Ratchet glitch prevents install

By Tom Bramwell Published 24 October, 2007

So use this workaround.

Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction may have landed in some US stores this week, putting it a little bit ahead of schedule, but it also arrives with a bug that can potentially stop you playing it. Whoops.

What happens is that during the pre-game set-up procedure, when it copies files to the hard disk, it, er, sometimes refuses to copy files to the hard disk, claiming that there is insufficient space to do so, even though there is.

"With specific amounts of free space on your drive, you may see a screen that tells you have insufficient space to create game data even though there is plenty of free space on your drive," Insomniac Games' James Stevenson told Shacknews, probably a bit sheepishly. "When this occurs, either delete or add about 500MB of data to your hard drive and the problem will go away."

Stuck for ideas on how to do that? You could always download a demo. Or delete a few videos. Trailers, I expect - and not your "special" videos, eh? There is also the possibility of deleting the Ratchet & Clank demo, unless you never worked out how to make a US PSN account, in which case you don't have it, because it isn't on the European Store because we're not worth it.

Look out for our Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction review in the coming days! Or you could try out the demo except wait we've done that one. The full game is due out here on 9th November.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 12 months ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Darren #1 4 years ago

    Oh wonderful, I sincerely hope this is not the case for the European version, or if it is, that it doesn't affect people, like me, with 160 GB HDD drives. That said, I have a lot of movie trailers and the Ratchet and Clank Future demo on my HDD, the latter of which I won't need once I have the full game anyway. That'll free 1.7 GB!!! LOL

    Stupid bug though...

  • Darren #2 4 years ago

    Just noticed... the workaround mentions adding 500 MB of data to the HDD?!? Huh, how does that work? :?

  • Steroyd #3 4 years ago

    Yeah what's up with that.

    I could always download the s***ty Conan demo then delete it.

  • DonnieDarko333 #4 4 years ago

    VERY odd and irritating at the sametime.

  • TriggerHippie #5 4 years ago

    Cool, turns out the Genji demo is good for something after all.

  • philw #6 4 years ago

    Just noticed... the workaround mentions adding 500 MB of data to the HDD?!? Huh, how does that work? :?

    As EG suggests, just download something (e.g. a demo) that's 500MB+. That would be "adding" 500MB of data (note data, not space).

  • Aretak #7 4 years ago

    Ah... and so the gap between consoles and PCs gets ever smaller.

  • IAmBatman #8 4 years ago

    Presumably their installer does some wrong maths, that you can get around by either removing or adding 500.

  • drumbaby #9 4 years ago

    "Cool, turns out the Genji demo is good for something after all. "

    Heheheh!!

  • Beano #10 4 years ago

    That's retarded... are developers and publishers not testing their games?

  • optimusprym8 #11 4 years ago

    just goes to show the download then have to install demo system is inferior! I never understood why I had to manually install demos after I had downloaded them

    although wish there was a better way of categorising them

  • kangarootoo #12 4 years ago

    "I never understood why I had to manually install demos after I had downloaded them"

    Same reason its always been. Its means you can compress the download to make it smaller, uncompressing it afterwards so it can be executed.

  • Dr.Mott #13 4 years ago

    How do you know about my 'Special Videos'!?

    /Paranoid

  • Darren #14 4 years ago

    @Kangarootoo - What you say is very true but how come I can download a demo for the 360 and play it as soon as it's finished without having to install it? I think that's what optimusprym8 meant. ;)

  • Steroyd #15 4 years ago

    It does install on the Xbox 360 it's just that it's all in one process so it's more convenient.

  • TipTop #16 4 years ago

    Just got a UK PS3, without doign a lot of searching (and with a friend in the US) will a US copy of this game work on my UK PS3? Thanks in advance.

  • Ryze #17 4 years ago

    COME ON GUYS!

    Stop that grave digging for just a moment please!

  • Wobble #18 4 years ago

    I was going to go with "ps3lol" but instead I think I'll go with "Failstation3".

  • BigE0n #19 4 years ago

    Sounds to me like the install checking in GB's and they dont know how to round 0.5 correctly so adding or removing a 0.5 GB sorts out there checker, nice to see devs using only whole numbers when doing math :-)

  • Les #20 4 years ago

    Games should be bugfree when they're released, this is just stupid and PC-like.

