:: BEFORE YOU POST - Common Solutions Inside ::
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2005-09-26 11:34 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
It has occured to me that ALL the links here for the network support tool are messed up now. Sigh.
SO, here it is:
ftp://ftp.coh.com/support_tool
Enjoy and you're welcome!
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
And it seems driver cleaner is hiding the freeware versions so here's one:
Driver Cleaner
From Inferno_of_Frost:
[ QUOTE ]
<QR>
I don't know if this'll help at all, but you might try adding -port 13094 to the target line of your shortcut:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>"C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -port 13094</pre><hr />
[/ QUOTE ]
But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman!
One man's "meh" is another man's "zomg". - Leatherneck
Procrastination meter coming soon.
I have an issue i have done pretty much everything ive checked through lots of these issues and cant see a problem with anything ive done can you please give me your analogy from this trace i recently run (which to me doesnt look right)
It has only been this bad since i moved phone lines about 8+ months ago i get rubber banding i get red/yellow and massive green spikes every couple of seconds somtimes in multitudes however and also get the odd mapserver disconnect..
If anybody has an idea please im desperate its been ages since ive played lag free...
Tracing route to cohupdate.coh.com [216.107.250.196]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 17 ms 17 ms 7 ms Livebox-A788 [192.168.1.1]
2 34 ms 34 ms 32 ms l0.wfd85.planet.net.uk [62.25.195.22]
3 27 ms 22 ms 33 ms ge2-36.112.pbr-3.ewfd.as5388.net [62.25.192.48]
4 48 ms 34 ms 42 ms tge5-4.fr1.lon.llnw.net [195.66.224.133]
5 140 ms 144 ms 155 ms tge7-2.fr3.lga.llnw.net [69.28.171.125]
6 143 ms 139 ms 149 ms ge2-4.fr3.iad.llnw.net [69.28.171.157]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.
Charz,
Nittix
[ QUOTE ]
If anybody has an idea please im desperate....
[/ QUOTE ]
Are you? If you were, I would think you would have read the first few posts in this thread. They explain how to start a topic and what sort of info to provide. This thread is for SOLUTIONS, not problems.
Whelps, I tried all the above and still can not get past the patch updates. SO much for trying out this game. All I get is patch errors.
The same errors Failure to rename....
Any other ideas? 
Start your own thread and post a dxdiag and hijack this log, Shy. See the 'read this' below. We'll get you sorted out.
And welcome to the forums!
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Hi, ok when issue 11 came out, I click on CoH, and when the updater came on it said "Error opening "C:\Programs\City Of Heroes\CohUpdater.tmp". You may be out of disk space or you may be trying to install to a location where you have insufficient permissions", so i went around and i found that i need to download some code, but it wouldnt go to teh screen, it said time ran out. So i tried the whole "shortcut to CoH". That didnt work either..
And now, when i click on CoH it says "page cannot be displayed". Wut should I do?? Delete my account and start a new one??
This is not the place to put this, Sand. Start a new thread.
Don't delete your account.
Visit the sticky that says "trouble connecting"
When you post a new thread, be sure to put in a hijack this and dxdiag log in there ('Read this' below)
And... Welcome to the forums!
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
I had a problem with not being able to get past having Loading... in the middle of my screen after running the patcher. Turns out that running windowblinds was causing a conflict. Disabled windowblinds and viola, game loads and runs perfectly.
[ QUOTE ]
I had a problem with not being able to get past having Loading... in the middle of my screen after running the patcher. Turns out that running windowblinds was causing a conflict. Disabled windowblinds and viola, game loads and runs perfectly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks for posting that! I couldn't figure out why CoH wasn't working for me in XP. If anyone else is using WindowsBlinds in XP, try unloading it! It worked for me!
Disabling WindowBlinds is unnecessary. There's a menu option for per-application settings. Go in there and tell WindowBlinds to not skin the game and updater executables. Then everything will work fine.
