Lord of the Rings Online Forum

Okay, I confess I am a total newbie to all of this - I just want to play LOTRO on my MacBook Pro!

So far, I get the message -

Error loading settings
Game Directory not found
No Language Files Found

I see people have been saying you need to tell PyLOTRO where these files are, but I'm not having much luck. It may sound lame, but how do I tell it where to look? The options for PyLOTRO are hidden in the menu bar - it only runs in Crossover Games, so I can't seem to access its options.

I have had a look at the Tips and Tricks page and I'll admit most of it is so new to me that I'm getting a bit confused with all this talk of bottles and the like.

Is there a simple way forwards? Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks

Taken directly from the FAQ entry:

** PyLOTRO is telling me it cannot find Language Files
Use the Settings Wizard to select the install directory.

What happened when you used PyLOTRO's Settings Wizard?

Moominman wrote:

The options for PyLOTRO are hidden in the menu bar - it only runs
in Crossover Games, so I can't seem to access its options.

That is strange.

First off, PyLotRO should open its window in the middle of your screen. It should not be anywhere near the Apple Menu Bar, let alone blocked by it.
However, you should be able to drag the PyLotRO window down. (Note: it is an X11 window.)

What hardware are you using?
Do you have any X windows applications configured?

Thanks so much for your replies - going to try out your answers and get back.

I'm using a straight MacBook Pro, no Windows elements anywhere installed. As for X11 stuff, the only time I've ever installed it was a couple of years ago for Open Office.

pyLOTRO seems to open only with Crossover - if I click the gold ring pylotro in the dock, it flashes briefly in the menu bar, then reverts to Crossover as the active app. I know I'm doing this wrong now, but can't seem to get the pylotro window to appear in the centre of the screen.

Moominman wrote:

I'm using a straight MacBook Pro,

As for X11 stuff, the only time I've ever installed it was a couple
of years ago for Open Office.

pyLOTRO seems to open only with Crossover - if I click the gold ring
pylotro in the dock, it flashes briefly in the menu bar, then
reverts to Crossover as the active app. I know I'm doing this wrong
now, but can't seem to get the pylotro window to appear in the
centre of the screen.

1- The MacBook Pro should work fine, I use one myself. -- What version of OSX... ?

2- Hmmm... I'll have to look at Open Office. I did not think it used X11.

3- Correct. PyLotRO does not "last," it invokes CrossOver Games.... (I hope you are using CrossOver Games - CXG, not CrossOver Mac or CrossOver Pro -- CXG is a separate download.) When you launch PyLtRO, it launches CXG... which is the only thing you will then see in the Apple Menu Bar. After a brief time, the PyLotRO window (should) opens up in the center of the screen. Note that the PyLotRO window should NOT be a full screen window, but only a "small" window surrounded by the desktop.

...BTW: I assume you are using OSX 10.6.5 and CXG 9.2

Moominman wrote:

As for X11 stuff, the only time I've ever installed it was a couple
of years ago for Open Office.

Doing some checking, it appears that Open Office, back in 10.3 (Tiger) days, did use X11 directly and required a separate install. Today, it does not.

Artifacts from that long-ago time might be causing the problem. PyLotRO should not be using them, but who knows.

In a Terminal window... the command "ls -als" will list all of the "hidden files" and display their dates (and other stuff).

Look for files with names like...
.Xauthority (upper case X)
.Xdefaults (upper case X)
.Xresources (upper case X)
  .xinitrc (lower case x)

      You cannot see these files in the Finder unless you have set the "showall files flag," which is NOT a normal situation.  
      The "defaults" command can be used to turn it on (and off by changing TRUE to FALSE.)

       defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE   
       defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles

Any of these might contain X11 parameters which could be the cause of the problem. The easiest thing to do is to simply delete them.
If you want to look at the content of those files, they are simply text files and can be opened with your favorite editor or TextEdit.
(If you want to use Open Office, download the current Mac version and install it. It doesn't use "dot" files.)

Don't know if any of this will turn out to be relevant or not....

Brilliant, thanks for the help. I finally got the Settings Wizard to appear and after patching and a few other tweaks, briefly saw the full-screen LOTRO images and loading screen, then it cut out and the output window just says FINISHED.

In reply to your questions, I am using a 2007 MacBook Pro and I did indeed use the Tiger version of Open Office with X11 before getting iWork. I have gradually updated and upgraded over the years and it is now running the latest version of Snow Leopard.

I think I've overcome the other problems (as far as I'm aware). Everything is patched and ready to go, just think I need to tweak a few more bits. Anyways, I'm at work at the moment so I can't try anything out (UK time)!

Ooh, also in reply - yes, using Crossover Games 9.2

Hmmm... Interesting. It's probably just coincidence, but I get the same problem with the black screen and I once had X11 installed (not for Open Office).

The "black screen/Finished" phenomenon is, in all probability, caused by "artifacts."

I used to have all of the problems everyone describes, from black screen to frequent crashes, UNTIL Halloween this year!
The day before Halloween, the internal hard drive on my iMac froze solid.
I had it replaced with a new (slightly larger, +25gig, and slightly faster, 7200 RPM vs 5400) hard drive which had 10.6.5 pre-installed on it. I then restored the rest of my system from Time Machine.

Then I re-installed CrossOver Games and downloaded a "fresh" copy of LOTRO from the "games.on.net" website and installed it using the C4P installer.... and viola! I have had zero problems since then. And LOTRO runs "zippier," with higher graphics settings than ever before.

I realize the solution "wipe OSX and re-installm everything" is a bit of a drastic step, however, it is the second time that solution has "worked" for me. (But, I must say, Time Machine now makes the recovery virtually painless - some preferences get lost.)

I had been running LOTRO on my MacBook Pro under 8.1.4 with no problems. The MacBook Pro had originally been a Tiger machine upgraded to Leopard, then to Snow Leopard. When I started working with 9.0 (beta) I could NOT get it to run at all. Finally after several weeks working with Codeweavers support, I bit the bullet, wiped the MacBook and did a clean re-install of Snow Leopard. Since then, I have had no problems with LOTRO on the MacBook Pro.

Since my college-aged son used the MacBook pro for all kinds of "video stuff," both paid for and freeware, constantly installing and deleting things, my working theory is that some "artifact," a piece of "something," did not get removed, and "it" conflicted with the WINE environment.

I've been in the business of System Administration for more than 30 years and have worked with virtually every version of Unix(tm) ever created -- for every different hardware vendor's platform -- and know that while they are all "similar," they are all different. Tracking down the bugs caused by those differences is almost an impossible task -- even when you have access to the source code and developers for all of the parts in hand... doubly so when you are running via something like WINE (CXG), it just adds another layer of complexity.

In short, we (LOTRO Advocates) keep hunting for "solutions" to these various issues, but more often than not, we simply have no "known state" to work from. Everyone's system is different. The "solutions" we come up with "should work," but often they do not. Why we do not know. In fact, we frequently have no idea why they DO work in the first place.