Stuck at Loading

I have been looking at other forums online and still can't find an answer.

I have downloaded the client and all patch updates once again on my brand new machine with Win 7, and I am stuck at the "Loading Bar" and it doesn't move.

Ahead of time, I will say that I have a plenty powerful system to run the game without aq problem, it just wont load.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know!

Thanks,
-J

you've checked that your firewall isn't blocking it? that's always the bit I forget

Yeah, I actually disabled the firewall, still didn't work.

I did get it to start in "Safe Mode" but it crashed shortly thereafter.

I have 2 Gigs of DDR3, I'm running an Intel Quadcore chipset and NVidia Geforce 9500 card. I should be blazing through this game, but it crashed in safe mode. I don't get it.

Any assistance would be awesome, I would really like to play this game again.

Post the results of these two programs CoHHelper and Hijackthis and we'll see what's up.

Incidentally with 2 gigs of ram and only a Geforce 9500 you won't be blazing through the game. You'll be able to run it just fine on mid range settings with a couple of the graphically challenging settings like ambient occlusion and shadows set to low but do not expect to be able to run the game at high settings. That particular machine would have been able to run at highest settings a couple of years ago but not any more.

Thank you so much for the links to those tools.

Here is the information I pulled from COH HELPER

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at September 18, 2010 10:07 (-07:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-7592
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 1462MB out of 2047MB available
Page File: 3361MB (733MB currently in use)
C Drive: (Hitachi HDS721050CLA362 ATA Device) 432833MB out of 476837MB (90%) free
E Drive: (Hitachi HDS721050CLA362 ATA Device) 67MB out of 99MB (67%) free
D Drive: (ATAPI iHAS324 Y ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7600.16385 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 9500 GT
Video Memory: 1267 MB
Driver Version: 8.17.11.9621
Driver Date: 1/11/2010 9:03:33 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 4:51:47 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 4:51:47 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: MSI
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: G41M-P33 (MS-7592)
Motherboard Version: 3.0
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 20091113
BIOS Release: 20091113000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1050
3D Resolution: 1680x1050 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: Medium?


World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 1.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (4)
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: High quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: High quality
Occlusion Strength: Strong
Blur: Trilateral
Ambient Resolution: Quality


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 1.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 984444 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1850.201007290124.28T4
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found

your video drivers are out old. go to nvidia.com and get the latest ones. then do a disc clean up and defrag.

Also, this particular problem is known to be caused by trying to play CoH with a Windows skinning program running, WindowBlinds, for example. If you are using something like that, be sure to disable it for CoH.

You should run HiJack This! and post the results here or in the Tech forum. If you have a problem program running, it should show up in your HiJack This log and someone will be able to identify it for you.

Also posting my HijackThis report. Not sure if there's more information I should have, or if this even helps.

Thanks again.

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.4
Scan saved at 9:38:25 PM, on 9/18/2010
Platform: Windows 7 (WinNT 6.00.3504)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.7600.16385)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\Windows\system32\taskhost.exe
C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe
C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jusched.exe
C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 3\program\soffice.exe
C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 3\program\soffice.bin
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HiJackThis\HiJackThis.exe
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,SearchAssistant =
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,CustomizeSearch =
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar,LinksFolderName =
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHelperStub - {18DF081C-E8AD-4283-A596-FA578C2EBDC3} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelperShim.dll
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jusched.exe"
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'NETWORK SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'NETWORK SERVICE')
O4 - Startup: OpenOffice.org 3.2.lnk = C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 3\program\quickstart.exe
O15 - Trusted Zone: http://asia.msi.com.tw
O15 - Trusted Zone: http://global.msi.com.tw
O16 - DPF: {D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000} (Shockwave Flash Object) - http://fpdownload2.macromedia.com/ge...sh/swflash.cab
O23 - Service: lxct_device - - C:\Windows\system32\lxctcoms.exe
O23 - Service: NVIDIA Display Driver Service (nvsvc) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\Windows\system32\nvvsvc.exe
O23 - Service: Steam Client Service - Valve Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steam\SteamService.exe
O23 - Service: NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver Service (Stereo Service) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\3D Vision\nvSCPAPISvr.exe

--
End of file - 3186 bytes

Bump

WARNING WARNING WARNING

Update your drivers immediately without doing anything else on your computer. Don't surf the net, don't watch a video and definitely don't play a game. Those particular drivers are bad. Nvidia recalled them about a week after they were released. They cause video cards to overheat badly. Again, do this immediately as in right now. If you don't then you will be buying a new video card very soon.

Now on to the rest. If that really is your complete hijackthislog it is the cleanest one I have ever seen. However two things still stand out.

First, try turning off Steam and launching the game through the updater. There have been some problems reported with launching through Steam.

