RagnarokOnline Patcher Lite

Replacement for Gravity's RO patcher. Works faster and doesn't consume your entire memory for just seeing it crashing, aside from this, it works almost exactly as the official patcher does, so that it shouldn't break, unless Gravity changes something vital to their patcher. It works on every 32-bit Microsoft* Windows* platform and is free of any cost.

RO Patcher Lite for kRO
2.4.1.574 (stable)
Download (108 KB)

RO Patcher Lite for kRO RE
2.4.1.574 (stable)
Download (108 KB)

Further Versions
other servers, nightly releases
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News

[2012-12-13] Windows 8

RO Patcher Lite has been tested for compatibility with OOBE Windows 8; result: supported, there are no changes to the user experience from Windows 7.

[2012-09-28] Random stuff from 3.x development

While testing a new code component for the patcher, I ended up writing a generator for visual waste maps of GRF archives in the spirit of common defrag programs. When I said that 3.x had reached usable state it turned out, it wasn't and it isn't. Plug-ins are currently broken, the UI has various glitches and accompanied source hacks. It would be nice to get things done until Christmas.

[2012-07-29] Note on 'run it as administrator'-fix suggestions

I have stumbled upon various threads over the last months telling people to run the patcher or any other of my tools 'as administrator' when they are experiencing problems. While this certainly fixes issues with a lot of software, it does not apply to my tools. They are UAC-aware, which means that they ask for elevation only when really necessary and otherwise do not need it. Running as administrator should not be considered a bug-fixing measure in general, especially not with software you do not know and use for the first time. That said, also avoid telling others to run something 'as administrator' and ask them to report the issue instead.

[2012-04-15] Release 2.4.1.574-kisu

Aw, I'm slow; sorry, I meant lazy. Anyway this release fixes most of the timeout related issues experienced with various versions of the WinInet library. Additionally almost all network-related failures are collected in a debug log file in this version, so any remaining people experiencing issues can send it to me. The 'keep patches' (SHIFT+Close) feature now works regardless of patch process outcome. Finally pure and full-bundle packages were also updated to benefit from this bug-fix. The latter needed an update anyway, as the aRO patch information was outdated.

[2012-02-18] Time-out issues

Users with a high latency connection between themselves and the patch server they connect to, may experience either of the following issues:
- Patcher gets stuck at 'attempt to connect to file server' or starts downloading patches slowly and gets stuck after a while, and does not continue for an hour unless the patch process is canceled or the connection taken down by force (ex. disconnecting cable/wireless network).
- Patcher randomly fails to connect to file server or fails in mids of downloading on random patches when the download connection speed drops below 340 bytes/s (2.7 kbit/s).
The first issue can be experienced when IE6 is installed and is caused by a bug that makes the patcher unable to detect the failed connection within reasonable time, and the other with IE7 and newer^[1] which is caused by a code defect that makes the patcher unable to correctly adjust to the connection (read: it is implemented, but it does not work as it should). Either of the issues is unlikely to occur with IE4. Both issues will be addressed by a 2.x bugfix release.

[2011-12-07] Roll-up patch for missing patches

Still having outdated client, but cannot patch because the patches are no longer available, yet don't want to download a new client? There are two patch-roll-up packages available, one for kRO RAG and the other for kRO RE. Each package contains extracted .rgz files and a patcher that updates the GRF archive to a state that is patch-able (up to 2011-07-20).

Just extract the package, launch the patcher and choose the correct GRF archive (patch8 -> data.grf, patchRE3 -> rdata.grf). After the patch process is complete, copy all stuff from folder 'RO' into the folder you just updated (overwrite everything). After this you should be able to patch with RO Patcher Lite again.

Download: patch8.zip (49 MB; mediafire), patchRE3.zip (48 MB; mediafire).

[Update] There's a more detailed explanation by Honeytoast on this process, for those who have hard time to follow my condensed instructions.

[2011-11-05] Deleted kRO patches

Some bad news for those, who weren't fast enough. Patches 2011-04-19aRagexe.rgz through 2011-07-13rdata_j.gpf were deleted from old kRO patch server, so if your data is still out-of-date you will no longer be able to patch normally and get an error, that fetching 2011-04-20data_x.gpf failed.

