Modifié par Downtym42, 22 janvier 2010 - 09:53 .
Specialization bug after Update: Fix
Débuté par
Downtym42
, janv. 22 2010 09:37
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#2
Posté 22 janvier 2010 - 09:53
Downtym42
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!!!!!Can't edit my topic, so posting the edit. Ignore the above and read the following!!!!!
Edit: I didn't notice Wicked 702's solution to this from the other thread, but based on his findings, I believe the following would be the "definitive fix". Credit to Wicked 702 for posting the first fix, changed step 7 to reflect what he found.
Wicked 702's post is at: http://social.biowar...604827/7#656836
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For those that updated before the update was pulled from the XBox Live and your specializations became locked; the following should resolve the problem:
Symptom: Specializations previously unlocked become locked again. For example, assume you played through the whole game on character A and unlocked the specialization "Reaver" during this play through. Then you start a new game for character B, but you find upon levelling up that the Reaver specialization is now locked.
Solution:
1. Sign out of XBox Live.
2. Go to the System menu.
3. Go to Memory.
4. Select "Clear System Cache"
- WARNING: PERFORMING THIS OPERATION WILL CLEAR *ALL* UPDATES FOR *ALL* GAMES. THIS DOES NOT DELETE DLC OR SAVED GAMES. ONLY XBox Live "patch updates" WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO REDOWNLOAD FOR ANY GAME THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY UPDATED. THIS SHOULDN'T BE AN ISSUE, BUT THIS IS YOUR WARNING. SEE http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971755 FOR DETAILS ON WHAT CLEARING THE SYSTEM CACHE ENTAILS.
5. Restart your XBox.
6. Sign in to XBox Live.
7. Start playing Dragon Age again and unlock any specialization, use a skill/point tome, or level up. You can do so by either reading a specialization book, initiating in a conversation to unlock a specialization, or getting a specialization unlocked at the end of a quest.
8. Once you unlock any specialization, use a skill/point tome, or level up then save and exit out of Dragon Age to the XBox Dashboard. You can either create a new save file or save over an old one.
9. Re-enter Dragon Age and either start a new character, resume your game, or load a save game. All specializations unlocked across all games should now be available.
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Steps 5 and 8 may not be necessary. In my tests I found that sometimes you didn't need to restart and sometimes you did and sometimes you didn't need to exit out of Dragon Age and sometimes you did. I'd suggest just doing it this way since this is the process that always worked when I tested it.
Methodology:
I tested this solution on 2 affected XBoxes and used a copy of the hard-drives to "re-infect" the system's cache with the update. This allowed me to isolate the bug to the update and determine that the way to fix it was by deleting the cache.
Diagnosis:
The update affected how the game linked the achievements to the specializations unlocked. Deleting the update from the cache forces a synchronization with XBox Live's achievements server and the game code recognizes that you have unlocked the specializations through that. I'm not sure how Bioware is piggybacking on the achievement system to do the specialization unlocking, but the information regarding which specializations were unlocked is stored as part of your gamer profile on the server side of XBox Live.
Based on my test and looking at Wicked 702's solution that the game resyncs specializations on any "character change" which would be sync'd with XBox/EA. This makes sense from a code standpoint, so it's the most likely set of steps I can imagine that would resolve this issue.
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Hope that helps.
-Downtym
Edit: I didn't notice Wicked 702's solution to this from the other thread, but based on his findings, I believe the following would be the "definitive fix". Credit to Wicked 702 for posting the first fix, changed step 7 to reflect what he found.
Wicked 702's post is at: http://social.biowar...604827/7#656836
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those that updated before the update was pulled from the XBox Live and your specializations became locked; the following should resolve the problem:
Symptom: Specializations previously unlocked become locked again. For example, assume you played through the whole game on character A and unlocked the specialization "Reaver" during this play through. Then you start a new game for character B, but you find upon levelling up that the Reaver specialization is now locked.
