Dungeons & Dragons Online Forum

When switching from Ubuntu Lucid to Maverick (both 32-bit) I found that I needed to switch from using the Bottle-installed Pylotro to the native Linux Pylotro (probably a better solution anyway). With the latest DDO update I suddenly got a black screen when DDO starts up and nothing else. The Pylotro window reports the following error:
wine: Call from 0x7b836e92 to unimplemented function msvcr80.dll._findfirst32, aborting

I'm now running Crossover Games 9.2 in a Windows XP bottle.

Same issue and I have WinXP bottle and Win200.

Please help us.

Jeff Bower wrote:

When switching from Ubuntu Lucid to Maverick (both 32-bit) I found
that I needed to switch from using the Bottle-installed Pylotro to
the native Linux Pylotro (probably a better solution anyway). With
the latest DDO update I suddenly got a black screen when DDO starts
up and nothing else. The Pylotro window reports the following
error:
wine: Call from 0x7b836e92 to unimplemented function
msvcr80.dll._findfirst32, aborting

I'm now running Crossover Games 9.2 in a Windows XP bottle.

Hi,

Do you have 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable' installed into the same bottle?

Cheers!

I'm also not able to run the game after Update 7. For me though, Pylotro just immediately outputs "Finished" when I try to log into the game. Pylotro patches fine, and I've already re-installed DDO and Pylotro.

I know from spending hours on the forum that many people getting the black screen problem still see some UI elements and simply needed to change their DirectX back to 9...don't know if that'll hope the OP. I haven't found -anything- solving my problem though.

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

Do you have 'Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable' installed
into the same bottle?

We've got a winner! Installing that seems to have done the trick, thanks!

Seth Brandjord wrote:

I've already re-installed DDO and Pylotro.

When I was running Lucid I used the Pylotro you install in the bottle. When I upgraded to Maverick I wasn't able to use it anymore (I think I had the same issue as you) so I had to change to adding a repository and running sudo apt-get pylotro which game me a native Linux launcher (you can go as high as Lucid, but I don't think there's a Maverick repo listed - luckily the Lucid flavor works fine under Maverick). Have you tried both Pylotro techniques?

FYI, when I went to fix my laptop I noticed that I needed to install the Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (Legacy had been installed and working prior to Update 7). The error message involved a bad file descriptor.

To summarize:
Windows XP Bottle
Standard DDO install
Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (I also have Legacy)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (for some reason it shows up twice)
PyLotRO (although the native Linux version is a bit cleaner IMHO)

Aside from needing to turn down the graphics things seem to be working fine now.

Thanks for your help!

The DirectX Modern got me able to get the load screen and all the way to where it should load character selection screen. Then all I get is black screen. No messages, no crash no nothin.

This is definitely true of CXG on the Mac, don't know about the Linux situation...

It's a "known" issue with PyLotRO, (I think Alan has commented on this before but I forget his answer), ....

With the DDO 7 update, Turbine once again asks you to accept two EULAs... one might be for the prerequisite Microsoft update.

To accept those EULAS (on a PC under XP) it takes about 60-90 seconds for the first of the two EULAs to appear. Then you must scroll down to the bottom of the EULA before you can click the "accept" button. Then it takes another 15 seconds for the second EULA to appear. (No idea what takes them so long to display on a 6meg Cable modem.)

After you have accepted these on the PC, you can continue on the Mac. (There may be other solutions to this issue, but I hit this one today.)

These two EULAs appear AFTER you have typed in your Userid and Password, but before the "world" selection screen is filled in.

Now, I am back to the problem that the "loading screen" loads and fills in its slider, but the Character selection screen does not display, it just hangs there. This particular problem has been one I've had since Update 5, but because I've been playing LOTRO on the Mac and my son DDO on the PC, I haven't pursued the potential "fixes" for DDO as I have no problems with LOTRO.

William H. Magill wrote:

It's a "known" issue with PyLotRO, (I think Alan has commented on
this before but I forget his answer), ....

Which particular issue are we talking about? I might be able to remember what I said myself :)

William H. Magill wrote:

With the DDO 7 update, Turbine once again asks you to accept two
EULAs... one might be for the prerequisite Microsoft update.