[2011-11-02] Release 2.4.0.573-rai

Another kRO specific release, this time to update location of the old patch server, which seemed shut-off or dead, until I was brought into attention that it is not. If you weren't able to patch these days, get this release and try again.

[2011-10-02] RO Patcher Lite 3.0

The development of the 3.x branch is slowly advancing to some usable state. Most parts have been rewritten, which will also make development of Liniris easier. The windows UI will remain the same. Changes in behavior will mainly affect handling of file types, plug-ins and the settings file.
Some interesting suggestions from various people will also make it in. Do you have some idea as well? Feel free to share it.

[2011-08-12] Release 2.3.0.571-riot

This release is kRO specific to reflect the recent change of the file server and patch list location. You are encouraged to update if you want to continue to receive new patches. Do not worry about whether the old patcher finished patching at the old file server, as this version detects automatically when to use the new location.

[2011-05-25] Tools Release 1.5

All tools (diff, merge, pack, test) have been updated to use the latest stable version of the RSU GRF engine. Minor issues and typos have been fixed as well.

[2011-04-06] Release 2.2.0.568

This is a maintenance release with a few fixes and updates here and there, see the history for details. The SSO login mechanism for kRO patchers has been taken out again and it is uncertain, whether or not it will ever make it again in there.

[2011-01-15] Upcoming planned changes

Most of the planned changes are not really visible code clean ups from mess caused between 1.3.x and 1.4.x, among others the weird behavioral changes depending on rsu.ini existence will go. UI access for plug-ins will be simplified, so that multiple changes do not cause mess (such as pantext with panhtml). RSU for iRO (all except Valkyrie) will be updated soon as their patch information seems to be outdated.

[2010-11-19] Release 2.1.1.560

This release fixes multiple issues with the kRO sign-in feature introduced in 2.1.0, that have arisen during testing. They do not affect the patch process, but it is recommended to update. Non-kRO patchers are not affected by these issues.

[2010-11-17] Release 2.1.0.555

This release primarily introduces support for kRO specific SSO/OTP sign-in and Lua-based in-archive file deletion. The support for the 1.x versions of the GRF archive is now complete as well. Some traces of context-sensitive help are also present in this release, though the help content is still incomplete. Finally jRO PK patcher is now finally able to run the client after patching and no known false-positives are currently present for the kRO patchers.

Thanks for implementation details on the kRO OTP part, not present inside the ActiveX, go to kRO Auto Login System. Feedback on whether it works or not, is still appreciated.

[2010-10-30] kRO sign-in

The worst part of implementing the kRO sign-in is done~~, although waiting for the credentials getting confirmed currently freezes up the entire patcher interface~~. The log-in dialog is available since Windows XP, everything before that, except Windows 2000, is not able to play kRO anyway, so there will be no down-level implementation for that.

On top of that, I'm not able to test the log-in procedure, because I do not have a kRO account. Anyway using this feature is obviously at your own risk, because it substitutes the ActiveX control completely, which was originally intended for that purpose by Gravity. If you feel adventurous, you can try nightly versions 2.1.0.527 and later, and report back, whether it works or not.

[Update] No longer freezes up and does not take that long for initial log-in.

[2010-10-16] Release 2.0.1.487

This release is in sign of clearing misconceptions from initial release and reflecting recent updates to the official patcher. Apparently I also managed to mix up the links of the previous release, with those of 1.4.4, causing some links not downloading the expected files.

[2010-10-11] Release 2.0.0.467

This release fixes a bunch of minor and major bugs, memory leaks and crashes. All ipatch and i18n functionality is now part of the patcher, the related plug-ins are no longer available. The performance and stability of the GRF archive engine has been improved. Ability to automatically check for updates has been added. See doc/history.txt for details.

Network access related changes did not make it into this release, due to various hardships. Actually this version should have been released yesterday, but Avira AntiVir, CAT-QuickHeal and McAfee had marked the patcher as various kinds of malware, so the code required further tweaks. Documentation will be updated soon, next release might be able to deal with kRO's new authentication scheme.

