Letter I wanted to write to SOE

[Lance Berg]

((((( This is a copy of something I'm trying to submit to email support.
I tried to in game petition, which crashed me to desktop, a complaint
I've heard several times since the recent patch. I tried Chat support,
there's nobody there till monday working hours. Finally I tried email
support, filled out the form, submitted it, only to be told I was
missing my email address. I'm logged on to the web site with my account
name, and I checked, they have my valid email address. But thats not
enough. Trouble is, I can't find anywhere on the form the place where
I'd actually put my email address!)))))

Server Select is not the actual problem, but there is no category for my
problem.


A few days ago, I crashed out of the game, and found that I was unable
to log back in. I have more than one machine I play EQ on, and when I
tried logging in from the laptop, I had no problem. As a temporary
fix, I just switched to playing from the laptop.

But today, the same thing happened, to the same character, in a
completely different zone, now on the new machine.

After several attempts, I tried a different character on the same
account, no problem. Tried the first character again, still no luck.
Tried going back to the desktop, also could not log in, despite it being
a different zone.

Went to a second laptop, and that one has successfully logged that
character in with no problems.

Here is what is happenening. I log in all the way to character select.
Select my character, try to log in, the load time goes on much longer
than usual, then I get a message telling me that I seem to have crashed
and would I like to submit information to help solve the problem in the
future. Whether I say yes or not, I then end up at my desktop with EQ
not running.

This happens repeatedly, and rebooting the machine doesn't stop it, nor
does going to the advanced patch.

Logging other characters on the same account works on each machine, just
logging this one character on this account now doesn't on either. And
yet when I started EQ on a third machine, have no trouble logging in
that character on that account!

Any ideas?


((((( I put this here, both to see if anyone had a workaround for this
problem, or at least to notify you that its out there, and because since
I can't actually submit my letter, I wanted to have a copy of it in case
I could find some other way to get this info to tech support. So, if
you happen to know of either, let me know)))))

[Lance Berg]

OK, so thinking about this, the problem is:

Specific to one character.

Spread across multiple machines.

Spread across multiple zones.

Not universal to all machines.

This suggests to me the problem is on my machines, stored in a file
associated with my specific character.

Its probably being caused somehow at SOE's end, because I haven't done
something that I've shared from one machine to the other... but whatever
it is, it seems to me there should be a workaround on my end.

After discussing it with some guildmates, I've now gone in to my
Everquest folder using windows explorer, found the two files:

Berg_Combine
and
UI_Berg_Combine

(presumably .INI but for some reason I can't see what their suffix is
with my primative windows skills)

and changed their names to .OLD

Logging out on machine number three, and now trying to log back in on my
desktop.

Cutesy messages about polishing erudite foreheads.

Picture of FV on a pirate ship, with no message

Mouse cursor still works
Goes to crosshair sort of look instead of an arrow

And I'm in.

Funky.

[D.J.]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:07:14 -0400, Lance Berg
<***@NOSPAM.dejazzd.com> wrote:
]missing my email address. I'm logged on to the web site with my account
]name, and I checked, they have my valid email address. But thats not
]enough. Trouble is, I can't find anywhere on the form the place where
]I'd actually put my email address!)))))

Yeah, they have mine to.

But I had to click on an emailed validaiton link. Then log back into
the game and finish the petition process. I crashed out of EQ to. My
3rd year veteran reward hadn't showed up, and I was 'stuck' on 3.0
years. They put in the peition reply that the veteranreward roll
over hadn't happened this month, July, 2007. My reward showed up
after mine was fixed.

JimP.

[Larry Laffer]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:07:14 -0400, Lance Berg
<***@NOSPAM.dejazzd.com> wrote:
What zone is that one character camped in? Is it different from the
others? It may be a port blocking problem with the port used to
connect to that zone.

If that's not it, it may be corrupt .ini files -- back up your .ini
files for that character and have the game re-create new ones fresh.
You'll have to reset your windows, hotkeys, etc. but that's what the
back up is for, so you still have the data around to try to put back
one piece at a time until you find out what's breaking it.

[Lance Berg]

Post by D.J.
On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:07:14 -0400, Lance Berg
What zone is that one character camped in? Is it different from the
others? It may be a port blocking problem with the port used to
connect to that zone.

This happened twice, I can't remember the first zone, but it was
different from the second, which was POFire.

Post by D.J.
If that's not it, it may be corrupt .ini files -- back up your .ini
files for that character and have the game re-create new ones fresh.
You'll have to reset your windows, hotkeys, etc. but that's what the
back up is for, so you still have the data around to try to put back
one piece at a time until you find out what's breaking it.

I wiped my ini files on my desktop, and not on the laptop, so I'll be
able to compare that way. This solution worked, although it was
brutal... and its introduced a new annoyance.

The AA for the SK pet has gone missing. Abyssal Steed is still there,
but Unholy Steed, which is the one I have, isn't to be found anywhere.
I asked a couple guildmates, and the AA is gone from their lists too.

So, now I need to go digging in the Ini file until I find at least the
line for my pony!

[Lief]

"Lance Berg" <***@NOSPAM.dejazzd.com> wrote in message news:***@dejazzd.com...

Delete UI ini files (ui_char, char.ini, etc).

Relog, make backups of ini's/

Win.