I'm guessing that at least one of those will not be displayed if you already have Visual C++ 2005 already installed. As for the other unless someone can grab a snapshot using wireshark (or something similar) of what gets sent to the launcher and what the launcher sends back then I don't stand a chance of altering PyLotRO to cope.

Same with the hanging on checking account, I can now capture why it does it but to fix it you have to go to the account management site manually.

William H. Magill wrote:

Now, I am back to the problem that the "loading screen" loads and
fills in its slider, but the Character selection screen does not
display, it just hangs there. This particular problem has been one
I've had since Update 5, but because I've been playing LOTRO on the
Mac and my son DDO on the PC, I haven't pursued the potential
"fixes" for DDO as I have no problems with LOTRO.

You'd think a problem with one would affect the other since it is more or less the same engine unfortunately I haven't touched DDO for quite a while and don't really play LotRO any more (fed up of Codemasters ineptness).

Alan Jackson wrote:

William H. Magill wrote:

It's a "known" issue with PyLotRO, (I think Alan has
commented on this before but I forget his answer), ....

Which particular issue are we talking about? I might be able to
remember what I said myself :)
The following... the EULA display that needs to be answered.

William H. Magill wrote:

With the DDO 7 update, Turbine once again asks you to
accept two EULAs... one might be for the prerequisite Microsoft
update.

I'm guessing that at least one of those will not be displayed if you
already have Visual C++ 2005 already installed. As for the other
unless someone can grab a snapshot using wireshark (or something
similar) of what gets sent to the launcher and what the launcher
sends back then I don't stand a chance of altering PyLotRO to cope.

I wasn't paying attention when the PC version updated...until too late. By the time I noticed it, I didn't have a pen to write down the info. I think the message said something about a Direct X 9.0 redistributable prerequisite. Then it did the game update.

Alan Jackson wrote:

Same with the hanging on checking account, I can now capture why it
does it but to fix it you have to go to the account management site
manually.

One thing which I did noticed here... I have 3 accounts -- 2 for LOTRO and one for DDO. I (in error) tried to login to DDO using my LOTRO account, and it just hung. Repeatedly clicking the PyLotRO login button resulted in getting the "checking account" message and then nothing... i.e. no "invalid account for this game" or similar message. Using the correct account for DDO I could login immediately.

Alan Jackson wrote:

William H. Magill wrote:

Now, I am back to the problem that the "loading
screen" loads and fills in its slider, but the Character selection
screen does not display, it just hangs there. This particular
problem has been one I've had since Update 5, but because I've
been
playing LOTRO on the Mac and my son DDO on the PC, I haven't
pursued
the potential "fixes" for DDO as I have no problems with
LOTRO.

You'd think a problem with one would affect the other since it is
more or less the same engine unfortunately I haven't touched DDO for
quite a while and don't really play LotRO any more (fed up of
Codemasters ineptness).

I suspect my issue here is the fact that I have "upgraded" now since CXG 8 and Leopard, (and am now running 9.2RC1 on Snow Leopard), so I likely have all kinds of weird cruft on my system. I know this was the problem on my MacBook Pro... I could run CXG on the iMac (which was a clean Leopard install, just upgraded to Snow Leopard then), but not on the MacBook Pro. The Macbook had been upgraded since Tiger and despite numerous re-installs of CXG and LOTRO would not run. I finally did a wipe and re-install of Snow Leopard on the MacBook Pro, and re-downloaded and installed CXG and LOTRO. It ran immediately.

Just have not had time recently to do much testing or game playing.

Alan...

Here's the info on the DDO Update 7 I just did.
This info comes from the PC client I updated yesterday from DDO update 6 to update 7.

There was one EULA -- Turbine's dated 26 July 2010.
And one TOS -- Turbine's dated 9 August 2010.
Both were modified on the install and are found in ....
Program Files/Turbine/DDO Unlimited/en - on CXG and
Program Files/Turbine/Dungeons & Dragons Online - Stormreach/en -- on the PC.