[2010-10-07] RSU/2.0 progress

One could say, things get slowly to the point of being called completed. Most of the significant TODO (especially bug fixes) is done, the insignificant part, which I want to get into 2.0 is kinda large though. How can you help? Use RSU or test the nightly releases, and if it does something, what you think it should not, or if it does not do something, what it should, post it in the bbs.

On an unrelated note, I got finally rid of a wast amount of typos in this page, even though I probably did not get all of them...

[2010-08-05] Regarding kRO authentication update

During the kRO maintenance on 2010/08/04, the authentication scheme was changed and the patcher was made part of it. This means, you can still use RSU for patching kRO, but you are required to use the official kRO/RE patcher to log-in. If it does not turn out to be waste of effort, I'll make the next release to support starting the kRO client again together with some minor features, which were implemented into the official patcher.

[2010-07-29] Plans on 2.x, no further updates to 1.x

RSU will experience some major changes until the next release, thus there will not be any further updates released for the 1.x line, except for critical bugs. I noticed a certain confusion between the lite and normal releases, so the patcher will be split into two semi-separate development lines; RO Patcher Lite and RO Patcher Max, which will correspond to the lite and normal releases respectively.

The lite patchers will have i18n functionality included, but continue to have fixed patch information. Additionally there will be always a release for each and every official server I know of (currently 7, total of 11 patchers). The max patchers will have i18n and ipatch functionality included and will not have any default patch information (so it must be specified via rsu.ini). Patches will no longer require to have them hosted on FTP. Likewise you will be able to host patch-allow and patch-listing on FTP and the settings file remotely as well.

Existing plugins, except i18n, ipatch and possibly banned ones, will continue to work without problems, and the UI will not receive any visible changes. If you have any further ideas, for either lite or max patchers, feel free to post them inside the bbs.

[2010-07-07] Lite Release Collection

This is a single, all-in-one lite release, which contains patchers for all currently supported official RO servers. Documentation is a bit stripped down and adjusted, so if you need the entire thing, you will have to take it from a normal release.
Download: rsu-lite-all.zip (Version 1.4.5.0; 724KB)

[2010-07-07] Tools BugFix Release

This tool release fixes a GRF handling (retrieving data) issue, which can occur with specially crafted archives. Normal archives found in the wild are not affected.

[2010-07-05] #*@! Week

Another batch of hardware failures managed to keep me busy since last week. 'Luckily' the only thing, which did not get damaged at all, were sources. The repositories and their recent backups did not survive that 'Double Attack' though, so I'll probably have to recommit into a three month old backup (343 revisions difference…), which was not affected. That's also why some nightly do not have proper version.

[2010-06-13] Release 1.4.4.374

First of all sorry for the late release, it took a while to figure out the cause for the patch issues and on top of that, the machine hosting the rsu repository exploded. This release fixes patch issues with slow/high-latency/broken connections ~~(hopefully)~~ and certain lock-ups during the patch process. For further updates, check doc/history.txt, which is included with every patcher.

[2010-06-03] 'Failed to retrieve patch_allow.txt' issues

Recently some people are running into this error while patching. I'm not exactly aware what it is caused by, could be a block or network issue. To find out, I made a release, which tracks, what really fails and writes it into a log file. 'NIO' in the log file means the last code spot, where data is actually about being transfered. All error codes are system error codes retrieved from GetLastError(). If you or your players are having such issues, download the logging client, and look for the log file after patching (ex. rsu.log).
[Update] Thanks to those, who sent the reports back to resolve the issues, will be part of the next release soon.

[2010-06-01] Release 1.4.3.364

This release fixes a small issue in RGZ processing and introduces support for mouse-less usage.

[2010-05-22] Release 1.4.2.353

This release fixes 2 minor UI glitches with start-button and status line and changes the behavior of lite releases to match the official patchers.

[2010-05-19] Release 1.4.1.334

This release introduces a plug-in system, which allows you to extend or change the patcher to match your needs. All you need is the plug-in SDK below. Translating and changing patch information is now done through the plug-in API, basic pre-made plug-ins are available, that work, like the old patcher did.