Hmmm...some of the posts appear to have been deleted 
. Anyway, i too was having the checksum error message continually pop up on my updater screen. Like nishruu and king pendragon, none of the solutions in here worked for me :/ (and buying a new system like king wasn't an option lol). So i did a lil more digging around in the support pages, they list all of your solutions, PLUS one last comment all the way at the bottom: This is a know MEMORY ISSUE. For me this is what it turned out to be, one (or more) or my memory sticks burned out, after replacing my comps memory i stopped getting the checksum error and the updater worked normally. Just thought i'd throw it out on here in case others experiance this too 
.
When's the next altaholics anonymous meeting again?
Hi all. I just patched the game and ran it. I noticed the world looked really blurry. I entered settings and looked at Anisotropic Filtering (As that makes the game look sharper) and it seems to be set to its' normal setting, but then I lower it as a test and nothing happens. I set it to max and nothing happens when I apply the changes. I am not sure what is going on here. It only happened after the patch. Please help!
Fixed.
- Deleted Checksum
- Started and verified
- All is well
Still don't know what caused it, but this little trick worked. (Thanks to the person in the game that told me to do it.)
OK, this thread is now THREE years old! I could swear we had some updates between then and now, but I guess not. I'm going to try and get a new version written with all the latest info.
[ QUOTE ]
OK, this thread is now THREE years old! I could swear we had some updates between then and now, but I guess not. I'm going to try and get a new version written with all the latest info.
[/ QUOTE ] make sure to include your handy little tool too eh? :P
[ QUOTE ]
make sure to include your handy little tool too eh? :P
[/ QUOTE ]
That's why I was wanting to do this. I totally lucked out on the date. 
READ THIS!
This thread is for solutions only! Please do not post your problems in here. Start another topic instead. Also, please remember that this isnt your only source. NCSoft keeps an extensive database of symptoms and solutions. If you dont find your answer in here, look there.
Introduction
Welcome to the Tech & Bugs forum! This is the forum where players try to help players with technical problems and discuss bugs in the game.
There are two big points to remember on these forums. First and foremost the forum is by players for players. Moderators and developers do join in from time to time but its a pretty rare thing. If you are looking for official support, head to www.coh.com and click the Support link to open a ticket. Responses in this forum are from people who think they can help you and are willing to do so. Official support gives researched, professional support. This forum gives off-the-cuff support. (Though we often give support faster and also tell better jokes. )
The second thing to remember is that, just because your symptoms sound similar, it does not mean you have the same problem as somebody else. If your friend gets a rash and it turns out to be from poison ivy, then you get a rash, does that mean you must have rubbed up against some poison ivy? Nope. It could be poison ivy but many things can cause a rash so it would be foolish to just assume thats what youve got. The same thing happens with technical problems. Just because youve been crashing and somebody else has been crashing doesnt mean the crashes have the same cause. For this reason, we generally like to have people start their own topic for computer problems.
Table of Contents
(lnks to each page would be here, but there's not much point right now)
Installation
If youve got the CD then just pop it into the drive and install. When you run the updater, it will download the latest version of all the files (it does NOT download one patch at a time) and update them. You can also install the game by getting the latest version of the updater (located at ftp://client.coh.com/US/) and running that. Unfortunately, the last time I tried this (March 2007), the updater was not able to install to directories other than the default directory.
If you are running Windows Vista, its best not to install the game to the default directory. The game puts some user data (screenshots, keybind files,
) into the game directory itself and thats a big no no under Vista. Vista can still run the game fine if its located there but it can get a little confusing (see Missing Files below).
Also, Vistas User Account Control feature acts to make sure any update of common files requires administrator access. It even notices that the name of the updater is CoHUpdate.exe, figures out that you are about to update files, and demands administrator rights. The easy way to get around that is to simply rename the file to CohStarter.exe or something like that. Just be careful if/when the game tries to update the updater program itself. You can also get around this by turning off UAC, of course, but thats a pretty significant security feature to shut down.