Second, unless you actually have the Nvidia stereoscopic glasses and are using them you will want to turn off that service. For some reason with the normal Nvidia installation it is an autostart program. And it is known to suck up a lot of processor time in some situations. The way you turn it off is in your start box type services.msc and run that. Scroll down and look for the Nvidia Stereoscopic services. Right click on it and stop the service. Then right click on it and and choose properties. Under startup type set it to manual.

Thanks for your help Mandu. I followed your instructions.

Here are the 2 latest report. 1st is the COH dxdiag file, 2nd is the latest Hijackthis.
The reason it's so clean is it's a custom build, and the Steam client was running because I also play Dawn of War 2, and I use that to launch. I use the COH client to actually launch COH.

---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---

DxDiag gathered at September 19, 2010 12:16 (-07:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-7592
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
Memory: 2048MB
.Net Memory Report: 1501MB out of 2047MB available
Page File: 3409MB (685MB currently in use)
C Drive: (Hitachi HDS721050CLA362 ATA Device) 431316MB out of 476837MB (90%) free
E Drive: (Hitachi HDS721050CLA362 ATA Device) 67MB out of 99MB (67%) free
D Drive: (ATAPI iHAS324 Y ATA Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7600.16385 (32-bit version)

Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.

No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.

Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT
Manufacturer / Chip: NVIDIA / GeForce 9500 GT
Video Memory: 1267 MB
Driver Version: 8.17.12.5896
Driver Date: 7/9/2010 3:37:00 PM
Driver Language: English

Sound Device Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 4:51:47 PM

Sound Device Description: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: HdAudio.sys
Driver Version: 6.01.7600.16385
Driver Date: 7/13/2009 4:51:47 PM


WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: MSI
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: G41M-P33 (MS-7592)
Motherboard Version: 3.0
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: Default System BIOS
BIOS Version: ACRSYS - 20091113
BIOS Release: 20091113000000.000000+000


Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1680x1050
3D Resolution: 1680x1050 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes


Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 50000
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No


Anti-aliasing: Off
Anisotropic Filtering: 4x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: None
Bloom: 1.000 (turned on)
Depth of Field Enabled: Yes
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes
Shader Detail: Unknown (0)


World Texture Level: Medium
Character Texture Level: Medium
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 1.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: No
Shadow Mode: Unknown (4)
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: High quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: No
Ambient Occlusion: High quality
Occlusion Strength: Strong
Blur: Trilateral
Ambient Resolution: Quality


Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes

Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.600

Show Advanced Graphics Options: No
Overall Graphics Quality: 1.000
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 984444 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1850.201007290124.28T4
Installation Directory: C:\Program Files\City of Heroes

Mod files in the Data directory
No modifications found


HICACKTHIS LOG-

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.4
Scan saved at 12:29:31 PM, on 9/19/2010
Platform: Windows 7 (WinNT 6.00.3504)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.7600.16385)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\Windows\system32\taskhost.exe
C:\Windows\system32\Dwm.exe
C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jusched.exe
C:\Windows\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE
C:\Windows\system32\taskhost.exe
C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\CohUpdater.exe
C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\HiJackThis\HiJackThis.exe

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,SearchAssistant =
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,CustomizeSearch =
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar,LinksFolderName =
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHelperStub - {18DF081C-E8AD-4283-A596-FA578C2EBDC3} - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelperShim.dll
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jusched.exe"
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'NETWORK SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'NETWORK SERVICE')
O15 - Trusted Zone: http://asia.msi.com.tw
O15 - Trusted Zone: http://global.msi.com.tw
O16 - DPF: {D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000} (Shockwave Flash Object) - http://fpdownload2.macromedia.com/ge...sh/swflash.cab
O23 - Service: lxct_device - - C:\Windows\system32\lxctcoms.exe
O23 - Service: NVIDIA Display Driver Service (nvsvc) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\Windows\system32\nvvsvc.exe
O23 - Service: Steam Client Service - Valve Corporation - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steam\SteamService.exe
O23 - Service: NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D Driver Service (Stereo Service) - NVIDIA Corporation - C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\3D Vision\nvSCPAPISvr.exe

--
End of file - 2951 bytes

*Oh and the Stereoscopic driver is set to manual now.

Ok, the drivers look good. Stereoscopic is set to manual but it is still running so go in and turn it off for now. Lastly go to your game directory and right click on both cityofheroes.exe and cohupdater.exe. Then under properties select the compatability tab and put a check in disable visual themes and disable desktop composition.

When all that is done try running the game again and see what happens. If it still won't load then try checking the safe mode box in the updater startup screen and seeing if the game will load that way.

Hey man,

I made those adjustment, and still it wont load, and in fact it actually crashed just getting into safe mode. This is so bizarre to me that it doesn't work. It's gotta be a software issue I would think, maybe I need to flash the bios and update the MSI board, but the updates available don't even look remotely video related or processor related.

Anyway, I appreciate all your help. Let me know if you can think of anything else.
-J

bump, anyone? I'm still stuck. Or where else do you think I should post the info?