[2010-05-16] Bugfix Release 1.4.1

Today during some worst-case-scenario tests of 1.4.1, an annoying bug popped up; all GRF archives beyond 2GB on-disk size will break, because of an impossible seek. Unfortunately, this bug is not only in RSU, but in all GRF browsing/manipulation software, that uses SetFilePointer, ftell or fseek, because all of them use 'long' as offset. That being said, it also affects the official RO client and patcher. This release fixes the issue in the patcher, so that GRF archives beyond 2GB can be read without errors (writing was not affected). Until Gravity fixes their CGPak class, you may try to reclaim wasted space with /repak, if your GRF archive hits the limit, to get the file size below 2GB.
This also means, that all releases up to now are removed, since they are not able to process GRFs once they reach 2GB. Although this bug does not pose a risk at the moment (most official GRF archives are about 1.5GB large), you are encouraged to update. The customizable release will come within the next days.

[2010-05-04] Release 1.4.0 (Lite)

So yeah, where are the plug-ins? They work, and they do not. I'm not really satisfied the way everything works inside the plug-in part, so the full version with plug-in support will be delayed. Never mind, even that way there is a lot of changes and bug fixes, check the included history for details. The mentioned self-update feature can be found inside the system menu.

[2010-04-18] Generic plug-in preview

The plug-in system is done soon. The entire thing uses COM-like interfaces for version independence and allows plug-ins even to offer functionality for other plug-ins. Release is planned around first week of May, until then you can take a look at a generic plug-in made for testing. If you have any suggestions, feel free to post them in the simple bbs. Except the main (common) interface, ~~network~~, UI, grf and rgz interfaces are present.

[2010-04-10] Removal of custom releases

Some issues have arisen with custom-released patchers, so this offer is no longer available. Those who already have such patcher, will continue to receive their updates. For everyone else the previously mentioned plug-in system will be available in future releases.

[2010-04-04] Going for 1.4.0

OK, 1.3.0 is said to be the final release, but I felt like toying around with it further. So 1.3.0 can be considered final in means, that everything it advertises, is really in there. Various stuff popped up through regular use, that proved to be annoying (ex. minimizing to see overall progress), as well as two issues/glitches, that are considered minor, thus not requiring an extra patch. Currently, I am considering to add plug-in support, so that the skilled ones can add stuff, like patch news, to the patcher. That would also make translation (i18n) and custom patch info (ipatch) plug-ins as well, but that is still not decided.

[2010-03-06] Release 1.3.0.200

This is the final release, and most probably the last, unless there are updates necessary, due to changes made by Gravity or any bug occurrence. It does, want I wanted it to, actually even more, considering the external patch information and translation support. UAC compatibility is improved, with on-demand elevation in case, that you are running RO on Vista/7 in wrong folder. The patcher also attempts to retry a failed download once, and if it fails even when retrying (seems to happen on kRO FTP kinda often lately), it will at least apply already downloaded patches, so it can resume on the failed download on next start.

[2010-01-18] Release 1.2.0.156

This release introduces lightweight customization of the patcher in means of translating and using own patch information. Downloaded patches can be preserved just by pressing SHIFT key when 'Close' is clicked. Finally certain UI issues have been resolved. Until final release, there is not much to do, except few performance tweaks, like safe re-usage of gaps inside the GRF archive and avoiding patches, that get overwritten anyway.

[2010-01-04] Release 1.1.0.100

This release says good bye to grf.dll and introduces own grf engine, based observations, tests and some days of debugging of newer and older official patchers and clients. All started with tracking down random missing files or completely unusable archives. There is issue in grf.dll, that cannot handle transition between v1.x and v2.x grf archives. As most of the main grf archives are v2.0 and the patches are provided in encrypted v1.02 ones, there was need for an alternative; libgrf wasn't one, due to GPL.

Usage

Read doc/readme.txt before you start the application and make sure you understand everything (if not, ask here or check the help for more information). Also keep in mind, that RSU is released AS IS and you use it at YOUR OWN RISK. It is not designed to harm you intentionally, though.