Solution:
1. Sign out of XBox Live.
2. Go to the System menu.
3. Go to Memory.
4. Select "Clear System Cache"
- WARNING: PERFORMING THIS OPERATION WILL CLEAR *ALL* UPDATES FOR *ALL* GAMES. THIS DOES NOT DELETE DLC OR SAVED GAMES. ONLY XBox Live "patch updates" WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO REDOWNLOAD FOR ANY GAME THAT WAS PREVIOUSLY UPDATED. THIS SHOULDN'T BE AN ISSUE, BUT THIS IS YOUR WARNING. SEE http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971755 FOR DETAILS ON WHAT CLEARING THE SYSTEM CACHE ENTAILS.
5. Restart your XBox.
6. Sign in to XBox Live.
7. Start playing Dragon Age again and unlock any specialization, use a skill/point tome, or level up. You can do so by either reading a specialization book, initiating in a conversation to unlock a specialization, or getting a specialization unlocked at the end of a quest.
8. Once you unlock any specialization, use a skill/point tome, or level up then save and exit out of Dragon Age to the XBox Dashboard. You can either create a new save file or save over an old one.
9. Re-enter Dragon Age and either start a new character, resume your game, or load a save game. All specializations unlocked across all games should now be available.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steps 5 and 8 may not be necessary. In my tests I found that sometimes you didn't need to restart and sometimes you did and sometimes you didn't need to exit out of Dragon Age and sometimes you did. I'd suggest just doing it this way since this is the process that always worked when I tested it.
Methodology:
I tested this solution on 2 affected XBoxes and used a copy of the hard-drives to "re-infect" the system's cache with the update. This allowed me to isolate the bug to the update and determine that the way to fix it was by deleting the cache.
Diagnosis:
The update affected how the game linked the achievements to the specializations unlocked. Deleting the update from the cache forces a synchronization with XBox Live's achievements server and the game code recognizes that you have unlocked the specializations through that. I'm not sure how Bioware is piggybacking on the achievement system to do the specialization unlocking, but the information regarding which specializations were unlocked is stored as part of your gamer profile on the server side of XBox Live.
Based on my test and looking at Wicked 702's solution that the game resyncs specializations on any "character change" which would be sync'd with XBox/EA. This makes sense from a code standpoint, so it's the most likely set of steps I can imagine that would resolve this issue.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope that helps.
-Downtym
Modifié par Downtym42, 22 janvier 2010 - 11:00 .
#3
Posté 22 janvier 2010 - 11:23
Wicked 702
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From what I can tell it isn't necessary to re-unlock a specialization though obviously people report success by doing so. As you mentioned, the idea is remove the offending update and force the game to go find your "specialization file", shall we call it, on whatever outside source it is stored. Like you, I think that somehow Bioware piggybacked on the achievement system or set up something similar in their servers. I actually thank them for this as it created a backup of a file that is usually only stored locally.
It seems like after clearing the cache, all you really have to do is load up a save or play a new char for a while and give the game enough time to go searching for the "spec file" online. Obviously you won't know when this happens, but most people report playing for 30 min. with a new char. or in my case loading a save from before the patch and saving right away, seemed to be enough. Once you quit and start the game back up everything comes back.
The ONLY reason I'd caution people not to re-unlock a specialization is because I've seen some reports of people ending up with just the ones they chose to re-unlock. I'm guessing what happened is that when they re-unlocked one, instead of the game going to the server to download the "spec file", it actually uploaded their current spec so now they just have the one. I can't confirm this however since I no longer have the update so it's just an opinion.
Great work!
It seems like after clearing the cache, all you really have to do is load up a save or play a new char for a while and give the game enough time to go searching for the "spec file" online. Obviously you won't know when this happens, but most people report playing for 30 min. with a new char. or in my case loading a save from before the patch and saving right away, seemed to be enough. Once you quit and start the game back up everything comes back.
The ONLY reason I'd caution people not to re-unlock a specialization is because I've seen some reports of people ending up with just the ones they chose to re-unlock. I'm guessing what happened is that when they re-unlocked one, instead of the game going to the server to download the "spec file", it actually uploaded their current spec so now they just have the one. I can't confirm this however since I no longer have the update so it's just an opinion.
Great work!
#4
Posté 23 janvier 2010 - 08:18
squid55801
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That never worked for me. The only way I was able to re unlock my specs was to reunlock them. I had to do every quest, read every tome and sit through every conversation related to the specs to get them back. I also had to re romance all the character I romanced and get the same ending I had gotten before to get the related achievements.
