These are beta patches. Unofficial releases. You have yourself chosen in Impulse to "show unreleased versions". They are not supposed to be stable, they are supposed to let us help the development.

Its not a bug. Its fully intentional that elemental needs to be able to connect to Stardock in order to run the beta patches. If you have issues with this stick to the release patches. Most likely this is user error of some type.. your firewall blocking elemental etc.

Once the changes are finalized.. they will release 1.2 which being a full release patch will not require you to connect.

Come on...its TWO BETA patchs that are in open testing, if you have issues running betas, rather than complaining about beta patches run the release version. The Official release version as of now is 1.11

The only time I ever receive that message is when I need to update Impulse. As soon as I do that, Elemental runs fine.

Perhaps SD should change the error message to read something like:

"Wow this is embarassing.  I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you must be a friggin moron.  Why don't you first try connecting to the internet with the latest Impulse and then pop off?"

hur hur.. except my computer is ALWAYS connected to the internet, and my Impulse is up to date.. but thanks for sharing

My Impulse is up to date it checks for updates every time is launches.

Its not a user error, check the forums the SD guys even provided a temporary workaround which I mentioned in my OP, which another poster orginaloly told me about.  this is also a problem that is not affecting everyone so is definitely NOT by design.  And no it isnt my firewall, my anti virus etc.. I have checked.

Beta patch or not your kind of missing the point as to the purpose of patches in ANY form, i.e to make things better and fix things that were nto working right before.  And yet despite this we have new issues liek the one I am having issues with turning up and also old issues like the OOM issue that is affecting masses of people which are still in and have stayed in since release.  Meanwhile SD's seems to be mainly focusing on features for the Fallen Enchantress.

Im all for new stuff, but FIX the old stuff first.

Ummm, firstly what people are trying to get at here is that the connection problem only exists in beta patches. Once we move out of beta it will no longer exist. Secondly the workaround just shuts off the need to connect in betas, if you can't connect it is still probably a firewall or internet problem. Can you connect to impulse normally using Elemental?

Secondly, OOM issues are indeed a problem and SD recognizes this. They have stated multiplt times that the purpose of 1.2 is to fix those issues. I doubt they could be doing much more then they already are as the entire team is bascially dedicated to fixing OOM issues right now....

It may be that the auto-login is failing.  Two common causes of this are stale data stored in the registry (like if you changed your password or username) or if you purchased Elemental using a different e-mail address than the one currently associated with your Impulse account.  

To determine the problem, please try this:

1) Create a shortcut to Elemental.exe

2) Right click on the shortcut and choose properties.

3) Click in the target field and hit END, then space.  

4) Type /logxml then hit OK

This should cause files to appear in C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic\ImpulseReactor.  When you're done with the debugging, you'll want to turn this back off to avoid any possible performance hit from the files being written to the hard drive.

Look for files beginning with CVPLoginResponse.  Open the file.  If the ResponseMessage is not Success, the autologin is failing so it can't download the data files.  

If the error is because the password is incorrect, (say perhaps because you changed your password) you can try overriding the values it's pulling from the registry by adding the command line parameters /username <username> and /password <password>, replacing the text in <> with your actual username and password.  This will not save the values to the registry if they are succesful, but you can pull up the login dialog in game by hitting shift + Tab and then clicking on the settings tab. 

If the error message is that you don't have access to this title, your Elemental serial is not associated with the account whose credentials are stored in the registry, and you will need to contact support. (This can happen if you bought Elemental using an e-mail not associated with your Impulse account.)

If the error message is something else or you need further help, please zip and e-mail the xml log files to me at carielf at stardock.com . 

Hi Neo,

Try checking the thing between the chair and the keyboard.... hehe.  Just kidding with you Neo.  Computers should just work every time we use them...that's why I hate computers.

I can connect o impulse just fine, what I can't do is connect from Elemental as elemental crashes before it ever gets to the title screen in order to alt+tab to get to the log in.  As n launch before the main menu during the dragon load screen I get the "failed to download data file" error I mentioned in my OP and then it closes the game to desktop.

The only way to play elemental at all right now is as I said via the temporary workaround in the shortcut, which is essentially playing it offline, and even then the infamous OOM error occures after a few dozen turns..

from a stability point elemental is in a real bad way right now. 

done

done

done  

done, clicked apply then ok but I assume that is what you meant.

nope, no such luck it didn't cause any file by that name or similar to appear in my Impulse\Elemental\ImpulseReactor directory.  It couldn't put it in my stardock\impulse folder folder as I have elemental installed on a different drive to impulse itself.

I should note my login and password havent been changed and I still have the same email as I bought this with so that cant be it, also all my other Stardock games work just fine, Gal Civ2, Space Rangers, sins of a Solar Empire etc.. and Elemental DID work fine until the last 3 beta patches.

It has me stumped.

Did it create any xml files? You're sure you looked at the ProgramData folder? It's a hidden folder. Or if you're on XP, it's C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Stardock\Elemental - War of Magic\ImpulseReactor

Please send me the log files if it's actually creating them.

The shortcut didnt create any file by the name you indicated?

There are no xml files in the elemental\Impulse Reactor folder, as I say Elemental itself on my machine is actually installed on a different drive to Impulse itself, but I've checked both the game directory and Stardock\impulse directory and there are no files with the name CVPloginresponse.  I've even done a file search across all my system and its drives no such file name exists on my machine.

And I have vista (64bit) as my OS

 its due to your firewall blocking it. Elemental and impulse are 2 DIFFERENT programs as far as your firewall is concerned. Allowing Impulse doesn't magically make a firewall exception for elemental and vice versa. Also if your windows firewall is active as well as a 3rd party firewall you'll have to make exceptions on both. You don't have to Alt+tab to log in.. it simply attempts to connect when you start it up, your firewall says no.. so it tells you it cannot connect. I've gone through this with 15 diff people every beta patch... and its always the same thing. (including myself the first time i ran into the issue. When I update elemental its considered a new EXE so I have to reapply firewall settings with every update)

So i would suggest double checking your firewall settings in relation to elemental(not impulse).