Have you ever changed your account name or Email? That seems to break things in the GOG system. It sounds like they broke it by tinkering on their side, since it mostly worked, you asked why one order didn't work, they "added an item" and it broke. I'd have to say you have to force them to look at what they did, because it worked before the somewhat untrained tech support people put their mouse pointers on it.

Thank you everyone for your replies, let me go through and answer a few things, and give some more information where possible.

- First, let me thank you for the detailed reply and direct answers to questions, it was rather helpful. I am pleased to report that the e-mail does contain a direct link to the support ticket page, so I can easily keep a check on it. The status is still marked as 'Open', I will note. Five weeks for an initial reply sounds nerve-wracking, I'm glad things have clearly gotten better, as I response within 2 days I think.

I'll be waiting to see what happens this next week, and keeping the ability to send a chat message in mind if it becomes necessary. Thanks again.

Regarding the suggestions that this may be caused by the ISP, as noted in my detailed post I contacted the ISP as per GoG's instructions. The ISP told me they had no means on their end to throttle or block any URL, and as such could not be responsible. While I admit this sounds rather weird, it's the only answer I can get on the matter. Furthermore, literally every single other website I attempt to access is acting as usual, and every other page I try to access on GoG works without any error. The only page with any issues is the 'Order History' page, which displays the 'GoGbear' image.

Regarding the 'GoGbear' and the error that is causing it, I've used 'inspect element' to open the console to see if I could get any clues, and consistently it will read out '500 Internal Server Error' when refreshing on the 'Order History' page. So yes it seems safe to say that this caused by a 500 error on their end.

As for what may have caused this, I'll lay out a more detailed description of what I did/what happened that led to this, at the end of this post, momentarily.

I have always used the same e-mail with this account, and always used the same account name. I have never changed either one. As you say, things were working until I asked them to fix an item, and then it broke. That was while dealing with 'Customer Support'. I have since been transferred over to 'Technical Support', so hopefully that will help.

-

As I said in my OP, I was trying to be brief, but now I think it's important that I go into a bit more detail on what happened.

I had 3 items in my cart, and decided to check out. i always pay using paypal, so was redirected to them to issue a payment. Before I could finish this I was distracted for a few minutes. Because some time had passed, and I am habitually one to check and recheck that I am doing the right thing, I clicked 'cancel' on paypal, to return back to the Gog card. From there, I rather quickly checked the cart, then hit 'checkout' again, once more being redirected to paypal where I finished payment, and was redirected back to GoG.

Instead of landing on the 'order complete' page, where they show off all the new game entries that have been added to your Library, I instead found myself back in the cart, and every item in said cart now was greyed out and said 'owned' next to it.

From there I opened a new tab and went to 'Order History', which showed 2 separate entries for the games I had wanted to buy (that is, two orders with the same games, and a different order number for each), and a button to 'Complete this Order' as next to the price total it read '(NOT PAID YET)'. Seeing this I immediately saved screenshots of both orders and the cart, as this was not the first time I had encountered this error (more on that in a bit).

From there I watched and waited, and eventually rather than either order completing, both orders vanished from history. This is where I then decided to reach out to Customer Support, in case there might be any issues that could appear later on. I explained the situation completely, including that there had been 2 orders that had appeared. I set up the support ticket using the order number from the one my paypal receipt said I had paid for. Customer Support got back to me soon, explaining that they had checked their records and saw that the error was on their end, and had reinstated the order in Order History.

It was here, when I attempted to load the 'Order History' page, that I was met with the 'GoGbear' rather than order history, and have been dealing with that and customer support since then.

-

As I said, this was not my first time dealing with an odd checkout glitch as I described. Much earlier this year I had another order do the same thing after canceling and then immediately paying via paypal, and at the time thought it was because of using an outdated browser. Bad on my part I know, but since then I have not attempted to checkout or do anything other than browse GoG passingly unless using an up-to-date browser since then. It is because of this I believe the glitch was likely caused by my canceling and then quickly completing the order immediately after. I cannot prove it, no, but that is my expectation.

Of note, this first time I encountered this glitch I handled it slightly differently. When I found the two orders in order history I clicked 'Complete this Order' on one of the unfinished orders. To my surprise I found it took me back to the cart to pay. I did -not- follow through as I had already received an e-mail receipt from paypal. I went back to the order history and found that the price of that order had increased (due to a sale having ended between my checking out, and clicking 'Complete this Order'.

Not sure what else to do, I took screenshots of both orders, and decided to watch and wait and see what would happen. The other order would soon vanish, and the order I had clicked on would complete (though the stated total continued to show the post-sale increase), and the other order would vanish. The only noteworthy thing about the completed order is that it showed no ability to request a refund.

