- Joined
- Mar 24, 2018
- RedCents
- 4,650¢
This is a strange bug, and I'll report it to DBG at some point, but I did already try and they blew me off... I will register for their bug tracker website sometime, but for now I will share this with a more deserving community. This is a bug with the EQ client, and it took me over 10 hours of troubleshooting to find the solution.
The bug:
When you first try to login, the client loads and you immediately get a black screen that never progresses. Your only option is to force it to close and try again. Sometimes you can login first time, but sometimes it takes 10 or more attempts and you have to keep trying, end task on the black screened client, try again, etc. Not everyone seems to have this issue but I have seen it mentioned in game a couple of times, and in several places online, including this forum. So it isn't just my PC at least. Also this happens whether running straight from the EQ Launchpad or from running it any other way. (wineq2, mq2autologin, etc.)
How I troubleshooted:
I tried without MQ2, bug remained, so I knew it wasn't MQ2. I was also using WinEQ2 at the time so I tried without that, the bug still happened. I did a fresh install of EQ, problem was gone. I copied across my old eqclient.ini file, problem came back. So I knew it was something in that file. I tried changing obvious things like resolution, bitrate, etc. Nothing helped. I did another fresh install, problem was gone, but if I changed any in game setting, the problem returned...
The solution:
The bug is caused by one single entry in the eqclient.ini file which EQ itself makes. The culprit is "WindowedMode=True". This line actually has THREE settings:
WindowedMode=TRUE
WindowedMode=FALSE
WindowedMode=1
All three of these settings have a different effect on the game. WindowedMode=False is fullscreen mode. That seems to work ok for me and didn't have the bug (although I didn't test it for long). The problem with that mode is that it is hard to alt tab away from, there is a few second delay which is no good at all. WindowedMode=True is the game's best attempt at a real windowed mode, it works well, can be alt tabbed away from instantly. But this is the mode that causes this bug.
Lastly is the solution, WindowedMode=1 which I would have thought was the same as True, but it isn't. WindowedMode=1 is some sort of hybrid between full screen and windowed, and behaves a little bit differently to WindowedMode=True. For a start, when you first login, the cursor gets pulled to the very top left of the screen which you can then move again, but it is a minor annoyance. Also while logging in (and occasionally when zoning), the client will force itself to be on 'top', so you can't alt tab at this time. It doesn't affect your ability to play, it just means that you can't read the web while logging in the client (until it gets nearer the character select stage). It also means that the client, although it appears as a window on the taskbar like in WindowedMode=True, it isn't able to be tweaked with programs like Moo0. If you are like me and really want a memory improver and also need to play in WindowedMode=1, then get this. Note that on all future log outs, the game will try to revert WindowedMode=1 to WindowedMode=True which is prefers for some reason. If you are using WindowedMode=False you are fine, but if you have this bug you need to use read only to stop it making the change.
TL;DR:
You can do anything you want in your eqclient.ini file, but you must change WindowedMode=1 and then you must set the file to be read only. Right click in windows, properties, check box at the bottom left. If you don't do this, as soon as you next logout, the game will revert it back to WindowedMode=True and the bug will return. If you need to change any settings in the game, you can remove the read only mode, make the changes, camp out, but you will then need to do the WindowedMode=1 change again and then turn the read only mode back on.
The bug:
When you first try to login, the client loads and you immediately get a black screen that never progresses. Your only option is to force it to close and try again. Sometimes you can login first time, but sometimes it takes 10 or more attempts and you have to keep trying, end task on the black screened client, try again, etc. Not everyone seems to have this issue but I have seen it mentioned in game a couple of times, and in several places online, including this forum. So it isn't just my PC at least. Also this happens whether running straight from the EQ Launchpad or from running it any other way. (wineq2, mq2autologin, etc.)
How I troubleshooted:
I tried without MQ2, bug remained, so I knew it wasn't MQ2. I was also using WinEQ2 at the time so I tried without that, the bug still happened. I did a fresh install of EQ, problem was gone. I copied across my old eqclient.ini file, problem came back. So I knew it was something in that file. I tried changing obvious things like resolution, bitrate, etc. Nothing helped. I did another fresh install, problem was gone, but if I changed any in game setting, the problem returned...
The solution:
The bug is caused by one single entry in the eqclient.ini file which EQ itself makes. The culprit is "WindowedMode=True". This line actually has THREE settings:
WindowedMode=TRUE
WindowedMode=FALSE
WindowedMode=1
All three of these settings have a different effect on the game. WindowedMode=False is fullscreen mode. That seems to work ok for me and didn't have the bug (although I didn't test it for long). The problem with that mode is that it is hard to alt tab away from, there is a few second delay which is no good at all. WindowedMode=True is the game's best attempt at a real windowed mode, it works well, can be alt tabbed away from instantly. But this is the mode that causes this bug.
Lastly is the solution, WindowedMode=1 which I would have thought was the same as True, but it isn't. WindowedMode=1 is some sort of hybrid between full screen and windowed, and behaves a little bit differently to WindowedMode=True. For a start, when you first login, the cursor gets pulled to the very top left of the screen which you can then move again, but it is a minor annoyance. Also while logging in (and occasionally when zoning), the client will force itself to be on 'top', so you can't alt tab at this time. It doesn't affect your ability to play, it just means that you can't read the web while logging in the client (until it gets nearer the character select stage). It also means that the client, although it appears as a window on the taskbar like in WindowedMode=True, it isn't able to be tweaked with programs like Moo0. If you are like me and really want a memory improver and also need to play in WindowedMode=1, then get this. Note that on all future log outs, the game will try to revert WindowedMode=1 to WindowedMode=True which is prefers for some reason. If you are using WindowedMode=False you are fine, but if you have this bug you need to use read only to stop it making the change.
TL;DR:
You can do anything you want in your eqclient.ini file, but you must change WindowedMode=1 and then you must set the file to be read only. Right click in windows, properties, check box at the bottom left. If you don't do this, as soon as you next logout, the game will revert it back to WindowedMode=True and the bug will return. If you need to change any settings in the game, you can remove the read only mode, make the changes, camp out, but you will then need to do the WindowedMode=1 change again and then turn the read only mode back on.
Last edited:
I knew for sure it was the culprit because I basically pasted lines into the fresh install ini one by one until it crashed. This is the only one that caused a lock up. I suffered 6 months of this bug which put me off playing! But since finding the culprit I have logged in 6 characters for the last month without any black screens at all. 