Lord of the Rings Online Forum

I've been reading about similar errors, but could not figure out what exactly is wrong with my game. I did everything with the VRAM and OpenGL in regedit, patched the game (which didn't take very long), and launched with PyLotRO. It seems to work (it shows the LOTRO picture and the mouse changes) but after that the screen goes black and nothing happens. I eventually have to quit the application or apple-opt-esc to get out. I was thinking that it's a DirectX problem as others had but I'm not sure how to fix it. And another thing I noticed was the folder user/Documents/TheLordoftheRingsOnline didn't have UserPreferences.ini or lotro.keymap after I launched the game.

Can anyone help me with this? Thanks in advance.

No one at all? :(

Robbie wrote:

I was thinking that it's a DirectX problem as others had but I'm not
sure how to fix it.

In that same "Tips & tricks" entry where you found the VRAM information is a url to download the Direct X modules.

They are Windows Install Wizards... download them and just double click on them. They will launch CXG (and assuming you have only one bottle) install the components in that bottle. If you have multiple bottles, you will need to set your LOTRO bottle to be the default.

That has helped some people. One theory is that the DirectX install is getting corrupted somehow.

Also, make certain that you have set the Vertex shader to "none."

Robbie wrote:

And another thing I noticed was the folder
user/Documents/TheLordoftheRingsOnline didn't have
UserPreferences.ini or lotro.keymap after I launched the game.

Hmmm... the implication is that you are not getting into the game successfully (which make sense with the black screen) ... I don't know for certain, but I believe that file is created when you successfully create your first character.

William H. Magill wrote:

Hmmm... the implication is that you are not getting into the game
successfully (which make sense with the black screen) ... I don't
know for certain, but I believe that file is created when you
successfully create your first character.

If my memory serves me right when you get to the character selection (or creation if you have no characters) screen that is when the UserPrefs is created as it does a system test just prior to that. But you are right this sounds like it is failing at more or less the first hurdle i.e. checking graphics capability.

Robbie wrote:

No one at all? :(

Don't demand help, the advocates are volunteers.

Thanks! I'll have a look and see what I can find. DirectX seemed to be a problem among many.

Robbie wrote:

No one at all? :(

Don't demand help, the advocates are volunteers.[/quote]

Sorry, I was getting a little impatient..I was trying to get this thing to work for hours and couldn't figure out what the problem was. I really do appreciate all of your help.

I was wondering if this issue was resolved, because after several failed attempts to install LOTRO (Europe) on my Mac under CXG (and I more or less triggered all problems other users have had) I finally downloaded and successfully patched the program file. Now it wont load - it stops at the first splash screen and then I get the blank screen.

Ironically two weeks ago everything was working perfectly for the first time ever, then after Thursday maintenance it stopped with this problem - although then the black screen also minimised itself and eventually crashed.

Could you post the link to the Direct X files you mentioned so the rest of us can find them?

Thanks

Barry Hope wrote:

I was wondering if this issue was resolved, because after several
failed attempts to install LOTRO (Europe) on my Mac under CXG (and I
more or less triggered all problems other users have had) I finally
downloaded and successfully patched the program file. Now it wont
load - it stops at the first splash screen and then I get the blank
screen.

Assuming you are running with CXG 10.1, it appears that main (maybe all) graphics issues can be resolved by turning off the Vertex Shader.

Barry Hope wrote:

Could you post the link to the Direct X files you mentioned so the
rest of us can find them?

The instructions to turn off the Vertex shader and separately install Direct X are found in the "Tips & Tricks" tab "Mac Tweaks from the forums.

Barry Hope wrote:

Ironically two weeks ago everything was working perfectly for the
first time ever, then after Thursday maintenance it stopped with
this problem - although then the black screen also minimised itself
and eventually crashed.

Two questions/comments here -- First, your statement implies that this is a new installation. That being the case, did you
1- use CXG 10.1
2- use the CrossTie Installer.

Especially, if the answer to 2 is "yes" - the CrossTie installer now installs all of the various components which LOTRO requires, including DirectX. (It does not disable the Vertex shader.)

Second, you mention Thursday's maintenance -- hmm... the last maintenance for the NA servers was Monday 9 May, I believe. If I'm correct, the implication here is that in the process of taking over from Code Masters, Turbine is making changes to the European Servers which are different from those being made to the NA servers.

Hi

Barry Hope Posted the issue of the blank screen on the mac.

I have exactly the same problem on Linux Ubuntu 10.04 but then with ' error code [129]'
Just switched from Vista to Linux Ubuntu and wanted to play my favourite game again.
After a few reinstalls of CXG (mostly my own faults) finally the login screen of PyLOtro and then the error code.