-

That's all the relevant information I think I have for now. I have not mentioned the old incident to support, as I did not want to inundate them with far too much information. Hopefully this can give some insight for people wondering what might have caused this, and help clarify some things I may have been unclear about initially.

Thanks again for all the replies.

I don't know the exact hours despite their slogan on every vgame page
"Safety and satisfaction. Stellar support 24/7 and full refunds up to 30 days."
but not long ago I expressed some disagreement about response timing and got this reply:

gog.com/forum/general/celebrate_gogs_14_years_of_making_games_last_forever_432a7/post116

My complain was not about the CManager only, but the time taken to solve the issue by the GOG Company.
Forge your own opinion... Lucky you, I think I have created 3 tickets and:
For 1 I never got response (Opened July 2022?)
For another: 1 month later got the initial response (during covid)
For the third: Couple of months later got the initial response (during covid) Trying to speed up the solution, I'd suggest to cover any generic initial scenario.
Therefore try: From other devices, different internet connections, different browsers, through a VPN

Similar case. Few months ago purchasing wallet funds:
1) I was redirected to paypal to issue a payment
2) I changed my mind and closed the paypal window
3) changed the wallet amount
4) I was redirected to paypal to issue a payment
5) I changed my mind and closed the paypal window
6) changed the wallet amount
7) I was redirected to paypal to issue a payment
8) I paid

On "ORDERS HISTORY" I got 3 orders (Upper case by the page itself):

-PENDING ORDER #1111 $X.00 "(NOT PAID YET)" && A "Complete this order" button
-PENDING ORDER #2222 $Y.00 "(NOT PAID YET)" && A "Complete this order" button
-Order #3333 $Z.00 "$Z.00 (PAID WITH PAYPAL)"

I did not worry because I got immediately the $Z.00 wallet funds I paid but got my attention how those 2 incomplete transactions got order numbers and status
Checking right now "ORDERS HISTORY", those extra 2 "Orders" are gone. I can't tell you how long it took to vanish because I did not monitor them

Good to know that doubt at the paypal window can cause problems with vgames purchases.
Thanks for sharing: I will fully avoid it


Good luck and hope you get the problem solved soon!

Glad to hear I'm not the only one to have come across the duplicate orders from canceling at the payment page. I'll have to keep that in mind and definitely have to avoid doing it again myself in the future.

Thanks for the wish of good luck. For now I'm waiting to see how this week goes and will poke support via chat if necessary. Nothing new for the moment, 'Order History' still displays the 'GoGbear' due to 500 server error. If anything significant changes or I have any other questions I'll drop a post.

Same issue. I bought some games via paypal during the black friday sales, got an email from paypal but not gog. Order showed first as not paid, then stopped showing at all. I emailed support and was explained it is a known but rare issue and since the funds were in fact taken (confirmed by rep it was able to be processed on the back end) but the games not added he gave me a code to redeem that added the items. Which is all working now, but the order history page shows me the gog bear as well. Figured it was just a backend issue. They fixed the bigger issue though so I'm fine with waiting it out.

Hello again. It's been a while since I made a post but things have been moving so slowly I only now have anything to bring up. TL;DR included at the bottom of the post.

~~

I took the advice offered and reached out to a member of GoG staff via chat. They were friendly and able to look into things and tech support replied back to me after. Only a few times however, and I had to wait again, mostly about 2 weeks until I would reach out to the same understanding forum staff member again who would check on things.

I can't say exactly what caused the replies from technical support to take so long, but I did eventually take note of what seemed like a pattern. They would reply seemingly always just before GoG's automated system would send an e-mail asking me if I still needed help with my support ticket and noting that it would be closed automatically in 3 days if I did not reply. Replies on my end would seemingly extend this timer. I noticed this after missing one of tech support's replies and receiving the automatic response from their system.

Obviously this is just my own experience but in the future when dealing with 'Technical Support' specifically, I'd suggest against repeated replies to 'wake them up' like is suggested when communicating with 'Customer Support', as the result seemed to be that it took far longer for them to get back in touch with me, after they fell dormant again.

~~

After all the waiting and back and forth the results are as follows:

-The 'Order History' page is still broken, and the issue itself has been transferred to the 'appropriate department'. I can only assume I encountered a glitch/error they haven't seen before, and are only just now investigating it. The post above mine by Metal572 seems to confirm this.

