Hello, I'm hoping someone might be able to help me get fast download working.
I've been trying to get an Apache server working for fast http download, mostly for LAN use but it'd be nice to get it working in case we want others from the internet to join in. The guide on the website is a bit outdated since the example config files don't work properly for newest version of Apache requiring too much modification. The furthest I got trying to that to work is the server requesting the files from Apache but Apache returning "404 196" errors even though files worked fine through the browser.
Instead, I tried testing 2 preconfigured Apache setups, 1 from Apache Lounge and the other from xampp. Both are pre-configured to share files from the htdocs folder so there's not much difference in using 1 over the other. Putting the svencoop_addon folder in there makes all files accessible from a browser. Using a dedicated server (svends.exe) I set sv_downloadurl to "http://127.0.0.1:80/svencoop_addon/". If join the server the game downloads it from Apache and I can see from the access log that the files were accessed by "Valve/Steam HTTP Client".
But this only works once. If I disconnect from the server, delete the map file, and rejoin, it downloads the slow way and Apache shows no attempt by Sven Coop to request the files. The only way to get it to fast download again is to have the client completely exit the game and start it up again. I'm not sure why the server stops requesting the files from Apache. It also only seems to work with the first connection to the server. If a 2nd person joins, there is no fast download. I have also tried this using a listenserver and setting sv_downloadurl in the listenserver.cfg but http fast download doesn't work at all. I tried with sv_lan 0 and 1 but no difference in behavior.
Having another computer with different steam account in the same LAN produces the same behavior. I have also tried using the LAN ip in the sv_downloadurl instead of the localhost ip and it makes no difference. Apache has been allowed through Windows firewall for both public and private connections.
Can anyone share how they have managed to get it to work? It's mostly to avoid having to manually copy thousands of files everytime some arrives to join a LAN game. Ideally Sven Coop would update the slow download method but it's probably hardcoded to the old engine.
As a side note, one thing that's annoying is that the LAN and Friends tabs of the join game window do not work. Even though the computers are in the same LAN, whether using a dedicated server or listen server, the LAN tabs reports that there are no local games found and the friends tab shows no friends playing, even if both steam accounts are friends. Everyone would have to connect manually through the console.
I suppose it's not the end of the world if I can't get the fast download and join game tabs to work, but I've run a dedicated Left 4 Dead 2 server with sourcemod for LAN use and we can all connect to an 8 player lobby with no issues. I'm guessing the old codebase has too many quirks.
Edit: Finally got things working, had to find and work around a combination of issues. By using developer logging in the console, I confirmed that the server passes along the url of the fastdl http server to client. So using 127.0.0.1 wouldn't work. However when I tried using the LAN ip address of the apache server it still wouldn't work for other computers on the same LAN. I figured out that for whatever reason when I start the dedicated game server I must manually load a map after starting it before any clients connect. If players join the server right after it starts, they will run into fastdl issues. No idea why. Finally, since it's recommended to add additional maps to the svencoop_addon folder and not the base svencoop so as not to pollute the main directory, I am only sharing the svencoop_addon directory. However the server creates the soundcache files for all maps in the svencoop/maps/soundache folder, causing those files to be downloading from the dedicated server instead. So I ended up using the "Alias" command in the apache server config to redirect all requests for that folder from the svencoop_addon/maps/soundcache folder.
I'm sure there might be a better way to have Apache pull files from both folders at the same time especially based on the old example config provided at the sven coop website but this workaround works.
