I tried everything for almost a week and couldn't figure out how to get the game to install. I tried everything short of factory resetting my PC. I'll keep this short, but if you're having this issue this is how you fix it.
- Close the BSG Launcher completely. Make sure it is not hiding in your system tray.
- Open Windows File Explorer and navigate to this exact path:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc - Locate the file named
hosts. - Drag and drop the
hostsfile directly onto your Desktop. (We do this to easily bypass the strict Administrator restrictions in the System32 folder). - Open the file on your Desktop using Notepad.
- Scroll to the very bottom, create a new line, and paste this exact text:
127.0.0.1 cdn-11.eft-store.com(Do not put a#symbol at the beginning of this line). - Save the file and close Notepad.
- Drag the
hostsfile from your Desktop back into theetcfolder. - Reopen the launcher. Your download should now display the correct ~50GB size and proceed without the Tarkov checksum error.
I posted a screenshot of what the file should look like.
EDIT: Once you've downloaded and installed the game you need to go back in and remove (127.0.0.1 cdn-11.eft-store.com) from the HOST file also make sure you save i would double check to make sure its removed. I posted this fix to BSG's support so they could put it up on their website so its easy for people to find..
What Causes Tarkov Error 108003?
To put it simply, one of Battlestate Games’ Content Delivery Network (CDN) servers—specifically cdn-11.eft-store.com—is currently broken and serving incomplete files.
Players often ask, is error 108003 a server-side issue or a local file problem? It originates as a server-side issue. The broken CDN fails to serve the complete update. So, is tarkov error 108003 related to corrupted game files? Yes, because your launcher attempts to download the data, but the broken server delivers corrupted, incomplete packets that your system rightly rejects.
You can actually diagnose this yourself before the error even pops up. Look at your launcher. If your total download size shows around 32 GB, you are connected to the broken server. A healthy download connection should show around 50 GB.
So, how do I fix error 108003 in the BSG launcher? We fix it by telling your computer to completely ignore the broken server. By editing your Windows hosts file, we can block cdn-11, which forces the BSG launcher to automatically route your download to a working server instead.