Custom Zips ignored on login

[ThePwnd]

Hi there,

Recently, I heard about the brand new feature for creating custom modpacks and easily distributing them to players, allowing server owners to add/subtract their own preferred mods to their servers without forcing their non-computer savvy users to manually install them and adjust the block IDs. Naturally, I thought "Wow, this is awesome!" so I told my buddy who runs the Tekkit server for our school about it, and he agreed this would be an easy and cool way to add all the mods we always wished we could have on Minecraft SMP but never could because none of the other players would be able to figure out how to install the same mods on their own computers.

So, I followed the tutorial video --->

posted on this website. I created a folder: Documents\CustomURL\Package and inside this folder I created a "mods" folder, a "config" folder, and a "bin" folder. I placed the mods we wished to add in the "mods" folder (they did not require any additional coremods), I adjusted the block IDs and added the .cfg files and respective folders to the "config" folder, and finally, I installed GuiAPI in the minecraft.jar on which Tekkit Lite runs, and placed the modified .jar file into the "bin" folder. Then I compressed the folder into a .zip file and uploaded it to my dropbox. However, neither my friends or I can use the link without the same problem (a problem which apparently many other users are also having), whenever we paste the dropbox link into the Custom Zips box and log into Minecraft, it runs its normal processes but either ignores the link to the Custom Zip, or for a brief second, the status bar will display "0% Extracting 'Package.zip,'" then it continues loading Tekkit Lite, without ever making any progress in extracting the .zip file.

I don't know if it's something I'm doing wrong, or if this new feature is just really buggy, but if you look at the comments on the tutorial video or search a few keywords on the forums and questions regarding this topic, you'll see I'm not the only one having this problem. Sadly no one has produced a solution yet, but if anyone has any ideas, I would greatly appreciate the help.

[freakachu]

in the absence of the aforementioned zip file to examine, I'd guess part of your problem is trying to package minecraft.jar, because that will do exactly jack for you. put the GuiAPI in modpack.jar and include that instead.

give me the link and I'll tell you exactly how much of a nubcake you are in great detail. I promise.

[ThePwnd]

If you're such a genius, then maybe you would've noticed in the tutorial video put out by the devs of Tekkit themselves, at 2:26 in the video stc says "...and you can even overwrite the 'bin' files..." There's a reason I can't just include GuiAPI with the other mods. I've included MoCreatures in the pack, and it's weird, but the only way Tekkit runs without crashing is by installing GuiAPI into the .jar file. I looked it up, I tried it a bunch of different ways myself, but at the end of the day, there was no other way to make it work.

But hey, I'll humor you. Here's the link to the dropbox file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xcnnce1lrt23ngc/Package.zip

And on top of that, I went to the trouble of zipping up both the "mods" folder and "config" folder separately to see if Tekkit would extract them (of course, it didn't but here are the links anyway): https://www.dropbox.com/s/t8b5ui23mehf2k4/mods.zip and https://www.dropbox.com/s/6xwak5ya3yc34r9/config.zip

[Mooseman9]

Holy hell this is easy. You don't use minecraft.jar for mod-related items. Go to your bin file and use modpack.jar. Everything technic is supposed to get from the minecraft.jar file that has anything to do with mods is actually in the modpack.jar.

Rebundle, except this time, set the path of the stuff you were installing to minecraft.jar to MODPACK.jar

[freakachu]

well, problem number 1 is that your link goes to a webpage where you can click a link to download the file. meaning it is not a direct link to the file and the launcher is grabbing an HTML page and going "wtf, mates?" then tossing it out the window. that is problem number 1.

problem number 2 is that your folder structure in the zip is wrong. the first thing I see when I open it is a folder called "package". that will ensure that your zip never actually works. let me show you why:

this is what a tekkit lite folder looks like

and this is what your zip looks like

please note that these two should match, or at least the parts you want to change should match up. do they appear to match up to you? no? incredible.

problem number 3 is the use of minecraft.jar instead of the modpack.jar for GuiAPI. not only is it a really bad idea to distribute the minecraft.jar file, it also will get overwritten by modpack.jar because of how the launcher works. if you'd paid attention to the video, this is explicitly mentioned.

so there you go, exactly why you are a nubcake in great detail as promised. was that clear enough for you?

[ThePwnd]

Um, no actually. I fixed all the problems you pointed out, but it still didn't work. As it turns out there were plenty of details you forgot to mention that I had to play around with myself to fix. But whatever, it works now.

[Xylord]

Um, no actually. I fixed all the problems you pointed out, but it still didn't work. As it turns out there were plenty of details you forgot to mention that I had to play around with myself to fix. But whatever, it works now.

Wow, you managed to get your problems fixed by receiving help from a generous stranger on the Internet, and still managed to keep an entitled attitude like that, this is no small feat. A lesser man would have been thankful.

[freakachu]

Um, no actually. I fixed all the problems you pointed out, but it still didn't work. As it turns out there were plenty of details you forgot to mention that I had to play around with myself to fix. But whatever, it works now.

really? please do enlighten me because I am just dying to know what I missed so I can more thoroughly laugh about this. if there really was something other than what I pointed out, I'm impressed that you actually went and did something about it yourself instead of complaining that it doesn't work. however, I'm such a self-confident prick that I don't think there was anything else wrong.

[Cheap Shot]

Um, no actually. I fixed all the problems you pointed out, but it still didn't work. As it turns out there were plenty of details you forgot to mention that I had to play around with myself to fix. But whatever, it works now.

Hey guys I got this!

Fuck right off.

[FreakinRocket]

Try this! No custom URL or DropBox is needed!

[freakachu]

there are a few problems with your method.

-does not work for any mod that is not in a technic pack. go ahead, try and install thaumcraft 3 like this. you can't because you need to go download it first.

-terrible for servers. good luck getting people to manually copy files around or edit config files just to play on your server. not to mention the whole can't use mods not in other technic packs thing.

-it's just the manual mod installation method. this is essentially how you had to do things before custom zips existed, with the added step of downloading the mods you wanted that weren't in another pack (or not up to date). this isn't revolutionary or new.

now, manually installing mods is totally a valid thing to do for playing single player, etc.. no reason to bother with custom zips in that case because you'd have to install them manually anyway to get the configs right in the first place. I think people saw the whole "custom zip" thing and thought it was the only way to add things to the packs, even though you could add things to them all along if you wanted like this. if that is really what people are doing, using custom zips to install mods for playing single player, then I'm not surprised they can't get them to work to be honest.