Of note: Despite being unable to view the Order History page, I can still pick up giveaways, add items to the cart, and check out, with everything showing up in my library just fine. I've been wary of purchasing anything other than free items however, so I can't say if purchases requiring payment would work or not.

-Technical Support was unable to provide me with help with most of the games missing from my library Specifically the ones from the order that caused the glitch. They said that because those games were related to that order they simply could not help.

-There is no ETA on how long it will take to repair the glitch with the 'Order History' page or anything else.

~~

The other games missing from my library were all received as a bonus when purchasing other games. Two of them, 'The Elder Schools: Arena' and 'The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall,' both are now available for purchase for free directly in the store, so Technical Support asked me to just do that. I haven't done it yet but I will.

The other missing game is 'Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny.' Tech Support informed me had been combined with 'Wolfenstien 3D in the library. However, when checking 'Wolfensten 3D' in the library I only see an installer for it, and not one for Spear of Destiny. Can anyone confirm if Spear of Destiny is supposed to have a separate installer from 'Wolfenstien 3D' or not?

~~

That's all I think I have now. I can wait on the Order History page to be sorted, but I'd like to have the games in my library that I paid for. Should I start a new customer support ticket about any of this? I know it's recommended to not create multiple tickets but my current one has seemingly reached a dead end. It's still open and waiting for a reply, but the last answers I received seemed pretty definitive at least for dealing with Technical Support. Any ideas?

~~

tl;dr -
1. Tech support would reply two to three times before being silent for weeks at a time. Reaching out to GoG forum staff seemed to help. Sending additional replies to my support ticket seemed to slow things.

2. Order History still broken, issue has been moved to the appropriate department. Games are still missing from my library, most of them from the glitched order. No ETA on a fix, technical support says they cannot help.

3. Of the other games missing from my library two can be repurchased for free. One, 'Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny,' is supposed to be added to 'Wolfenstien 3D', but I only have an installer for that and not Spear of Destiny available to download in library. Can anyone confirm if Spear of Destiny has a separate installer?

4. Would anyone suggest creating a new support ticket for these issues, or is there anything else I can do?

~~

I believe that covers everything. Feel free to ask any questions you might have or for me to elaborate on anything. I look forward to whatever you have to suggest, and appreciate you taking your time to read this.

• If you paid for games that GOG has failed to provide, and you can't even access the orders page to ask for a refund, you're fully justified to get your money back via Paypal.
• "Spear of Destiny Expansion Included" is mentioned twice on the store page for Wolfenstein 3D, once in big bold text. The whole game is under 13 MB; who's going to bother with separate installers for expansions in that case?
• GOG never apologized or explained why Arena and Daggerfall were removed from our accounts. We've all surmised it's related to the games becoming free for everyone, added them back to our accounts, and made our peace with it.
• Weeks on end to get a reply from support is perfectly normal. That's simply the "Stellar support 24/7" on offer here. I've recently seen two users with payment-related issues get a response in under 1 week, so maybe they've at least implemented some kind of ticket triage system.
• If weeks go by without a first response, adding a polite reply to your ticket usually helps. If the ticket is about to be closed due to inactivity, obviously you need to reply in that case. If it's a matter of some urgency, you can reach out to a staff member, as you know.
• "I've passed this on to the right team! :D" is the kiss of death for a support ticket. The support agent has washed his hands of it and it will be marked Solved after a period of inactivity. In my experience, "The appropriate team" has never done jack squat to fix anything, but your mileage may vary.
• I've never heard anyone say adding replies to the ticket every few days is a good idea. If you have an active ticket, don't open duplicates for the same issue. It's just going to clog an already overloaded support system.

If your problem isn't fixed you have to reply to keep the ticket open. If you don't reply, then it's your fault and we can forget about the problem.

First of all, you conflated two separate sentences I wrote. The second part is in reference to the explicit intent to open a duplicate ticket when the current one is seemingly still open:
Secondly, he seemed to add multiple replies without having received any. If your ticket status isn't "Awaiting your reply" then trying to bump your ticket forever isn't likely to make things go faster. The advice floating around the forum -- that I stand by -- is that if you haven't received a first response for a long time, then you can try adding one polite reply to your ticket.

Oops, missed that bit.

Yeah, I agree. ^^;

Thank you again for your detailed reply Let me go over a few things and clarify what I can.

As I had stated in my original post, I'd not posted here before, and this is my first time dealing with support, so I expect to make a few mistakes.
Firstly, the suggestion to add a reply to a ticket came from the very first reply in this thread, and was what I was referring to when I mentioned 'wake them up.' No one ever indicated anything any different, so I rolled with it. As I replied in later posts, I did add a reply every couple of days, for a bit, but quit that as I didn't want to spam support. The frequency of my additional replies to nudge support to respond reduced over the course of my interactions until I stopped altogether with my last interactions.

