PS4 Preparing to download....

[JPT]

So this usually takes ages on my PS4, anybody got an idea what is actually going on or what it's actually doing during this stage?

 

[djskribbles]

For me I wouldn't say ages, but I have noticed lately that it can take 2-5 minutes to finish preparing. This is just based off of memory.

But yeah I wonder what causes it to take so long... kind of annoying.

 

[JPT]

2-5 minutes is ages, anything above a couple of seconds is ages

 

[BRiT]

For someone who doesnt own a PS4, when does this happen? Is it for dashboard updates? After game purchases? When signing on as a new gamer profile?

 

[djskribbles]

I believe it's whenever you have to download any type of update, whether it's a system update or for a game.

I wonder, does standby essentially eliminate this with background downloading? I dunno as I always completely shut my PS4 off.

2-5 minutes is ages, anything about a couple of seconds is ages

Yeah when it gets closer to the 5min mark, it's definitely annoying. I don't recall my PS4 doing this until fairly recently. And it appears to be random as far as how long it takes to prepare. It seems to happen to me with Destiny a lot. Destiny is pretty much the only game I've played since its release, so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. That said, it could be that I only notice it with Destiny BECAUSE it's the only game that I play.

 

[Globalisateur]

Doesn't the system check and set aside HDD space for the update?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I've never seen this, when does it appear?

 

[London Geezer]

Just before the game actually starts downloading. Personally I've never seen this go on for longer than a few seconds.

 

[function]

When your PS4 is preparing to download?

(sorry)

Edit: god damn it, London-boy.

 

[Grall]

It could be something as simple as the console waiting for a free slot in a download queue. That could explain why it sometimes takes longer for the 'preparation' to finish.

 

[goonergaz]

I noticed a similar thing on PS3 and it seemed to be the bigger the download the longer it took to 'prepare'...maybe it's linked...maybe a coincidence.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I've also recently noticed the time for "preparing to download" is longer than it used to be.
For me, not 2-5 minutes, but certainly longer than it was just a couple of weeks ago. Maybe still under a minute.
Still faster than it was for PS3, but kind of annoying anyway.
Can this be related to available HDD space or fragmentation? I should still have a bit less than 100 gigs free from the 1TB.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Just before the game actually starts downloading. Personally I've never seen this go on for longer than a few seconds.

Ah! I can't remember the last time I initiated a download manually. Patches happen in the background and games are preloaded.

 

[London Geezer]

I only noticed it when buying a game and going to check how far I was from playing it.

But I think it's about size and available space. The bigger it is, the longer it takes to prepare to fit it in. Like so many other aspects of life.

 

[goonergaz]

lol

 

[MrFox]

There's no reason it wouldn't fit in the other USB3 HDD, but the PS4 said it's not natural.

 

[orangpelupa]

it is very long. longest one was Destiny TTK update. It literally take hours to complete "preparing".

PSN did not encrypt the transfer of game files, probably you can sniff it with Charles proxy

 

[MrFox]

It can't be related to the file system, as it doesn't happen with discs which is the same amount of space required to install and play. Otherwise, why would it happen with download and not discs?

Could it be a server side queue in specific regions?

For the record I'm in canada and I've never seen this, but I didn't really look for it because downloading takes a long time anyway.

 

[nightshade]

It's quite obviously due to the fact that the game files get evaluated first before downloading a new update/patch. It also depends on a game by game basis, so Destiny takes ages now and it's the same for people who own it digitally and for people who own in physically.

 

[JPT]

I do not remember when it shows and when not in detail, mainly because when it happens it annoys me and when it happens I do not think about it.
But it seems to happen when you have update an already downloaded title, it happened to me last time when it had to update DriveClub.

So a theory now, is that it goes through the complete install and compares the files on the server and the local PS4 and checks which files needs updating and then downloads just those? It might make sense, because when preparing is done, the download never starts at 0%. I think Driveclub started at 80 something %.

Another annoying thing if you pause the preparing job, when you restart it, it starts at 0 again