SOLVED No DLC with disconnected Internet

FERNANDO CABRERA said:
Hi @redapg; I've looked in the past at the interaction between the UI and the engine for LMU capturing traffic and injecting low level data.
Let me try to dig in to rF2 and what came out of it.
I'll try to replicate the issue and then look at alternatives.
Click to expand...
As you've said, you can select a DLC Car, with disconnected Laptop and load it together with a DLC Track.
I can not do that, because the DLC Cars are not available in the Menu and the DLC Tracks, when i load them with a non DLC Car, stop loading with a "Error loading..." Message, like i have shown in my Video.
So you are One of the lucky Ones, for that it works.
 
@redapg a few of us have tried this and yes we see the issues with RC authentication when in offline mode - I'm just putting these aside for now, but we are always able to load DLC offline, with the internet and steam offline, or with out internet and also steam offline.

  • Can you try deleting userdata\unlock.bin and let it regenerate with a connection and try again.
  • Can you try some of the older branches available and see if any of them work.
  • If the above do not work, can you share trace logs from an attempt to load some content on the latest build.

Thanks
 
@Alex Sawczuk Because i was not sure anymore, if i completed the Test with the 1121 Build when i made the former Tests, because it uses the old Launcher and Menu, i started with that.
And with that, the DLC Cars are available.

Then i made the Test with the default Build again and the Problem was back.
No DLC Cars in the Menu.

But because i did let the Game create a new UserData Folder in both Cases, i have seen, that the Unlock.bin File of the 1121 had 10 KB and the Unlock.bin File of the default Build 20 KB.

So i made a Test with the 1121 Unlock.bin in the default Build and it worked.

Can it be, that the Problem is related to the Feature, that we can race against DLC Cars that we don't own?

I now have put the Unlock.bin from the 1121 and the default Build and also the Trace with the default build, where i use the FISI, because the DLC Cars are not available and that doesn't load the Nurburgring, that is available in the Menu.
And when the Error "Can not load.." appears, i can only shut down the Game with Alt+F4.

I hope that the Files in the zip File shed some Light into it for you.
If not, i'll happily make more Tests and send every more Files that you would need.

Chris
 

Attachments

You can't interchange the unlock.bins from different versions. There was a changed made for DLC you don't own.
 
Is anyone else having this issue? The unlock files are machine specific bound to mac address. You are not doing anything strange when running offline with these devices?
 
Alex Sawczuk said:
You can't interchange the unlock.bins from different versions. There was a changed made for DLC you don't own.
Click to expand...
As said, when i use the Unlock.bin, that was created from the 1121, in the default Build, my DLC Cars are available with disconnected Internet.
So i can at least use the DLC Cars and Tracks that i own, which is not possible with the Unlock.bin, that gets directly created from the default Build.
And to be honest, that is a bit strange in my Opinion.

Alex Sawczuk said:
Is anyone else having this issue? The unlock files are machine specific bound to mac address. You are not doing anything strange when running offline with these devices?
Click to expand...
I only opened this Thread, because a User posted that Problem and after i tried it out, i did have the same Problem.
The Thread from that User is THIS one and there it seems as if that Problem affects only a few Users, which also includes Marcel Offermans.

And what do you mean with "You are not doing anything strange when running offline with these devices?"?
I do the same Things that i always do, only without an Internet Connection.
Nothing "strange". :)
 
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Alex Sawczuk said:
Is anyone else having this issue? The unlock files are machine specific bound to mac address. You are not doing anything strange when running offline with these devices?
Click to expand...

Are you sure ? A friend had an issue with the unlock bin. I gave him my files and it worked. He had previously some random file missing. After using my files, no more issue for him.

From what i remember, there was a last update to not make it machine dependent.
Am i remembering wrong ?

With the ability to play wih any content, the unlock system should have been removed or simplified. That is not the case, i still have to renew it and some friend have same issue with content appearing unavailable. At start he was unable to generate any ServerKeys.bin and so was unable to make the Unlock bin.

Plus, i have lots of issues with my steam account. For example, i can't verify files at all. It says zero files have been checked, it will recheck all or something approaching. Weird.

There is definitely something wrong going on with steam and dlc management at the moment.
 
Hello @Alex Sawczuk since @redapg mentioned me and you were asking if anyone else has this. I do. I've done a few tests (with +trace=2 +traceFlush enabled to capture as much as possible).

