++ Common Solutions & Posting Guidelines ++

Originally Posted by Zloth

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 here’s a few quick bullet points:

• 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.

Originally Posted by xpaladin

When i open up COH and i log in with my account and password, when i try to create a character my screen is all black and i can't see my character's body. Also when i enter paragon city, all my screen is black and i can't see what im doing, i can just see the map and the objective.

Can someone tell me what can i do?
Thanks alot.

Originally Posted by xpaladin

When i open up COH and i log in with my account and password, when i try to create a character my screen is all black and i can't see my character's body. Also when i enter paragon city, all my screen is black and i can't see what im doing, i can just see the map and the objective.

Can someone tell me what can i do?
Thanks alot.

Originally Posted by Zloth

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. You’re 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 it’s 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 (you’ll 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 Can’t Connect
This is fairly normal if a major update has just come out but that’s 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 doesn’t, 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

• 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.

Under Vista:

• 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.

Firewalls will sometimes cause problems with the updater, too. Unfortunately, they are so varied that it’s 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 don’t 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 isn’t working, you can try the following to see if you can find a better update source.

• 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. You’ll 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.

If you’ve 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.