Checking through my ticket, I never added more than 2 additional replies before getting a response, and only did that a couple of times. Most times it was one additional reply at most, and on a few occasions I did so to add additional information or correct something I had said previously.

My whole point in bringing up my experience with adding replies and how I came to the conclusion that it actually slowed response time was because of the information I'd received and a desire to pass along my observations from my own experiences. I did not in any way wish to give the impression that GoG support was simply trying to ignore tickets, and rather trying to explain my own experiences and the conclusions I reached based on them.

It's been literal years since I've had to open any sort of dispute over a charge with paypal, and I'd rather avoid it if I can. Thanks for mentioning this though, I'd forgotten this was an option. I'd prefer figuring out something else with GoG though, if possible.

All three of these games vanished from my account at the exact same time that the games from the order vanished, through the use of a 'Restore' link. As far as I was aware and could tell, it was all related to the same thing. I had no idea until just now that Arena and Daggerfall had vanished from everyone else's account as well. The only reason I figured out what was missing in the first place was by cross-referencing the website library with the GoG Galaxy library, in order to determine what was missing. For some reason the games never vanished from Galaxy, though I cannot download them.

As for Spear of Destiny in specific, it originally had a separate library entry from Wolfenstien 3D. When it vanished, I did find someone in the forum mentioning it had been removed and would be added to the Wolfenstien 3D entry. Not seeing it mentioned as a separate download alongside the base game, I assumed something might have glitched for me there as well. Hence why I asked if anyone could confirm if they had the game in their library, if there was a separate installer for expansion. The idea of it being included in the base game installer had not occurred to me, honestly. When I can get to a windows PC I''ll give it a shot, thanks.

Initially with 'Customer Support' I recieved replies rather promptly, mostly by the next day, and at worst only 3 days later. Waiting weeks for a reply only started after being transfered to 'Technical Support'. Other than the indications of their names, I can't say what the difference is. Dealing with Technical Support was much more like what you describe as being 'normal', though.

Yes, it was at your suggestion in an earlier reply in this thread that I did reach out to staff, and I appreciate it. I found it to be much better overall to reach out after 2 weeks of no reply, once even 3 weeks, than to keep posting additional replies to my ticket. Again I want to note that it seems to me that adding additional replies to my ticket seemed to actively slow down my reception of a response, as the time I waited 3 weeks was after having sent a single reply after nearly 2 weeks had passed since a responce (I had already replied to their responce).

To be clear, however, I'm not suggesting spamming staff to get a reply to a ticket. While they did reach out to support, it would still be several days after that support would reply to me. It really seemed to correlate much more closely with a certain amount of time passing from my last reply.

We'll have to see I suppose. My take at the moment is that someone is probably looking into it, based on a recent post to this thread.

Based on that it sounds like they are aware and are looking into it. Likely not of the highest priority I'd say, especially with no ETA on it being finished. I'd be OK waiting for them to fix it and in the meanwhile not making any purchases outside of picking up free games., if I can just manage to get the games added to my account in the same fashion as this user did. I don't think that's too much to ask, I'm just trying to figure the best way to go about doing that.

Again, thanks for your reply and I hope this clears up a few things.

Yes, sort of. Replies are required to keep tickets from auto-closing. Once, after missing a reply from Technical Support because so long had passed, I only caught it because GoG sent an automatic e-mail asking if I still needed help, and that if I did not reply in 3 days my ticket would be automatically closed.

While it's true replies are required to keep tickets open, conversely it seems that additional replies will create a longer wait time before support responds. That's how it seemed to be to me, at least, I'm working with only my own observations here.

Thanks for the reply.

According to a post from November, Spear of Destiny is now included with Wolfenstein 3D but without Return to Danger and The Ultimate Challenge. If you'd like to hear from someone who owns the game, a separate thread in the Wolfenstein series forum would be best.

As for Spear of Destiny, try to refresh your account once more. For some reason I ended up with three different listings in my GOG.com library:
- Wolfenstein 3D (v1.4, 12 MB)
- Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny (v.1.4, 14 MB)
- Wolfenstein 3D (v1.4, 18 MB)

I haven't downloaded these builds, but I'm assuming the latter includes all expansions.

NOPE. I just downloaded the 18mb Version, NO additional levels for SPEAR.

I could not find an alternate starting-batch-file, either. Someone else should check, too, just to be sure.

But be prepared to be get angry, again. :(