    "Just got a UK PS3, without doign a lot of searching (and with a friend in the US) will a US copy of this game work on my UK PS3? Thanks in advance."

    Yes. And for those of us without a US friend, there's always webstores like movietyme.com (cheapest US import site I've found so far).

  • Shyvah #21 4 years ago

    How did this get past Sony certification?

  • penhalion #22 4 years ago

    @Darren

    Their game install program is using magic numbers to calculate the available free space on your drive. Sounds like they used Div and Mod. One returns the whole numbers and the other returns the remainder. If they look at the remainder then that can give zero in a lot of cases!

  • smirny #23 4 years ago

    what happens if you're not online?

  • Darren #24 4 years ago

    Steroyd - "It does install on the Xbox 360 it's just that it's all in one process so it's more convenient."

    Then that is how PS3 demos should work then. Downloading a demo in 40 minutes then having to wait 10 minutes for a 1.7 GB file to install, as was the case with Ratchet and Clank Future, just plain sucks IMO.

  • IAmBatman #25 4 years ago

    > Games should be bugfree when they're released

    Yes they should. But none are.

  • Skooch #26 4 years ago

    "> Games should be bugfree when they're released

    Yes they should. But none are."

    There's no such thing as a bug-free game. It is like looking for a perfect flower, you'll never find one and if you think you have it's because you haven't noticed an imperfection and not because one isn't there.

    EDIT: This is still a shocking bug to miss though and Sony really should have caught this.
    Edited by 1 at 24/10/07 @ 14:21

  • rotmm #27 4 years ago

    The irony is that this is just another example of how much closer to a PC the PS3 is than the 360. The standard attack that Playstation fans use when discussing the 360 is that it's just a "PC in a console box", but this situation, along with the multitude of websites showing how to "tweak" the PS3 to get more frames per second or less stuttering, reminds me far more of PC tinkering.

    Sadly with the 360, you just put in the DVD and play. Where's the fun in that? :(

  • Slamhound #28 4 years ago

    re: Bugs

    Yes, they exist in almost every game. But there's always the distinction between the likes of, say, a minor clipping glitch and Boiling Point's "crossbow destroys police station".

    For the most part, and I'm speaking about 90~95% of all games, the bugs rarely render them completely unplayable. Hell, even Boiling Point was rarely rendered completely unplayable through it's many, many, release-day bugs.

    Something that stops you from actually installing and playing the game will be the biggest cock-up in gaming until we have a game where you get to launch a chicken coop into space.

  • Grogmonkey #29 4 years ago

    It is basically one step down from not actually including the game data on the disc at all.

  • Slamhound #30 4 years ago

    That is probably what they're working on next.

    Ratchet & Blank.

  • Fitzmogwai #31 4 years ago

    / applauds Slamhound

  • Artemis_Matsas #32 4 years ago

    @bcolter

    IGN review:9.4

    Press average (out of 14 reviews): 9.0

    It seems that gamespot doesn't really know what they're talking about.

  • Boob_Man #33 4 years ago

    For those going on about this bug and how it so awful, if you read the article you'll see this only affects HDD's with certain amounts of free space. 99% of you will probably never even see this.

  • L0cky #34 4 years ago

    'Something that stops you from actually installing and playing the game will be the biggest cock-up in gaming until we have a game where you get to launch a chicken coop into space.'

    Happened with some versions of Tribes 2 on the PC. Then you had to manually get an update for the auto updater... heh.

  • MBar #35 4 years ago

    Games should be bugfree when they're released

    Yes they should. But none are.

    But a bug that will stop loads of people even playing the game?

    Console game testing has got very very slack now that we can "patch" using PSN or XBox Live.

    This is a fucking joke. Recall it. Or arrange for replacement discs to be sent out, free of charge.

    Call it a fine but being a bunch of lazy, money grubbers.

  • dk_rare #36 4 years ago

    The PS3 can't even play the games that are made for it!

  • smelly #37 4 years ago

    HANG ON A MOMENT!!!

    You have to INSTALL ps3 games??!?!??

  • kinky_mong #38 12 months ago

    Three years later and I've just tried to start this game and the bug still exists! Good work everyone!