Test 1: Everything online, I selected a paid track (Laguna Seca) and a paid car (Corvette C8.R) and started a single player session just with my car. The session obviously loads fine, I can get in the car. And then I quit rF2 and saved the log: trace_online_2024_08_13_10_08_08-28.txt

Test 2: Steam offline, LAN and internet still online. Started rF2 again, and now you get that "authenticating..." delay as the network requests to try and contact race control are timing out. Such timeouts appear at a few other places, I won't mention them all as they're a separate problem and fix. Eventually loading single player does work like above and the log is: trace_steamoffline_2024_08_13_10_10_50-71.txt

Test 3: Steam offline, LAN and internet offline. Started rF2 again, and now in the main menu the car does not show up, instead selecting the first available free car. No paid cars show up in that list. The tracks do show. Start loading the single player session, and I get an error about farterrain.gmt not loading to memory. Then it hangs in the loading screen at 0% (after dismissing the dialog showing the error). Killed the process in the end as it was going nowhere. Log is: trace_steamandLANoffline_2024_08_13_10_16_03-43.txt

Now I followed your steps, deleted unlock.bin from userdata, went online, started rF2 once to regenerate it (log is: trace_online_regeneratingunlockbin_2024_08_13_10_23_39-84.txt) and quit rF2 to go completely offline again and repeat test 3. This does not change anything for me, I still don't see any paid cars. I tried selecting a different random free one, but loading the single player session hangs in the same way again. Log is: trace_steamandLANoffline_2024_08_13_10_25_12-65.txt

The logs are all in the attached ZIP. Feel free to ping me for more info if needed.
 

Attachments

Is it the missing connection or the missing wire? Seems like several people could load DLC as long as a cable was plugged in, even if it wasn't active. Remove the cable(or probably a wireless connection) and could it be that missing piece that is causing the failure?
 
If you're asking me, @davehenrie then let me clarify. My computer is connected to the LAN with an ethernet cable. The motherboard has wifi (and bluetooth) but neither is configured to make any kind of network connection. When I say I'm taking "LAN and internet offline" what I'm doing is disabling the connection in Windows. As soon as that happens, my browser can't connect anymore, my network drives disappear, etc. so for all practical purposes I am totally offline. I have not tried yanking the physical cable from the computer, but that would end up having the same effect.
 
davehenrie said:
Is it the missing connection or the missing wire? Seems like several people could load DLC as long as a cable was plugged in, even if it wasn't active. Remove the cable(or probably a wireless connection) and could it be that missing piece that is causing the failure?
Click to expand...
Definitely no.
I always have my Cable plugged in and i only deactivate my Network Adapter in the Device Manager to be offline.

What makes me wondering the most, is the Fact, that i can use my DLC Cars and Tracks in the default Build, when i use the Unlock.bin File that was generated with the 1121 Build.
But when i use the Unlock.bin File that was generated by the default Build, i can not use the DLC Content.
As said, cars don't show up in the Menu and Track don't load, due to "Error loading...".

So my main Suspicion is, that the Feature "drive against Cars that you don't own", has something to do with the Problem.
 
redapg said:
Definitely no.
I always have my Cable plugged in and i only deactivate my Network Adapter in the Device Manager to be offline.

What makes me wondering the most, is the Fact, that i can use my DLC Cars and Tracks in the default Build, when i use the Unlock.bin File that was generated with the 1121 Build.
But when i use the Unlock.bin File that was generated by the default Build, i can not use the DLC Content.
As said, cars don't show up in the Menu and Track don't load, due to "Error loading...".

So my main Suspicion is, that the Feature "drive against Cars that you don't own", has something to do with the Problem.
Click to expand...

Then this, I suspect, is the source of your problem. By disabling the hardware you are changing the Mac address on your PC, which will invalidate the unlock.bin.

Simply unplug, or disconnect if using WiFi.
 
Alex Sawczuk said:
By disabling the hardware you are changing the Mac address on your PC, which will invalidate the unlock.bin.
Click to expand...
I just tried disabling "Ethernet" in windows network adapters setting without unplug cable, and was able to replicate this issue. After disabling, all DLC cars disappeared, and DLC tracks will throw errors while loading track and got stuck.
 
Alex Sawczuk said:
Then this, I suspect, is the source of your problem. By disabling the hardware you are changing the Mac address on your PC, which will invalidate the unlock.bin.

Simply unplug, or disconnect if using WiFi.
Click to expand...
That indeed works.
Thank you. :)
I obviously did miss that Info, that the Unlock.bin was getting "related" to the Mac Address in one of the latest Updates.

I will mark the Thread as solved.

The Computer, that i use in the Place where no Internet is available, has it's Network Adapter deactivated permanently and i only activated it, when i did have it at my Home, when i e.g. wanted to update rF2.
So the Problem appeared.

Hopefully that is the Solution for all others too. :)
 
Does this also resolve the issue with the unbearable delay, where the game is attempting to communicate with the online servers, even though the game is in offline mode? I feel like that it is a separate issue altogether, and probably needs a reply from the devs.
 
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