Screenshots

Overall progress in task button on Windows 7

Nightly release with plug-in debug messages in DebugView

Nightly RSU/2.0 with basic skin support disguising as official patcher

Liniris (alpha), console version for BeOS, Unix and Linux

Manual patching with RO Patcher Lite (YouTube Video)

Download

Available packages may be marked with various labels, that indicate, whether given release is stable, or not. BETA releases are mostly release candidates, that get obsoleted by a stable release (without label). NIGHTLY releases are snapshots of current development, unchecked and untested, but contain most recent features. Release with bold version number is latest stable release. Lite releases are without plug-in support.

Release Packages

kRO RAG

2012-04-15rsu-kro-rag-lite.zip (Version 2.4.1.574; 108KB)
2011-11-02rsu-kro-rag-lite.zip (Version 2.4.0.573; 106KB)
2010-06-13rsu-kro-rag-lite.zip (Version 1.4.4.374; 91KB)

kRO RE

2012-04-15rsu-kro-renewal-lite.zip (Version 2.4.1.574; 108KB)
2011-11-02rsu-kro-renewal-lite.zip (Version 2.4.0.573; 106KB)
2010-06-13rsu-kro-renewal-lite.zip (Version 1.4.4.374; 91KB)

Full Bundle ( aRO, bRO, eRO, fRO, iRO, jRO, kRO, pRO, thRO & twRO )

rsu-lite-bundle.zip (Version 2.4.1.574; 1.4MB)

Release Packages with Plug-in Support

Purewhat's this?

2012-04-15rsu-full.zip (Version 2.4.1.574; 87KB)
2011-08-12rsu-full.zip (Version 2.3.0.571; 84KB)

kRO RE

2010-06-13rsu-kro-renewal.zip (Version 1.4.4.374; 95KB)

Nightly Packages

2012-12-26rsu-kro-renewal.zip (Version 3.0.0.777 NIGHTLY; 93KB)
2012-07-31rsu-kro-renewal.zip (Version 3.0.0.697 NIGHTLY; 85KB)
2012-01-21rsu-kro-renewal.zip (Version 3.0.0.681 NIGHTLY; 78KB)

Plug-in Packages

Plug-in SDK (documentation)

2010-10-11plug-sdk.zip (Version 2.0; 5KB)
2010-05-19plug-sdk.zip (Version 1.0; 3KB)

Generic Sample (genplug) + Source

2010-09-02genplug.zip (Build 10, against Version 1.0; 3KB)

External Translation (i18n)

2010-05-19i18n.zip (Build 2, against Version 1.0; 5KB)

External Patch Information (ipatch)

2010-05-19ipatch.zip (Build 123, against Version 1.0; 5KB)

Patch News [Html Version] (panhtml)

2010-05-31panhtml.zip (Build 9, against Version 1.0; 4KB; ScreenShot)

Patch News [Text Version] (pantext)

2010-05-22pantext.zip (Build 7, against Version 1.0; 2KB; ScreenShot)

Tools

Following tools have arisen from the development of RSU, or were part of the test suite created for RSU's grf engine. Some of them are not as user-friendly as they could be; they just work without any fancy GUI. Refer the readme file inside the package for further details.

rsu.diff: Creates a delta patch from two GRF archives.
2011-05-25rsudiff.zip (Version 1.5; 48KB)
rsu.merge: Merges two GRF archives (i.e. applying patches).
2011-05-25rsumerge.zip (Version 1.5; 47KB)
rsu.pack: Creates compliant GRF archives/patches from a data folder (one-click).
2011-05-25rsupack.zip (Version 1.5; 47KB)
rsu.test: Checks a GRF archive for validity. Displays files, that cannot be properly read.
2011-05-25rsutest.zip (Version 1.5; 48KB)

Contact

You are encouraged to use the associated forum topic on eAthena, on rAthena or the bbs for submitting translations and patch information packs, requesting support or reporting bugs. Feedback on the patcher, whether positive or negative, is more than appreciated.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.