Somebody any idea?
Thanks i.a.
DJ

HP Compaq Presario V6000 (Widescreen)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7100 @ 1.80GHz

Update....

For the big picture: I played the game on MS Vista for more then six months. No problems.

The error I'm getting since Ubuntu and CrossOverGames is 'Game error [129]'
Meaning: 'Hardware texture compression support was not detected. This video card feature is required to run the game [129]'

I now turned off the vertex shader and replaced the ddl files mentioned earlier in these posts.
(but those are files from 2007?)

No results... 😥

Please suggestions.
DJ

Since you are running under a version of LINUX, the only suggestion I can offer is to visit the WINE forums...

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=4891

And see what they have to say about your version of Linux.

One thing also to note -- Turbine in their "Known issues" post lists several graphics problems with DirectX 10 and 11.

Well this is weird...

Thanks for your reply. Yes I use 10.1 and followed your instructions and turned off the vertex shader.

As a final desperate attempt I created a new user account and installed using the GB Enedwaith installer (LOTROEU_Enedwaith_EN_GB_Downloader). Went through the whole process including the patch to find exactly the same problem. But... after I restarted the Mac it ran fine, no problems, in fact the best quality gameplay ever, very little lag. Then I tried launching Pylotro on my main user account and that worked too!

Sadly I have no idea how this solved the problem.

BTW the european server is maintained/updated on Thursdays.

EDIT:
Hmmm.. maybe I shouldn't have posted this. I have just registered my copy of CXG and now the problem is back on both user accounts on the mac - not solved by restarting nor ditching the plist (preference) file. Any suggestions? I hope I don't have to reinstall the software again (feels a doom loop coming up)

The only thought that comes to mind is if it's a "path" (i.e. load sequence) thing.

There is something in the winecfg program that allows you to select which things are accessed.

I know that I had to change something there to get DDO running after spending about 6 months with it crashing after update 5 last year. (That was an audio problem.)

Thanks for your reply. It gets weirder

Yesterday I checked everything again and found the vertex shader had reverted to 'Hardware'. Could registering CXG have reset the settings? After I changed that back to 'None', everything ran fine (the only other thing I had done was create an account on the us site to test as the EU servers were down)

Today - back to the same problem - can't test the us server as it is down today, but neither of the EU installations are playing ball. As it was working perfectly yesterday I can't imagine its a config problem. Tried restarting and running it on a User account with no other software running. I have even tried a new install and that doesn't work.

Where now?

EDIT:
OK I tried repairing permissions with no effect
I then ran all maintenance tasks - no joy
Finally I cleared all caches and deleted virtual memory and that cleared the problem
Fingers crossed - I think it might have been a corrupt part of virtual memory - let's see...

Barry Hope wrote:

Yesterday I checked everything again and found the vertex shader had
reverted to 'Hardware'. Could registering CXG have reset the
settings? After I changed that back to 'None', everything ran fine
(the only other thing I had done was create an account on the us
site to test as the EU servers were down)

Note You can check the Vertex Shader setting without launching the game.
Do you have multiple bottles? If so, you might have set the wrong one.

 Just launch CXG itself, then use the "Configure/Manage Bottles"  
 Click "Control Panel" - select the bottle you are using   
 Double Click "Wine Configuration" (or click "Launch Selected Item")  
 Click the graphics tab...

After you make any changes, it is always best to quit CXG and re-launch to make certain those changes are saved.

Note You can check the Vertex Shader setting without launching the
game.
Do you have multiple bottles? If so, you might have set the wrong
one.

Yes I have been doing that with the Control Panel. Yes, I have multiple bottles; if I had set the wrong one it wouldn't explain why it worked perfectly before registering CXG.

Today I had the same problem (crashing after the startup splash screen) and used Onyx to clear caches etc after which it ran perfectly. Once it runs once it is fine for the rest of the day which makes me wonder if the daily maintenance task that OSX carries out does something, removes a file or something that causes the problem.

If it happens tomorrow, I shall clear the caches one by one until I find the one that does the trick (I already worked out its not deleting virtual memory that does it)

Thanks for the attention - if other people are having this problem it will be worth finding the solution if not the cause.

What I have found so far is that:

1. The problem occurs daily - each morning I have the same problems
2. I can solve it by clearing the system cache before running Pylotro - this works every time

Because it is a daily occurrence I think it may be related to the daily maintenance tasks that Mac OSX carries out - when I run this manually this I notice it is failing with an Apple Script error (sh: /etc/periodic/daily/500.daily: No such file or directory (127)).

