Hi Chris,

I have uninstalled and reinstalled Voobly per these instructions ([You must login to view link]) and AOE2 HD via Steam per these instructions ([You must login to view link]).

I even uninstalled and reinstalled Steam. After doing all that, I installed the compatibility patch from here ([You must login to view link]). When I run game diagnostics, I get an "everything looks fine" message:

The problem comes when I enter a game lobby and try to actually host a game or join a game with other players. It has something to do with Voobly's Auto-Update feature / Game Installation Directory.

When I go into the Medieval Siege Lobby and create a room or join a room, I get the error message: "Patch 'v1.5 RC' has not been installed. Do you want to download now?"

When I hit Yes, it takes me to this page to install the mod: https://www.voobly.com/gamemods/view/13/v1.5%20RC

When I click Download Now, I get the following warning: "The information you’re about to submit is not secure. Because this form is being submitted using a connection that’s not secure, your information will be visible to others."

When I hit "Send anyway", User Account Control asks me if I want to allow this app from an unknown publisher to make changes. I hit "Yes" but every time I get the following error from Voobly:

"Lost connection to the server. Reconnecting in XX seconds. Could not find game installation directory -- please join a lobby and run game diagnostics." If I hit reconnect now, nothing happens. If I wait until the "XX seconds" counts down to zero, it says "Downloading Update (Unknown)".... but nothing ever downloads.

I also cannot automatically install any other Mods or updates from Voobly's server either (e.g. small trees, short walls, etc.). I would have to install each mod manually. It's literally a matter of getting my computer to speak with Voobly's server so that it can pull the appropriate files and install them in the right folders on my system -- but something is going wrong at that step.

Everything is working fine, except that mechanism -- whether due to a computer setting on my end or some code from Voobly's end that is not working. My guess is some kind of new Windows update is messing things up.

Yes. #1 in my post above. I did it again just now. I have reinstalled AOK, AOC, voobly twice in the last few weeks.

Whatever we think the bug is, it's probably something very different. Without logging or debugging step by step, we will probably never figure this out.

Other people having this problem ("could not find game installation directory") - what version of windows and what type of computer do you have.

I have a 64 bit AMD computer (not intel, not 32 bit).
I have "Windows 10 Home".
I have no antivirus.

It's probably a windows update that came out in the last 12 months or so. I'm thinking of creating a virtual machine and doing all the updates to see if it fails on the virtual machine. Then walking back the updates.

Another thought is to take the tiny bit of C# code that Chris posted and creating a tiny C# program to repeat the steps to see if at least those steps work or don't work.

I've had someone with the same problem once too. Could not find a solution short of manually copying the files from a different machine where the process succeeds. Apparently the mechanism Voobly uses to download the mods fails on some system configurations, and it's impossible to troubleshoot any further because there isn't any meaningful error information presented by the installer.

I was unable to reproduce the issue on Windows 8 / 10. Let's try my ISO files instead, which I will sent to you soon.

I often get those download windows and my voobly client is completely frozen. Can fix it so it does not hang? It's very annoying when I can't even click anything and 10 000 download screens in the background and why the patches are 700 mb each???? you know I wish you fix the screen hangs I am sure it's possible.

And btw the issue that Hoppeeee is having can be fixed using Windscribe. Install that program and sign up a new account in [You must login to view link] then login into Windscribe and turn it on. Start voobly at this point all the downloads will go through.

You must wait until the download finishes before clicking anything, else it will freeze of course. Let it finish once and you won't get it again until the next update will be released.

I am not sure how using a VPN solves the problem. It either is able to download or it does not, a VPN has no effect here. It's a simple HTTP download.

Yes, that is the point I had to wait 1 or 2 mins for the freeze to go away. My concern is about other users with lower spec computers and mediocre internet. I'm sure all this is more of a turn off to them than to me next thing users will abandon Voobly. I'm certain a good programmer can make those screens not hung as of the case of any clients out there.

I'm as surprise as you how Windscribe solves for me though it's a mere http download as you said but hey it really did the trick for me.

Thanks for the conversation

The freeze is usually caused by an AV or players clicking the game room section of the client window. In the past, people were complaining, that they had to install things manually, e. g. downloading an external installer and running it - and doing this every time, a new version was released. This time we integrated things directly into Voobly, so people just have to wait a minute, until it completes the download and installs things automatically in the background. Either way we do it, we can never satisfy everyone.

I doubt a different ISO of AOC of AOK will help but I'll try it. I have the original disks which I got back when we did internet over the phone lines.

The reason I don't think it will help is that things were working fine - the downloader was working great up until about 6 months ago. I know AOC didn't change and my hardware hasn't changed and this machine came with windows 10. You say the downloader hasn't changed in years and so the only things left are:
some software installed on my computer or it is windows itself or some configuration.

As mentioned in my earlier post, I created a fresh Win 10 VM and I was not able to reproduce the behavior. It must be something related to the installation media or the computer configuration itself.

The integration uses UI blocking http download API. Tell your developers to use Async http client download.

Yeah, I am aware. We developed it.
I guess we should update our version of Qt.

I doubt it's the installation so that leaves the computer configuration (or one of dozens of software installed on it which I guess you can lump into "configuration").

Basically, I agree.

Freddy -- THANK YOU!!! Confirmed that the Windscribe solution works and is a simple workaround. It took me 30 seconds. For anyone experiencing this same issue, here is what I did:

1. Close Voobly.
2. Install Windscribe and create a free account. [You must login to view link]
3. Turn on Windscribe (click the power button -- see screenshot below).
3. Log into Voobly and join a game lobby.
4. The updates/Voobly mods install automatically.

Will be sharing this with the many other users who have posted similar issues. Comments about this issue are *everywhere.* On individual mod pages, there are people requesting help. In forums, too. It looks like a pretty widespread issue.

Hoppeeee