[QUICK FIX] Crashing while zoning.

[DOPE]

EQ Options > Display > Dropdown menu on the top right corner "Loading Screen" change it from "Loading Art" to NONE

Tadaa~!

[quido]

This really helps you crash less eh? It's worth a shot I guess!

[DOPE]

This really helps you crash less eh? It's worth a shot I guess!

Completely fixed my issue. Been crash-free since changing the setting!

[dacli]

This helped me as well. No crashes since I changed my settings.

[citizen1080]

Gonna try it..will report back!

[gotrocks]

Would really appreciate more responses on how well this is working for people with frequent crashing issues.

Seems like it's looking good so far, and would be a huge deal for all those people who have problems crashing while zoning. if this works for you *please* let us know !

Will add to FAQ if a few more people can confirm this is working for them.

[bubur]

i have not crashed since i applied this fix

granted i already moved apartments because this issue was so bad at my last place i couldnt play at all (immersed? maybe, but moving apartments in indonesia is easier than you might imagine)

anyway, i still crashed occasionally at this new place, but not once since i changed to no loading screen

will report back if a crash occurs in the future

[Calidore]

I tried this quick fix on a computer I use that always seems to crash when zoning to/from West Freeport and East Commons. Not a single crash! I even zoned over and over between EC/WFP, not a hiccup. Good times :)

Did some more testing. Whenever I began the "zoning" process, LOADING, PLEASE WAIT, I started opening other things on the computer like Internet Exploder, MS Word, Chrome, whatever. If I don't have EQ as the active Window on that computer, it will ALWAYS cause the loading process to just get stuck and I'd have to End Task. But disabling the Loading Art really seems to have made the difference. :)

[nilbog]

Stickied to help potential viewers.

[citizen1080]

Worked for me almost 100%


Thanks!

[dali_lb]

works some times but mostly still freeze on zoning.

This is fairly new for me. Hadn't had freezing on zoning very often before, but recently it happens 90% of the times.

Biggest problem is the long time out the server has when client is closed ungracefully.
Takes 5-10 tries of loging in before you get back in

[t0lkien]

The trick worked for me as well - most times. I still get the odd freeze, but it's much better.

[dali_lb]

One thing i noticed on the threads about zoning errors, not many players with the problem write what OS they're using.

I am doing a clean install of Windows 8 now to see if that should help.
The Loading art is not the issue of this problem tho. It just makes the client have to do lesser work when zoning.

My guess here is that the client is pretty old, coding style wise, and that Windows 95 and 98 that was used back then is by far much more simple in both process handling, memory management and network handling. Today much more goes on in the background while an application or game runs.

This is definetly a connection or resolution issue that happens when especially loading game or zoning.

I should notice my eqclient.ini is set to
1600x1200 fullscreen
1600x1200 windowed

I noticed this on Entering game:

Launcher window - open P99 server
little pause .. Game opens in Fullscreen . loading art
you press login and enters your login and pw - enter
Game switches from 1600x1200 fullscreen to 1280x1024 windowed while showing game art.
Now either game waits like 2 min. trying to log in (if you just crashed zoning or if your unlucky to catch the emu servers not answering)
Now server select screen should show if your so lucky to get in.
Otherwise you get returned to login screen
Now either you get the message that you have to rerun patcher if you have tried loging in short before or if the ip exemption is over you get into Character select screen (YAY!!) still in windowed mode.
You now try to log in a char ... big wait again
If your lucky you get a loading art "polishing woodelves" (i love that one)
Game switches to fullscreen 1600x1200 again and your character shows up in the world .. WOOOOT!! oh shit someone is bringing a train and you have to zone ... FREEZE ....

/sigh

The problem may also have something to do with the fact that EQ never was very good at switching resolutions (Others prolly knows the device error you get once in a while switching between fullscreen and windowed mode).
Albeit i noticed in the log files that game in my case tries to switch to 1600x1200 while starting up but gets an error like "resolution capped at 1280x1024". I think this happens sometimes while initializing the loading and login screens (eqls files)

and I am convinced that people talking about weather EQ client has focus or not is on to something. I have myself noticed in the past while playing on live that crashes happened more ofthen when you tried to box, or was just switching to other apps while EQ was loading a zone.

It would be interesting to see if these problems would still exists if EQ had more processor afinity like in older windows where things were taskswitching instead of multitasking.

I have so far tried both using WinEQ 2, setting eqclient and moe's launcher to administrator, and tried both Windows XP sp2 and sp3 compatibility mode.

It doesn't make a difference either wether launcher or WinEQ is set up to use only 1 core. Still freezes.