The Microsoft code loaded was: DX9-8-v2.exe according to the PC logfile ...
Program Files/Turbine/Dungeons & Dragons Online - Stormreach/DXinstalls.log

With regards the hanging on "Checking Account", I've made a change which assumes that if your user account authenticates then the problem is with a game account that is not associated with that user account. Of course this will throw up false positives, logging into DDO when you only have a LotRO account for example but there is no other way around it. Well there probably is but it would require a major rewrite after spending hours analysing wireshark logs, not something I want to do.

A similar problem will exist with the DDO updates that install VC2005 and directx9, those will have to be manually done but that sort of thing can be covered in tips & tricks as hopefully a new install (now that the official downloader seems to work) will take care of the problem for new installs.

The EULA is a problem, that is something that needs a wireshark capture of what it sends to Turbine's launcher plus a capture of what that launcher sends back, I've downloaded the standard version of DDO and burnt it on a DVD so I might try an install on windows to see what it sends/receives.

Alan Jackson wrote:

The EULA is a problem, that is something that needs a wireshark
capture of what it sends to Turbine's launcher plus a capture of
what that launcher sends back, I've downloaded the standard version
of DDO and burnt it on a DVD so I might try an install on windows to
see what it sends/receives.

I'm working on getting this capture as we speak. Will post a link when i have it.

krztoff wrote:

Alan Jackson wrote:

The EULA is a problem, that is something that needs a wireshark
capture of what it sends to Turbine's launcher plus a capture of
what that launcher sends back, I've downloaded the standard
version
of DDO and burnt it on a DVD so I might try an install on windows
to
see what it sends/receives.

I'm working on getting this capture as we speak. Will post a link
when i have it.

I have the capture, but I'm hesitant to post a link to the public (since the EULA occurs immediately after the login screen and I am not 100% confident that the credentials are encrypted).

May I email you the capture? hit me up: dj (dot) krztoff (at) gmail

Jeff Bower wrote:

FYI, when I went to fix my laptop I noticed that I needed to install
the Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (Legacy had been installed
and working prior to Update 7). The error message involved a bad
file descriptor.

To summarize:
Windows XP Bottle
Standard DDO install
Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (I also have Legacy)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (for some reason it shows
up twice)
PyLotRO (although the native Linux version is a bit cleaner IMHO)

Aside from needing to turn down the graphics things seem to be
working fine now.

Thanks for your help!

I've set this up in exactly the same way but to no avail.

Mac OS X 10.6.4 / Crossover Games 9.2 / Hi-res Graphics - Disabled:

Win XP bottle;
PyLOTRO 0.1.14
Standard DDO Install (downloaded from a windows PC after update 7 was released)
Windows Script 5.6 (VBScript only)
Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (I also have Legacy)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1
Internet Explorer 6
Outlook Express

After patching the game and logging in I'm hit with the dreaded black screen!
Any ideas on what could possibly be wrong, and how to install directX 9 into the bottle?!
Thanks

Andrew Dick wrote:

Jeff Bower wrote:

FYI, when I went to fix my laptop I noticed that I
needed to install the Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (Legacy
had
been installed and working prior to Update 7). The error message
involved a bad file descriptor.

To summarize:
Windows XP Bottle
Standard DDO install
Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (I also have Legacy)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (for some reason it
shows
up twice)
PyLotRO (although the native Linux version is a bit cleaner IMHO)

Aside from needing to turn down the graphics things seem to be
working fine now.

Thanks for your help!

I've set this up in exactly the same way but to no avail.

Mac OS X 10.6.4 / Crossover Games 9.2 / Hi-res Graphics - Disabled:

Win XP bottle;
PyLOTRO 0.1.14
Standard DDO Install (downloaded from a windows PC after update 7
was released)
Windows Script 5.6 (VBScript only)
Microsoft DirectX Runtime - Modern (I also have Legacy)
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1
Internet Explorer 6
Outlook Express

After patching the game and logging in I'm hit with the dreaded
black screen!
Any ideas on what could possibly be wrong, and how to install
directX 9 into the bottle?!
Thanks

I was under the impression that Crossover 9.X didn't work with DDO. That's why I'm still running 8.1.4

krztoff wrote:

I was under the impression that Crossover 9.X didn't work with DDO.
That's why I'm still running 8.1.4

If it works for you I wouldn't bother upgrading, but I've been running fine under 9.0.0 and 9.2.0. I had issues with 9.1.0, but I may have been able to work around that by fiddling with the installed support packages or PyLotRO.

krztoff wrote:

I was under the impression that Crossover 9.X didn't work with DDO.
That's why I'm still running 8.1.4

Works fine for me with 9.0, 9.1, 9.2 just fine on Linux. On Macs, you need to disable the audio for it to work right. On my Mac, I play with 8.1.4 for that reason.

Andrew Schott wrote:

Works fine for me with 9.0, 9.1, 9.2 just fine on Linux. On Macs,
you need to disable the audio for it to work right. On my Mac, I
play with 8.1.4 for that reason.

Could you please clarify what you mean by disabling the audio?

I can't get past the loading screen with 9.2 and with 8.1.4 I get the black screen.

Ted McCabe wrote:

Could you please clarify what you mean by disabling the audio?

I can't get past the loading screen with 9.2 and with 8.1.4 I get
the black screen.

Ok, I am on my linux laptop right now, but the file is the same as is the edit needed.

1) OK, first make the bottle a Win2K one if it isnt.

2) Try to run DDO if you haven't. This should be all thats needed to create a few configuration files for you. They are located in your User folder ~/Documents/

3)

[andrew@andrew-asus-g60vx ~]$ ls ./Documents/Dungeons\ and\ Dragons\ Online/
ddo.keymap  UserPreferences.ini
[andrew@andrew-asus-g60vx ~]$ 

As you can see above there is a UserPreferences.ini file. Open this with TextEdit (I think thats the text editor on MacOS -- my brain is fried, so forgive me if I am slightly off)

OK, now on my linux system, this is the audio info that is in the file. If DDO needs the thing to actually load up fully into the game, I can add to the Tips section my file which works fine. Then all you will need to do is edit a few things out. Now on mine, the audio subsystem is PulseAudio, I forget what its called on MacOS. So that being different is normal.

[Sound]
AmbientVolume=1.00
SoundVolume=1.00
DMTextVolume=1.00
SoundProvider=OpenAL
CombatVolume=1.00
MaxPlayingSounds=64
MusicVolume=0.70
SoundFeatures=PulseAudio Software
UIVolume=1.00
EAXEnabled=False
PlayerMusicVolume=1.00
VOVolume=1.00
SoundDisabled=False
MusicDisabled=False

Now, look at the last two lines. Make them say "True" rather than "False".

As far as I recall thats all I needed to do.

Please let us know the success or lack thereof with this, so a proper Tip can be made.

Good luck, and hope you can get this working.
Andrew.

Thx for the explanation! However....

I changed the two lines, no problem. Retrying DDO in 9.2 and I get stuck at the loading screen, as before.

Bottle is Win2K with PyLotro, Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1, Visual C++ 2005, DirectX Runtime - Modern, all installed via Crossover.

In Console Log I get:
err:gsm:GSM_DriverProc libgsm support not compiled in!
err:ole:CoGetClassObject class {4955dd33-b159-11d0-8fcf-00aa006bcc59} not registered
err:ole:CoGetClassObject no class object {4955dd33-b159-11d0-8fcf-00aa006bcc59} could be created for context 0x1
with the first error repeated many times, from when I first login with my password until the loading screen fills. Then the last two show up.

--Ted

Do any other games work in Crossover?

Hi,

How do you mean?...I've over 200 games that work in CXG....or
are you referring to this particular title?

Cheers!

Andrew Schott wrote:

Do any other games work in Crossover?

Um, I don't know. DDO is the only one I've tried and know of that is free.

I got it working by:

• Setting an override for openal32.dll to native only. This took a lot of digging and got it from the "shows Finished immediately" stage to the "blank screen" stage.
• Then installing DirectX Modern (already had installed MSVC 2005).