Looks like it's a system problem. When I have time I will re-install Snow Leopard and see if that clears the problem.

Barry Hope wrote:

1. The problem occurs daily - each morning I have the same problems

2. I can solve it by clearing the system cache before running
   Pylotro - this works every time

That is really strange.

Barry Hope wrote:

Because it is a daily occurrence I think it may be related to the
daily maintenance tasks that Mac OSX carries out - when I run this
manually this I notice it is failing with an Apple Script error (sh:
/etc/periodic/daily/500.daily: No such file or directory (127)).

That's actually a shell script, not an apple script ... however, I don't have a 500.daily either.

The output of the daily maintenance run is in /var/log/daily.out

Mostly, it is removing temp files. Just "tail" the file ... it seem to never be rotated. (Mine goes back to November 2010.)

Thanks for the help with this. I am still struggling, however. For a while I could get LOTRO to work by cleaning system caches before running, although confusingly this was not always needed. When it ran, it ran well. The a week or so ago, I had a short power outage while playing the game. Since then LOTRO crashes immediately after the 1st splash screen and clearing caches now makes no difference.

Steps I have taken:
Deleted all bottles and re downloaded lotro from scratch (3 times)
Updated the crossover software
Used whatever utility programmes I had to clean the system, run all maintenance tasks, clear cashes, repair permissions
Manually deleted all library caches
Rebuilt Spotlight indexes

I am running crossover on a new user account (on my Mac) I created specifically for this.

LOTRO runs on my PC laptop (badly) so I know its not a firewall issue.

I'm lost; any ideas at all?

EDIT: As a last resort I created a new user account on the mac, reinstalled LOTRO. And it works. Finally. So it was a software clash somewhere that had also managed to affect the last new user account I made. I still don't know which app or service is interfering with LOTRO but at least here is a fix that seems to work.

EDIT2: Spoke too soon! Ran once and now I'm back to square one. It's a bit of a chore to re-download each time I want to play. Maybe its time to look on ebay for a second hand PC, or drop LOTRO *sigh

Barry Hope wrote:

EDIT: As a last resort I created a new user account on the mac,
reinstalled LOTRO. And it works. Finally. So it was a software
clash somewhere that had also managed to affect the last new user
account I made. I still don't know which app or service is
interfering with LOTRO but at least here is a fix that seems to
work.

EDIT2: Spoke too soon! Ran once and now I'm back to square one. It's
a bit of a chore to re-download each time I want to play. Maybe its
time to look on ebay for a second hand PC, or drop LOTRO *sigh

This is beginning to sound like you have Mac OS issues. And the fix is not easy or pretty.

Some time ago I had an iMac and a MacBookPro ... both were running the same version of Snow leopard. The iMac had no problems of any sort with CXG or LOTRO. The MacBook Pro, however, had a constant stream of weird problems. The basic difference between the two systems? The iMac had been a virgin install of Snow Leopard, but the MacBook Pro had been upgraded from Tiger.

Finally, after about 3 months of serious debugging I finally bit the bullet, wiped the MacBookPro and did a virgin install of Snow Leopard (no upgrade of any kind.) It hasn't had a problem since then.

So, my analysis -- The MacBook Pro had been in use for several years under Tiger before being upgraded to Snow Leopard, and was heavily use by my son for an assortment of Audio and Video "things." The iMac had never had any of those "things" installed on it. It was well known that there was much software that ran under Tiger which would not run under Snow Leopard. By doing the wipe and virgin install, all of the "cruft" from years of installing and "uninstalling" software, especially software not written expressly for the Mac, was removed. AND... all of the assorted "conflicts" that didn't effect most things but did effect WINE.

So, my only suggestion at this point is to wipe your HD, re-install OSX from DVD and start over.

As I said, neither easy nor pretty.

William H. Magill wrote:

This is beginning to sound like you have Mac OS issues. And the fix
is not easy or pretty.

Thanks for being with me on this journey even though we ended up somewhere I didn't want to be!

Yes, time to go out buy a 1Tb disk, back everything up and wipe.
Do we know yet if CXG will run under Lion?

Barry Hope wrote:

Do we know yet if CXG will run under Lion?

Yes. CXG 10.1.1 works fine. I've been running it now since the Lion release on Wednesday.,,, probably have about 6 hours in-game.

Postscript: in the end I followed your advice and the game is running fine again.
It wasn't quite as painful as I created a boot partition on an external drive and loaded snow leopard on that. Now I can run crossover games and LOTRO safely away from the possible interference of other applications and I didn't need to reformat my main disk!

Thanks for all your help. Once I am sure all my key apps will run under Lion I will be upgrading.