at 17:01 ----------

Ah - now Steam Workshop's cloud thinks the mission's uploaded and taken out 416MB of memory, when it hasn't uploaded! :( Now I can't even attempt to upload it! Has anyone else had sync issues like this?

[IndeedPete 1038]

Either the sole size or as Rydygier guessed the possibility of getting an error increases with the file size. Maybe you could also try to monitor your upload progress separately to see if a timeout occurs or so. Not just by looking at the Publisher's progress bar (which is pretty useless in my opinion) but by using your OS' hardware monitoring tools. Windows 8.1. provides CPU, Memory and also Network data in the task manager ("Performance" tab). Not sure about Windows 7 but Google might get you some information. That way you can see and guess if the Publisher is constantly uploading or pauses / timeouts at some point. This might just be a useless indicator but I put on that extra monitoring every time I use the Publisher, just because I don't trust that system and the Publisher shows no useful connection data whatsoever.

[Kydoimos 916]

Thanks, mate - I'll look into that :) Just need to convince Steam I actually have the memory free to upload anything! :P

[IndeedPete 1038]

Yeah, never seen that issue and I hope I'll never do so. xX

[Kydoimos 916]

lol, you're lucky! I had 600MB free twenty minutes ago. Now I have a few hundred. And still no campaign uploaded!

[IndeedPete 1038]

And completely deleting it through the steam client (is that even possible) doesn't work?