After another night of testing the beta client, these 3 problems persist:
- Some parts of the Paragon Store are missing the font, ie. they are blank. It seems to be the font that's used in the labels of the UI. The font used to describe items seems to be fine.
- Using the Paragon Market for more than approximately 5 minutes, leads to a crash of the game for me. Playing the game, eg. running missions (even the new ones) is fine.
- After quitting the beta client, or crashing out of it, the NCSoft launcher will not start the beta client, unless I delete the Preference folder first.
Quote:
My Market is like this as well (not the super box look that others have). I also can't run the Beta once I log out of the game after trying the Market. I have not been able to fix it since.|
Originally Posted by Alexander Hamilton
And the first bug (I wonder if this is the right procedure or if I should post a normal bug report?)
Anyway, some fonts are not working on the Paragon Market:  I was still able to complete the transaction (some guessing was involved  ), so it's relatively minor. |
I am not running Lion, I am still in OS 10.6.8, but with current patches and etc for Snow Leopard.
Quote:
You can "fix" this problem by going to Finder>Library>Preferences>City of Heroes Beta Preferences and deleting the 'user.reg' file. The file is apparently getting corrupted, and the next time NC Launcher tries to start CoH, it just hangs instead.|
Originally Posted by Davpa_CoX
I also can't run the Beta once I log out of the game after trying the Market. I have not been able to fix it since.
|
I'm currently trying to investigate both the issues (the fonts and the hang on launch), although I'm more used to doing this sort of thing in Linux, so I'm not quite familiar with the OSX equivalent tools. So far I've concluded that it's opening the market that will trigger the Launcher to fail the next time... now to dig through some diffs for anything interesting!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
Quote:
Odd, there's no such folder in my preferences. Is it generated only upon quitting the program?|
Originally Posted by Xenos
This is something that Brennan_Mari mentioned a few posts back and that is "working" for me, instead of using Zwillinger's more complicated method:
That's it. |
---Dave
Quote:
It should be generated when you're launching the beta client (not the Launcher!). There should also be a "City of Heroes Preferences" folder in the same folder (if you've run the regular client on that machine). Make sure you're looking in your user's Library folder, and not the global Library folder.
|
Originally Posted by DvandomZ
Odd, there's no such folder in my preferences. Is it generated only upon quitting the program?
---Dave |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
I believe I've found the cause of the hangs when NC Launcher tries to start the client (it sounds like Manga might have already discovered this also, but in case anyone else is curious...).
The hang is being caused when NC Launcher tries to parse the Cider "registry" configuration file at ~/Library/Preferences/City of Heroes Beta Preferences/user.reg. When you access the Paragon Market, the City of Heroes client then initializes the Qt library components, which on first run will generate various caches (plugins, factories), and it stores that cache in the Windows registry in the user section. That 'user' section exists in 'user.reg' (as it's an emulated environment), and those sections look something like this:
Code:
The hex code spreads over multiple lines, so '\' are put at the ends of lines to tell the interpreter that the next line is just a continuation of the current one. The NC Launcher, apparently, does not do this! It apparently doesn't take into account what those mean, and then it fails on the next line![Software\\Trolltech\\OrganizationDefaults\\Qt Factory Cache 4.7\\com.trolltech.Qt.QBearerEngineFactoryInterface:\\C:\\coh\\qt_plugins\\bearer] 1315086735 "qgenericbearer4.dll"=hex:40,00,56,00,61,00,72,00,69,00,61,00,6e,00,74,00,28,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,00,0b,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,ff,00,ff,00,ff,00,ff,00,\ 00,00,00,00,00,00,0e,00,00,00,67,00,00,00,65,00,00,00,6e,00,00,00,65,00,00,\ 00,72,00,00,00,69,00,00,00,63,00,29,00
The NC Launcher needs to be modified to be able to properly parse multi-line registry entries, as well as to fail gracefully (with an error message at the very least!).
No luck with the font issue so far, though. I tracked down the Paragon Market webpag, although it's SSL encrypted and I've not investigated it enough to be able to connect myself to check the raw HTML (it doesn't like Opera
)... I might also try simply copying the standard windows fonts to my machine and see if it suddenly starts showing them (assuming it's merely a missing font issue!). If that works, then I can remove them until I find the one responsible!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
|
Found the folder, thanks!