[Lance Berg]

Post by Lief
Delete UI ini files (ui_char, char.ini, etc).
Relog, make backups of ini's/
Win.

Worked.

But it doesn't solve the riddle, what would make two sets of ini files,
for the same character and account but on two seperate machines, break
in the same way days apart?

[Prelgor]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lief
Delete UI ini files (ui_char, char.ini, etc).
Relog, make backups of ini's/
Win.

Worked.
But it doesn't solve the riddle, what would make two sets of ini files,
for the same character and account but on two seperate machines, break
in the same way days apart?

I have no idea why, but something similar happened to me. I could log
on to any of my characters, except my bazaar mule. Even another
character in the same zone was fine. Finally, I deleted the .ini
files for that character, and it all seems to work again.

Perhaps whatever made that character corrupt continued to corrupt your
files on other machines? I haven't left my bazaar mule up for a
while, so you're making me fear that, when I do, the problem may come
back.

- Prelgor

[Lance Berg]

Post by Prelgor

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lief
Delete UI ini files (ui_char, char.ini, etc).
Relog, make backups of ini's/
Win.

Worked.
But it doesn't solve the riddle, what would make two sets of ini files,
for the same character and account but on two seperate machines, break
in the same way days apart?

I have no idea why, but something similar happened to me. I could log
on to any of my characters, except my bazaar mule. Even another
character in the same zone was fine. Finally, I deleted the .ini
files for that character, and it all seems to work again.
Perhaps whatever made that character corrupt continued to corrupt your
files on other machines? I haven't left my bazaar mule up for a
while, so you're making me fear that, when I do, the problem may come
back.
- Prelgor

Hmm, just tried to log in a different character, same thing occured... o
not the same thing, since he hadn't crashed out in the first place.

But again, it takes forever and then stops and up comes the "do you want
to tell SOE" screen, and then I'm back at desktop.

So, I still don't know if its at SOE's end, or at my end, but something
is corrupting .ini files.

Perhaps I've got a virus on both machines thats doing the same thing?

[the wharf rat]

Post by Lance Berg
Perhaps I've got a virus on both machines thats doing the same thing?

Another swag: check the read/write permissions for the user you
log in as on every component of the file path.

[Schadenfreude]

Post by Prelgor

Post by Lance Berg
But it doesn't solve the riddle, what would make two sets of ini files,
for the same character and account but on two seperate machines, break
in the same way days apart?

I have no idea why, but something similar happened to me. I could log
on to any of my characters, except my bazaar mule. Even another
character in the same zone was fine. Finally, I deleted the .ini
files for that character, and it all seems to work again.
Perhaps whatever made that character corrupt continued to corrupt your
files on other machines? I haven't left my bazaar mule up for a
while, so you're making me fear that, when I do, the problem may come
back.

This is often caused by custom UIs that are broken by a certain patch.
I had some old mules that I hadn't logged on for some time with funky
UIs that hadn't been patched for as long as a year and were obviously
hopelessly broken.

For some reason half a dozen patches ago it was changed from a red
warning message and kicking you back to the default UI to [sometimes]
outright crashing as you describe.

(Note: I still get the red warning message on log-in with the SARS
custom UI that I use but it's not currently fatal and I have no real
clue which window isn't working so no motivation to fix it.)

As you cannot log the character in to reset to the default UI the only
solution is to manually delete the .ini file for that character which
forces it to use the default UI once again next time you log in.

[Prelgor]

Post by Schadenfreude

Post by Prelgor

Post by Lance Berg
But it doesn't solve the riddle, what would make two sets of ini files,
for the same character and account but on two seperate machines, break
in the same way days apart?

I have no idea why, but something similar happened to me. I could log
on to any of my characters, except my bazaar mule. Even another
character in the same zone was fine. Finally, I deleted the .ini
files for that character, and it all seems to work again.
Perhaps whatever made that character corrupt continued to corrupt your
files on other machines? I haven't left my bazaar mule up for a
while, so you're making me fear that, when I do, the problem may come
back.

This is often caused by custom UIs that are broken by a certain patch.
I had some old mules that I hadn't logged on for some time with funky
UIs that hadn't been patched for as long as a year and were obviously
hopelessly broken.
...
As you cannot log the character in to reset to the default UI the only
solution is to manually delete the .ini file for that character which
forces it to use the default UI once again next time you log in.

Indeed, deleting the .ini files worked. The problem hasn't come back
yet. For the record, I only use the default UI, so I can't blame it
on that.

- Prelgor

[the wharf rat]

Post by Lance Berg
But it doesn't solve the riddle, what would make two sets of ini files,
for the same character and account but on two seperate machines, break
in the same way days apart?

A swag would be a bug in a routine that updates the file after
a certain change, say, saving a new spell list, is made. When that
procedure is executed it breaks the file (bad syntax); you might have
triggered the bug on each machine on different days.

Not that there *are* any bugs in Everquest, of course.

[Lief]

Post by Lance Berg

Post by Lief
Delete UI ini files (ui_char, char.ini, etc).
Relog, make backups of ini's/
Win.

Worked.
But it doesn't solve the riddle, what would make two sets of ini files,
for the same character and account but on two seperate machines, break
in the same way days apart?

Aeons old code would be my guess...I now have backups of said files so I
dont have to reconfigure my UI when it happens (it is regular enough to be a
pain).