Upkeep
City of Heroes (and City of Villains, the two games are officially one game now) is a fairly demanding game. It may be over four years old, but Cryptic and NCSoft have added a lot to it over the years, including physics and fancy graphics options. If you are going to play serious games, you need to be serious about computer upkeep. So heres a few quick bullet points:
<ul type="square">[*]Reboot every few days! Youre not running a server and it only takes a couple of minutes. If you arent running anything overnight, why not just turn off the PC?[*]Run a disk check a few times a year. Hard drives are getting pretty reliable so theres no need to do more than two or three a year, IMHO, unless you move your computer around a bunch. To do a disk check, open Explorer (start key and E at the same time) and right click on the disk to check. Select properties and go to the Tools tab. Select the Error Checking option and, when it asks, turn all the options on. The disk check will take a long time (probably hours). Note that, if you start finding files with the extension .chk in the root of your drive, its a sign that your hard drive is starting to have problems.[*]Run a disk defrag every month or two. (Many folks run them every week!) You do this much like the disk check, only select the defragment tool instead of the error checking tool. It also takes a long time to run. If you are going to do both, do the error check before you do the defrag.[*]Keep your anti-virus program up to date! This game is demanding enough without having some virus pumping out spam emails to the world while youre trying to play. You can get a great, free anti-virus program at free.avg.com.[*]When lightning comes, its time to shut down. And by that I mean OFF, not sleeping or hibernating. Turn off the power strip youre plugged into. Surge protectors are great against fairly distant lightning strikes, but you can still get roasted by close hits.[*]Keep your system clean. One of the big causes of crashing is overheating of the computer. Overheating is often caused by dust buildup on the components, especially the fans. Also, if anything is obstructing any of the fans (like, say, a cat plopping down right in front of your PC), the temperature can rise very quickly. The motherboard will probably detect that its about to melt before any damage is done and shut down, but dont risk it.[*]Keep your system updated. When Microsoft puts out a service pack, you want it soon. Not having service packs and other critical updates installed leaves your PC open to all sorts of attacks that a virus scanner cant stop. If you are having trouble remembering, set Windows up so it auto updates.[*]Keep your video drivers up to date, as well, but be careful. Video driver releases often add both speed and stability. However, its best to check on these forums before updating. Sometimes new video drivers will have nasty bugs. When they do, though, we generally get a topic talking about the problem within a day or two. Try not to let your video drivers get more than a year old.[*]Sound cards and motherboards may need driver updates as well.
[/list]
Crashing and Reboots
There are tons of things that can cause crashing. Anything from problems in the game to an ancient joystick you forgot was plugged in to your USB port to your electric company having trouble putting out a steady electric current. Some are extremely difficult to diagnose, like that electric company problem. Please be patient with us and with official support (I would highly recommend using both resources) while we go through the huge mass of possibilities.
If your computer is suddenly rebooting in the middle of game play, that probably means you are crashing. By default, Windows will reboot instead of showing you the rather cryptic and scary Blue Screen of Death. However, as a gamer, you have faced down much nastier things than this and are thus brave enough to face this beast and pull needed information from it.
To do so with Windows Vista, right click on the Computer icon on your desktop (or Start menu) and select Properties. Pick the Advanced Settings option on the left. Select Startup and Recovery. About half way down, youll see a checkbox for automatic restart. Turn the automatic restart option OFF and youll be able to see the blue screens again.
Here are some of the most common causes and what you can do about them.
Bad Memory
City of Heroes uses a LOT of memory, more than most other games, which makes it more susceptible to problems in high memory. People that run into this problem typically have newer computers or have recently bought new memory. Crashes can happen any time but normally happen within the first 15 minutes or so of game play. They can cause lockups and crashes directly to desktop but will more often cause a blue screen of death (or reboot, see above) in a random file. Youll probably see a different files getting blamed for each crash on your blue screen.
Checking for bad memory in Vista is pretty easy. Go to your Start menu and search on Memory. The Memory Diagnostics Tool should pop right up. Run that and let it run through its tests. You should not get ANY errors at all. Even one error means bad memory.
Checking for bad memory in other operating systems isnt quite so easy. I would suggest checking out Memtest86+ for a good memory testing program. Again, even one error is bad.
If you find bad memory, youre going to have to replace it. Check with your hardware manufacturer on how to do that.
Heat Issues
This is another common one, particularly in the summer. City of Heroes hits the video card and the CPU pretty hard, making it more prone to heat problems than many other MMOs so, like the memory issue, its not uncommon to see people say they can play WoW just fine but crash playing CoH when they have a heat problem.