Matthew Toseland wrote:

I got it working by:

• Setting an override for openal32.dll to native only. This took a
  lot of digging and got it from the "shows Finished immediately"
  stage to the "blank screen" stage.
• Then installing DirectX Modern (already had installed MSVC 2005).

This got DDO working on my 2010 Mac Mini. Dunno if the sound works, as I don't currently have speakers hooked up to it, but at least I can get back to Eberron!

Now if I could just figure out the "hanging shift" issue I'm having... :)

Matthew Toseland wrote:

I got it working by:

• Setting an override for openal32.dll to native only. This took a
  lot of digging and got it from the "shows Finished immediately"
  stage to the "blank screen" stage.
• Then installing DirectX Modern (already had installed MSVC 2005).

Can you explain how one "sets an override for openal32.dll"

(I notice that Turbine includes an "OpenAL32.dll" in its distribution .... does case matter?)

BTW, I get all the way up to the "character selection" screen .... the "loading" bar fills out then the game freezes/crashes.

The dndclient.log file shows...

149581071.715: ----CRASH REPORT START----
149581071.715: Program fault: ACCESS_VIOLATION (0xc0000005) trying to read from 0x00000000
149581071.715: Detailed report:

===
UserPreferences.ini:
SoundProvider=OpenAL
SoundDisabled=True
MusicDisabled=True

Andrew Schott wrote:

Ted McCabe wrote:

Could you please clarify what you mean by disabling the audio?

I can't get past the loading screen with 9.2 and with 8.1.4 I get
the black screen.

Ok, I am on my linux laptop right now, but the file is the same as
is the edit needed.

1) OK, first make the bottle a Win2K one if it isnt.

2) Try to run DDO if you haven't. This should be all thats needed
to create a few configuration files for you. They are located in
your User folder ~/Documents/

3)

[andrew@andrew-asus-g60vx ~]$ ls ./Documents/Dungeons\ and\ Dragons\ Online/
ddo.keymap UserPreferences.ini
[andrew@andrew-asus-g60vx ~]$

> As you can see above there is a UserPreferences.ini file.  Open this
> with TextEdit (I think thats the text editor on MacOS -- my brain is
> fried, so forgive me if I am slightly off)

> OK, now on my linux system, this is the audio info that is in the
> file.  If DDO needs the thing to actually load up fully into the
> game, I can add to the Tips section my file which works fine.  Then
> all you will need to do is edit a few things out.  Now on mine, the
> audio subsystem is PulseAudio, I forget what its called on MacOS. 
> So that being different is normal.

> ```

[Sound]
AmbientVolume=1.00
SoundVolume=1.00
DMTextVolume=1.00
SoundProvider=OpenAL
CombatVolume=1.00
MaxPlayingSounds=64
MusicVolume=0.70
SoundFeatures=PulseAudio Software
UIVolume=1.00
EAXEnabled=False
PlayerMusicVolume=1.00
VOVolume=1.00
SoundDisabled=False
MusicDisabled=False

Now, look at the last two lines. Make them say "True" rather than
"False".

As far as I recall thats all I needed to do.

Please let us know the success or lack thereof with this, so a
proper Tip can be made.

Good luck, and hope you can get this working.
Andrew.

I cannot find the userpreferences.ini file to save my life. It appears that a "dungeons and dragons online" folder was created in my documents folder, but it is empty.

krztoff wrote:

I cannot find the userpreferences.ini file to save my life. It
appears that a "dungeons and dragons online" folder was created in
my documents folder, but it is empty.

The implication is that you are crashing BEFORE they are created ... However, that happens very early on.

For me, I crash just when the character creation screen should appear, and when you first have the opportunity to set options. That is when I assume those files (UserPreferences.ini and ddo.keymap) are created.

Does the pre-game movie play for you? If I erase the UserPreferences.ini file and re-launch, they are re-created.

I assume you have "patched" via PyLotRO BEFORE you try to launch ddo.

As a side note, I play LOTRO regularly via CXG and have yet to figure out what Turbine did in Udate 5 (June 2010) to DDO that caused this problem.