Sometimes i get to zone 2 og 3 times between EC, FP, Nek but then it freezes again, and then have to wait like 15 min. before server will let you log back in again


This really cracks me up because the game is unplayable like this, and for me its just started lately .. (or after buying a PC with an i7 quadcore and win 8) :(

I have had issues before with screen resolution because of I kept my good ole Phillips 21A CRT screen running 1600x1200 85hz but that was usually just a driver issue that all those high frame rate modes werent defined in all versions, but never had this much problems running P99

It should be known that i still have an active Live account, and the 2013 updated EQ client doesn't have any problems running

[dali_lb]

The problems is in some way related to the specific P99 files wether the devs like it or not.

My current setup with a new fresh install of Windows fixed the crashing on zoning, but zoning is still VERY slow.

After testing on a clean Titanium install with all of the most popular EQ EMU servers, P99 have the slowest zoning of all servers. It also has the most problems with getting your video modes setup when you switch between running in Fullscreen and windowed mode. Most of the other servers run without any strange resolution artifacts

This makes me conclude that there MUST be some code with the P99 specific files and their server setup wich triggers these problems

[Ruenaros]

Has anyone else noticed the problem being worse for a specific zone? For me, zoning into or out of Sky will cause a disconnect about 80% of the time. I rarely have an issue zoning anywhere else. If I die on a Sky raid it takes me ~20 minutes worth of effort to get ressed and loaded back in due to getting disconnected during the loading process and then having to wait for my timeout.

Running win7 64, eqgame in xp sp3 compatibility mode, loading art off.

[dali_lb]

dependent what gfx hw you have and how easy it is for you to do a fresh install,
I recommend trying a fresh install or make a virtual machine for EQ.

I got rid of mine with a fresh install, but might also look into the graphics setup, especially if you have nvidia and have made changes to the 3d settings of eqgame.exe.

I had most settings set for maximum quality wich works for live version, but might give problems with the old titanium client

[monti]

I've tried many different things. I still crash while zoning even with this method. I have tried the single core CPU method. I believe its the internet I am using. It's extremely spotty. Once I'm in a zone, I'm fine.

It takes me roughly 1-2 hrs to get to KC.

[kahlell]

hi, even with this quick fix, i still have crash while zoning, and then it usually takes me about 15/20mn to log in again due to bug at the login server.

kinda lose some fun on the game : /

[Tehwoot]

quick fix - doesnt fix shit.

[DOPE]

Bump. Confirmed still working. Just installed on a new machine and was experiencing crashing on zone at least once every 3 zones. Remembered this thread.. Hasn't happened since.

[Musgo]

Worked for me!

[sounion]

any reports on this helping with the issue of toons not being able to load at game start?

also forgive my noobishness, where do i access eq options. not finding in files. is it in-game only?

[sounion]

already had this option set to no loading art, but still have this issue, so this is not a fix for me.

[Feanol]

already had this option set to no loading art, but still have this issue, so this is not a fix for me.

x2

[Ninefinger]

Problem is i don't have the drop down box in the graphics options to disable it! How do you fix that one?!

[mcoy]

Problem is i don't have the drop down box in the graphics options to disable it! How do you fix that one?!

eqclient.ini -> LoadScreenMode=0

-Mcoy

[RecondoJoe]

Problem is i don't have the drop down box in the graphics options to disable it! How do you fix that one?!

same fam

i never found it either

2 days ago, i started crashing every single time i zoned, and sometimes when i tried to load my character from character select... i tried all kinds of shit to fix it..

nothing worked

i noticed windows update needed me to reboot my computer.. i been putting this off for weeks since my computer is also a mining rig and i dont really ever turn it off... well windows updated, took forever... and eq started working again...

[mcoy]

same fam

i never found it either

2 days ago, i started crashing every single time i zoned, and sometimes when i tried to load my character from character select... i tried all kinds of shit to fix it..

nothing worked

i noticed windows update needed me to reboot my computer.. i been putting this off for weeks since my computer is also a mining rig and i dont really ever turn it off... well windows updated, took forever... and eq started working again...

EQ relies upon "GetTickCount" which Rezzie does a great job of explaining:


2^31 milliseconds is 24.86 days (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2%5E31+milliseconds+in+days).
EverQuest stores the result of GetTickCount() (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/sysinfoapi/nf-sysinfoapi-gettickcount) in a signed 32-bit integer.
24.86 days after booting your PC this overflows and wraps around, going negative.

For some reason, it being negative stops item hover text from working. If you reboot it resets the counter and item hovers should reappear. Alternatively, wait another 24.86 days and it'll fix itself.

This can cause a couple different issues if you're in the >24.86 day time before it rolls over again.

Note that a lot of people use "Shut Down" on their Windows computers, and MS was kind enough to default a new setting called "Fast Startup" to enabled. This reduces boot times from shut down, but it doesn't fully wipe memory. So either disable fast startup in your power options, or choose "restart" to actually reset this stored value.

Open Power Options and click on "Choose what the power buttons do":

https://imgur.com/2f4IBhw.jpg

Additionally, as Joe stated pending Updates appear to also cause issues.

-Mcoy