Downloads
A game's page in the Catalogue adds its packages to the Downloads: its base game, its updates and its add-ons, each a package. They are installed one after the other, straight from the server to the console: nothing is first saved whole to the SD card.
The queue
Each game shows its packages, with their progress, their speed and the time left; the sidebar's Downloads shows how many are left and where they are, from any tab.
- Ⓐ on a game or a package: Pause or Resume it, Try again, or Remove it (what it installed so far is deleted).
- The queue's own actions: Pause all, Resume all, Clear installed.
- A package already on the console is not installed again.
The queue is kept on the SD card (sd:/config/playshelf/queue.json). A download cut short (PlayShelf closed, the console turned off) is paused at the next start, and its install goes on from where it stopped once resumed.
When a download stops
A connection lost or a server that cannot answer for now: PlayShelf tries again by itself three times, from where it stopped, then the package says why it failed and what to do:
| Says | What to do |
|---|---|
| connection lost, server unavailable | Try again once the server is back. A server with two addresses: Use the server's other address. |
| access refused | The user name or the password: Edit the server. |
| no longer on the server | The package was renamed or moved: Look for it in the catalogue finds it again. |
| server key not trusted | The server shows another key: forget the old one in its profile, then trust it again. See Certificates. |
| not enough free space | Free some space on the SD card, then Try again. |
| damaged package | A content of the package is not what it should be: the file on the server may be damaged. |
A content that is not signed by Nintendo stops its package: it may have been changed or damaged. Install anyway goes on, at your own risk.
Settings
Under the queue, and in config.json:
- Stay awake while downloading: the console does not go to sleep by itself while downloads run (on by default).
- Connections per download, 1 to 8 (4 by default): how many requests a download makes at once, each for a 4 MB piece of the package. More help with a server that serves each connection slowly.
- Fetch ahead: while a package installs, the next one or two are fetched to the SD card, when it has room for them and their install; their install then starts from the file. Each takes its size twice on the SD card until it is installed (off by default).
Before the first install
Games installed this way need sys-patch or sigpatches to start. When PlayShelf finds neither on the console, it says so before installing and asks whether to go on.