Lord of the Rings Online Forum

Hi,
Occasionally I will run into the issue of being unable to log into level 150 characters. I can log into lower-level characters. The loading screen will get stuck at the max loading bar for a very long time and then kick me from the game with a 'connection to the server has been lost' message. Occasionally, I will be able to load into my character but I am frozen and eventually kicked. Interestingly enough I can open panels like inventory with no issue. I just can't move. I also can see people talking in chat channels. What I used to do to fix it before was update my Mac to the latest version. No update is available for Mac right now, so I am confused about what to do.

Things I have tried
Logging into my 150 characters from a different Computer without crossover. This works fine.
Restarting the comp
Checking for mac updates

RJ wrote:

Hi,
Occasionally I will run into the issue of being unable to log into level 150 characters. I can log into lower-level characters. The loading screen will get stuck at the max loading bar for a very long time and then kick me from the game with a 'connection to the server has been lost' message. Occasionally, I will be able to load into my character but I am frozen and eventually kicked. Interestingly enough I can open panels like inventory with no issue. I just can't move. I also can see people talking in chat channels. What I used to do to fix it before was update my Mac to the latest version. No update is available for Mac right now, so I am confused about what to do.

Things I have tried
Logging into my 150 characters from a different Computer without crossover. This works fine.
Restarting the comp
Checking for mac updates

Hi, RJ! That does sound frustrating. You did some excellent first steps and your report that you can log into your Level 150 characters from a different computer (most likely something running Windows, I am guessing) is a very important clue. It is quite odd that something about Crossover/WINE appears to be the cause of your problem because from the client end there is no difference between a Level 1 character, a Level 150 character, or any level of character in between.

Here is a guess: Your Level 150 characters are logged out and waiting for you in more recently-released areas of the game while your other characters are parked in older areas of the game. The more recently-released areas of the game make more use of "advanced" graphics objects and such things tend to be more "dense" in those areas. This sometimes causes problems for the game client running using WINE with improper setting whereas in older LOTRO zones those improper settings don't have significant negative consequences.

The most common mistake made by Mac players of LOTRO using Crossover is to use anything other than DXVK in their bottle's "Advanced Settings" panel. DXVK should be enabled, EVERYTHING ELSE should be disabled. Many owners of modern Macs with Apple CPUs think that D3DMetal must always be best – in most cases it is, but for LOTRO, DXVK works better (mostly) and avoids problems like the one you describe.

Enable DXVK, disable everything else, quit out of Crossover, relaunch Crossover, then try to log in one of your Level 150 characters.

I hope that turns out to be the problem and that enabling DXVK and disabling all other "Advanced Settings" for your LOTRO bottle resolves the problem for you. Report back either way, if this did work for you I'd like to add that to my database and if it didn't work for you there are other things we can try.

Hi John, Thanks for the fast reply! Unfortunately, changing the settings to what you stated didn't solve the issue. One of the level 150 characters I am trying to access is also parked in an early level zone(thorins hall). Something I noticed in your screenshot that the bottle type you use is 'Windows 10 64 bit' while mine is 'Windows 7 64 bit'. Could this be something that is contributing to the problem?

Possibly. It won't hurt to try:
1- Click on the name of your LOTRO bottle in the left-hand column of the Crossover window.
2- Look for the CONTROL PANELS pane in the right-hand column of the Crossover window, double-click WINE CONFIGURATION.
3- Click on the APPLICATIONS tab of the WINE CONFIGURATION window.
4- Near the bottom, look for WINDOWS VERSION and select WINDOWS 10 from the dropdown menu.
5- Click the APPLY button.
6- Click the OK button, which will close the WINE CONFIGURATION window.
7- Quit out of Crossover then relaunch it. You will still see Windows 7 64-bit displayed as your bottle type in the main Crossover window but it has been changed to Windows 10 64-bit. You can confirm this by running the WINE CONFIGURATION control panel again.
8- Attempt to log in one of your Level 150 characters, then please report back.

Unfortunately, that didnt work either

This is far more likely an issue with Crossover than with the installation of LOTRO itself. So let's create a new bottle and launch your existing installation which is in your existing bottle, from the new bottle.

1- Restart Crossover.
2- Go up to the menu bar, click on the BOTTLE menu bar item, choose NEW BOTTLE from the dropdown menu.
3- NEW BOTTLE NAME: Give the bottle a unique name. Any name is fine. You will be able to change this name later.
4- BOTTLE TYPE: Choose Windows 10 64-bit from the dropdown menu.
5- After the bottle is created, click once on the new bottle name in the left-hand column of the Crossover window.
6- Click the INSTALL button, type DIRECTX FOR MODERN GAMES into the search field. Proceed to install DirectX for Modern Games into your new bottle.
7- When the installation is complete, go to your new bottle's ADVANCED SETTINGS to enable DXVK and to disable everything else.
8- The upper-most selection of the right-hand column of your main Crossover window is RUN COMMAND. Be sure your new bottle is selected then click on RUN COMMAND.
9- USE BOTTLE: Be sure your new bottle is selected. Then click the BROWSE button and navigate your way to LotroLauncher.exe. If you have not made any changes to the location where Crossover puts its bottles by default, you will find it here:
~/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/NameOfYourOldBottle/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/StandingStoneGames/The Lord of the Rings Online/LotroLauncher.exe. If you did make changes to Crossover's bottles location, well, you know where that is.
10- Click SAVE COMMAND AS A LAUNCHER. Wait for the new launcher to appear (that is, wait for the new icon to appear in your new bottle’s list of installed applications) and then click the CANCEL button.
11- Double-click the new launcher (which should be named LotroLauncher) to run your existing installation of LOTRO (which is in your old bottle) using the WINE components of the new bottle.
12- LotroLauncher.exe might install some things into your new bottle. That is normal, allow that to proceed.
13- When the LOTRO launcher application has fully launched, attempt to log in one of your Level 150 characters.

If this solves your issue, you will have two options to proceed:
A- Use the new Crossover "launcher" to run LOTRO from now on. Drag it down into your Dock if LOTRO is something you play frequently. The advantage to (A) is that you're done and ready to play, there's nothing else to do.
B- Delete both your old LOTRO bottle and your new LOTRO bottle, then reinstall LOTRO from scratch into yet another new LOTRO bottle which you should create using the same steps above; and then installing lotrolive.exe downloaded from https://www.lotro.com/guides/lotro-download-en?locale=en after the bottle is prepared with DirectX for Modern Games and has DXVK set in that bottle's ADVANCED SETTINGS. If you choose to do this, I can provide very detailed instructions if you need them. The advantage to (B) is that you will only have 1 LOTRO bottle instead of 2 and therefore will save a little space on your boot volume, and possibly save yourself some confusion in the future.

If that procedure did NOT resolve your issue, you should consider deleting your LOTRO bottle and reinstalling the game from scratch into a fresh bottle following the instructions for creating and prepping the bottle above and then installing using lotrolive.exe. You will not lose any of your game settings or preferences or plugins, etc. because those are all saved in ~/Documents/The Lord of the Rings Online, not in one of your bottles.

I have tried both of your suggestions. Creating a bottle with DirectX and completely reinstalling LOTRO fresh. Neither option worked unfortunately. I could try reinstalling CrossOver if you think that would help

EDIT: Nevermind it works! I Forgot to enable the DXVK setting after the clean install. Thank you so much for your assistance!