Heat issues cause crashing much like bad memory. You can have the game lock up, you can crash to the desktop, or you can get a blue screen of death in a random file (or suddenly reboot, see above). The main difference is that memory issues tend to crop up earlier in the game session than heat issues. My rule of thumb is that crashes after 10 minutes are probably heat and crashes earlier than 15 minutes are probably memory. Note the overlap. That should remind you how accurate rules of thumb are.
You should be getting the dust out of your system periodically anyway, so the best way to check your system for a heat problem is to just try and fix it namely by blowing the dust out of your system (preferably with a can of air as computers do not appreciate being spat upon). If that doesnt work, leave the case open while it is running and check to see that all the fans are spinning. If all the fans are running, go ahead and leave the case open and play the game. If you can play the game fine with the case open, youve got a heat issue for sure.
Some computer cases need the case closed to keep the airflow at its best so its actually possible to worsen heat issues by leaving the case open! Dont be surprised if you crash even sooner with the case open. However, if leaving the case open does help avoid the crashes significantly, you can be pretty sure you have a heat problem.
(WARNING: Remember how dust is bad? Think how bad cobwebs would be. Or coffee. Be careful leaving your case open! If theres a toddler in the house, post an armed guard to keep watch.)
Virus/Malware
Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.
Driver Problems
If you are getting blue screens of death and they point to a particular file each time, find that file and check its properties. If its made by the same folks that make your graphics card (NVIDIA, ATI, AMD, or Intel), then its possible your drivers are having problems. Assuming there arent threads on the forums saying that the latest drivers are bad, try updating your video drivers. You can get them from the manufacturer's website (www.nvidia.com, ati.amd.com, or www.intel.com). Be sure to follow the instructions carefully.
(Note to laptop users: laptops often can not use the latest video drivers. First check with your laptop manufacturer for the drivers. If they don't have them, you might try Laptop Video 2 Go.
If your drivers are already up to date and you updated them recently, you may need to roll your drivers back again. Thats not quite as easy as updating drivers but it isnt too bad. First, look up a driver cleaner program such as Guru 3Ds and download it. Uninstall your driver then run the driver cleaner program to make sure all the old files are really gone. Then install the older drivers.
Updating Problems
A number of problems can crop up with the updater.
Unable to update a file
First off, reboot. Sometimes files get stuck in memory and a reboot will fix that.
Second, do a virus scan. Youre probably overdue anyway.
Third, go in to the directory, find the file, and delete it.
If you still have problems, go in to the folder and delete everything with .old or .new as an extension (unless its a file you made yourself, of course). Also, delete the Coh.checksum file.
If there are still problems updating files, try renaming the directory City of Heroes is located in and running the updater again (youll have to run it directly instead of via your shortcut). The updater should make a new directory and pull down all new files for it. Then copy these new files in the new directory into the directory you renamed. Now delete the empty folder and rename your folder back the way it was.
Also note that sometimes this problem can be caused by bad memory.
Virus and malware programs are another source for this problem. Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.
Updater Cant Connect
This is fairly normal if a major update has just come out but thats a one night deal. You shouldn't get the problem every day.
If you are using a satellite for your internet, you may be looking at real trouble for a long time. The updater expects connections to be made fairly quickly and, while satellite connections can download quickly, many of them can take awhile to connect. Some folks have had luck by opening the updater, giving it 2 seconds to connect and, if it doesnt, close the updater and try again. Do that over and over until it works.
If you are using a wireless connection, you may be getting interference. Try connecting directly.
Also, from time to time, hackers will mess with the domain name tables and cause havoc with your internet connections. To fix this, take the following steps in Windows XP
<ul type="square">[*]Go to your Start menu and type cmd (without the quotes) in the Run box to start the command prompt.[*]Type ipconfig /flushdns (again, no quotes) at the prompt and press return.[*]Close the window.[/list]Under Vista:
<ul type="square">[*]Go to your Start menu and type cmd (without quotes) in the search box. Cmd.exe should be found.[*]Right click on Cmd.Exe and select Run as Administrator. Enter your admin password when prompted.[*]Type ipconfig /flushdns (again, no quotes) at the prompt and press return.[*]Close the window.[/list]
Firewalls will sometimes cause problems with the updater, too. Unfortunately, they are so varied that its hard to diagnose in a general post like this. If you need port information, check ParagonWiki both for what ports the game uses and how to change what port the updater uses.