Also, you should be seeing a dndclient.log file created if DDO is crashing for you:

~/Library/Application Support/Crossover Games/Bottles/DDO/drive_c/Program Files/Turbine/DDO Unlimited/dndclient.log

William H. Magill wrote:

Matthew Toseland wrote:

I got it working by:

• Setting an override for openal32.dll to native only. This took a
  lot of digging and got it from the "shows Finished immediately"
  stage to the "blank screen" stage.
• Then installing DirectX Modern (already had installed MSVC
  2005).

Can you explain how one "sets an override for openal32.dll"

Did you ever get an answer to this or figure it out? If not - try the control panel for
the bottle, launch Wine Configuration, select the Libraries tab, and in the New Override
Library select openal32.dll. You should get a little dialog with a few options, you'll
want the one that just has 'native'.

Rob Saul wrote:

William H. Magill wrote:

Matthew Toseland wrote:

I got it working by:

• Setting an override for openal32.dll to native only. This took
  a
  lot of digging and got it from the "shows Finished immediately"
  stage to the "blank screen" stage.
• Then installing DirectX Modern (already had installed MSVC
  2005).

Can you explain how one "sets an override for openal32.dll"

Did you ever get an answer to this or figure it out? If not - try
the control panel for
the bottle, launch Wine Configuration, select the Libraries tab,
and in the New Override
Library select openal32.dll. You should get a little dialog with a
few options, you'll
want the one that just has 'native'.

Thank you!!!! ...
setting the override to native allowed the game to continue and now runs again ... with Update 8!!!

That was one of those "well documented" Wine actions that I had never encontered,

I just added a TIP... "Client Crashing just before character selection screen"...

This has the detailed instructions for this.

Thanks again, Rob!

Hi William --

I'm not sure if this is applicable here (someone would need to test), but, I've have some issues in other apps wrt openal, which led to submit the following into C4 ;

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=8402

That c4p/tie will install the latest openal components & set the
registry override as well ; just FYI sort of thing 8)

Cheers!

now with the latest patch DDO is back to not working again.

Symptom is it starts up, goes through to clearing screen to black, arrow cursor and music playing, but nothing else. From the music is seems like what should be displayed is the character select screen.

In case it helps other who com across this, I went to the
OpenAL page OpenAL
and clicked the "Install via CrossTie" button. Fixed the problem.

I have successfully run ddo on my mac. Here's what I did (You will need access to any windows computer which will run DDO):

1. Install DirectX9, DirectX Runtime-Modern, and Microsoft 2005C++ Redistributable into a new Windows 2000 bottle (from Manage Bottles).
2. Get a complete download of DDO (this one is called DDO <Hi or Standard> Res Installer Files). You can try using a disk drive to transfer the files from windows to mac.
3. Install DDO using "Install from Folder", and then install PyLOtRo along with that. Launch PyLOtRo.
4. Go into Tools in the toolbar and select Options. Click the "..." next to Game Directory and navigate to the folder containing all of your bottles. Choose Turbine, <Your Bottle>, and then Dungeons and Dragons Online.app or something like that. DO NOT click anything that has any extra words. Click Apply.
5. Go to Settings Wizard in Tools and choose Dungeons and Dragons Online from the top bar. Click on "Find Games" and click on the entry that appears. Click "apply".
6. Go back to Tools and click on Patch. Click start. When it's done, exit PyLOtRo.
7. Find a windows computer and log in with your DDO Account. Accept the license agreements and quit.
8. On your mac go back to manage bottles. Click on Control Panel and click on Wine Configurer. Launch it. In the toolbar, go to audio. When it asks you to accept the sound provider,accept it and apply.
9. Exit Wine Configurer and go back to applications. Now install OpenAL into your bottle.
10. Enter PyLOtRo through Programs on the top, log in, and enjoy! The loading screen is an empty grid, but check mcgilsociety in tips and tricks to answer that problem. If it tells you that the client is out of date, simply patch again! The graphics are about the speed on a windows computer, and the sound works.

Until we get a CrossTie, enjoy!!!

Finally after 5 updates I am able to play DDO on my Mac.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to find and correct the problem.
The above instructions worked like a charm.

Hopefully it will stay as simple as this when the next update for DDO comes out.

Thanks again all