Fallout 76 beta testers ran into some issues this afternoon when the B.E.T.A test countdown meter expired two hours early. The Bethesda launcher was set to launch at 4 p.m. Pacific, but PC Gamer reported that the launch bumped down to 2 p.m. instead, causing several issues for those attempting to play. A partial system outage caused some chaos with the BethesdaNet forums and forced many players to re-download the nearly 48GB Fallout 76 beta code shortly before the latest test was to go live.
According to PC Gamer, the author of the article, Chris Livingston, noticed the timer was going to expire two hours early and tried to reach out to Bethesda on Twitter. “I’ve been sitting here today watching the Bethesda launcher’s Fallout 76 beta timer run down, knowing it would expire two hours early and wondering why. Everything Bethesda has published stated the PC beta would begin at 4 pm Pacific, but the timer was two hours ahead, and clicking on it showed a 2 pm start. I even helpfully (not that helpfully) tried to point this out to Bethesda on Twitter.”
I’m on pacific time and bad at math, but da fuh? @Fallout
Once the timer expired, the launcher told Livingston that his copy of Fallout 76 was being unlocked and displayed a “preloaded” button, which he clicked on. However, after clicking the preload button, it tried to download the preload again, so Livingston then tried to reload the launcher, which then caused an error message to pop up when he tried to log back in. After he finally got access to his account, his game library was completely blank.
Bethesda addressed the issue on Twitter, stating that they were aware of the issue with the client and were investigating. In the meantime, they urged users to “not click any buttons on the client for the time being.”
This quickly became an issue with several beta users who didn’t notice Bethesda’s warning, or ignored it completely and ended up losing their entire preloads of the game and were forced to re-download it.
An update later this evening said that if anyone is actively downloading the beta or has a “visible progress bar” they should allow the download to complete.
PC #Fallout76 B.E.T.A. players: We are investigating an issue affecting B.E.T.A. preloads in the t.co/spj7OhagQy Launcher: If you are actively downloading the Fallout 76 B.E.T.A., or have a visible progress bar, please allow the download to complete.
Although there were many angry players who were forced to re-download the nearly 50GB game, others were understanding and grateful for the beta regardless, as it gave Bethesda the opportunity to catch the issue before the official November 14 launch.
There are also plans for beta sessions on Nov. 1, Nov. 3, and Nov. 4.
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Fallout 76 Beta Bug Causes Some to Re-download Game