Note that, if you dont actually need to update files, you can bypass the updater completely by using the -project coh command line switch.
Slow Updating
This one has been vexing us for years. Obviously, if you have BitTorrent or some such running then it could be filling up your bandwidth. Dialup users will, of course, have very slow connections. However, sometimes people with otherwise speedy connections will get very slow downloads when trying to update files. Heaven only knows why.
About all you can do for this is quit the updater, shut down your whole machine (including the router/cable modem), bring it all up, and then try the updater again. If it still isnt working, you can try the following to see if you can find a better update source.
<ul type="square">[*]Hit the start key and R to bring up the Run dialog box. Put in cmd and press return.[*]At the prompt, type nslookup cohupdate.coh.com (without the quotes) and press return. Youll get a long list of addresses. Keep that window open.[*]Go to your shortcut you use to run the updater. Right click on it and select properties.[*]In the target window, add a space to the end then put in -ps (no quotes), another space, then one of the addresses that was found. So the target box might have something like: "C:\Games\City Of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe" -ps 216.107.250.194[*]Click OK and run the updater again via the shortcut. Keep doing this with IP addresses on the list until you find one that works for you.[*]After you finish updated, I would suggest putting your shortcut back the way it was. Those IP addresses are subject to change and, if the one you are using does change, your updater will stop working.[/list]
If youve got a friend that has the update, you can get the files from them. Just copy the files from computer to computer. If you do this via CDs or a DVD, make sure the files are not left as read only files when you copy them over.
Virus programs and malware can also slow down network speed. Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.
Network Lag
Network lag is a delay in the communications between your computer and the game server. It typically results in rubberbanding (popping back to where you were a few seconds earlier) and NPCs jumping around. When you use a power, that power may not fire off for a couple of seconds. If the network lag gets extreme, you can be hit with a map server disconnection.
You can check your network connection in game pretty easily. Use the command /netgraph 1. This will pop a little network graph up in the lower left of your screen. The graph should display a low, green line. Spikes of red are lost packets. If you have a big bar of red, that means your connection is gone. If it doesnt come back within 30 seconds, youll automatically be logged out. Use /netgraph 0 to get rid of the graph.
Causes of network lag:
Virus/Malware
Keep that virus scanner up to date and get those security patches and service packs installed! If you get a virus or worm, it can play hell with your computer and cause all sorts of problems.
Other Programs
There has been a wave of updater programs that think they are so important that they need to be running at all times. Electronic Arts Download Manager is the latest Ive had do this but by no means the only program. Luckily, all these programs can be set so they do not start every time you boot up your computer. Just check their options to turn that feature off.
The exceptions to this would be your virus updater and Windows update. Just make sure to schedule those so they update at a time when you arent likely to be playing.
Programs designed to use communicate over the internet constantly can also drag down connections, particularly for dialup users who are having a hard enough time already. Instant Messenger programs can use a surprising hunk of bandwidth, especially if you have several open at once. Weatherbug is another common offender. File sharing programs are, of course, right out.
Others along the line
Theres a long line connecting you to the servers and any problem anywhere along the way can cause issues. There could be problems with one of NCSofts ISPs, there could be a problem with one of the internet backbones, there could be a problem with your ISP, or you could just have a loose connection on the back of your cable modem.
If you know a good bit about internet connections (like what a traceroute is and how to read it), you might want to look into the support network tool for City of Heroes. It will check your ports and do traceroutes to all the important servers.
Something you might try when you have trouble with lost packets is the /net_error_correction command. Issue the command in game and follow it with 1 or 2 to see if error correction helps. Use /net_error_correction 0 to turn off error correction again.
P.S. I had forgotten all about the error correction command! Has anyone had any luck with it before?
Thanks Zloth!
I would be willing to run the update after the Vista release and we see what new issues pop up - anyone who wants to submit any new items can PM me and i'll work with our colleagues here on the boards to get the update done... it's the least i can do
Cheers,
Visceral