---Dave
Quote:
It appears the NC Launcher is expecting a certain line of text to be in a certain place in the file (it dies if it's not). I also observed that the same crash/failure occurs in NC Launcher if you double-click Check for Updates, after first using the Paragon Store. So I took a wild guess that NC Launcher is unnecessarily checking the user.reg file for the current client version when it's sitting right there in a perfectly safe and simple file (version.ini) with the game client files.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
The hang is being caused when NC Launcher tries to parse the Cider "registry" configuration file at ~/Library/Preferences/City of Heroes Beta Preferences/user.reg. When you access the Paragon Market, the City of Heroes client then initializes the Qt library components, which on first run will generate various caches (plugins, factories), and it stores that cache in the Windows registry in the user section. That 'user' section exists in 'user.reg' (as it's an emulated environment), and those sections look something like this:
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
The NC Launcher needs to be modified to be able to properly parse multi-line registry entries, as well as to fail gracefully (with an error message at the very least!).
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
No luck with the font issue so far, though. I tracked down the Paragon Market webpag, although it's SSL encrypted and I've not investigated it enough to be able to connect myself to check the raw HTML (it doesn't like Opera
)... I might also try simply copying the standard windows fonts to my machine and see if it suddenly starts showing them (assuming it's merely a missing font issue!). If that works, then I can remove them until I find the one responsible! |
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
That is not correct. The fonts are also not loading in Leopard (10.5.8). The only difference is that instead of the little square in place of the font, we get nothing (see my screenshot earlier in this thread).
|
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
The fonts are reportedly only not loading for people running Lion. Some fonts in Cider come from the Mac system, and others are built into Cider. So it could be a font that used to be included in Snow Leopard but isn't in Lion; or a font that's corrupted and would kind of work in Snow Leopard but won't load in Lion; or it could be that the fonts embedded in Cider at Transgaming weren't added to the project for Lion, and they didn't test adequately.
|
Quote:
Hmm...someone PM me the URL the store points to. I'm now betting on a text encoding error.|
Originally Posted by Xenos
That is not correct. The fonts are also not loading in Leopard (10.5.8). The only difference is that instead of the little square in place of the font, we get nothing (see my screenshot earlier in this thread).
|
P.S. Don't worry I'm not going to mess with it. I'm not *that* frustrated. I just want to follow the path from web site to rendered text and see if something's missing.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
/em Stands in awe of the computer knowledge shown here.
* Bows deeply in respect and appreciation
Ideally, the tank will die precisely as everyone else starts fighting, allowing aggro to be spread evenly among the blaster. -seebs, "How to Suck at CoH/CoV" Guide
Huh, the latest repair seems to have done something useful. I was able to start Beta up again tonight without deleting my old preferences. It's being really slow, but the shop works and everything.
---Dave
Quote:
What latest repair?
|
Originally Posted by DvandomZ
Huh, the latest repair seems to have done something useful. I was able to start Beta up again tonight without deleting my old preferences. It's being really slow, but the shop works and everything.
---Dave |
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Well, I tried a Repair this evening, it actually completed rather than crashing out, and then when I tried connecting it did so without me needing to erase my prefs.
---Dave
Quote:
Weird. Now it crashes for me every time I try and repair it. :/|
Originally Posted by DvandomZ
Huh, the latest repair seems to have done something useful. I was able to start Beta up again tonight without deleting my old preferences. It's being really slow, but the shop works and everything.
---Dave |
It used to repair just fine but not start.
Orivon: Lv50+3 PB, Noviro: Lv50+1 WS, and many many more...
Okay, I think I figured out a few ways to make this work on my end and I wanted to share them with you:
First, either repair on re-install the Beta if you are having problems.
When you log into the Beta, you should be able to access the store, but everything is missing fonts and shows up wierd. I had noticed that when you buy something from the store, then log out, the game will not launch when you try to open it again. But, if you do Z's earlier fix (move the CoH Beta from the Apps folder, open the Launcher, quit it when it says it cannot find the Beta, move CoH Beta back to the Apps folder, then launch as normal) you will be able to get back, just with all prefs gone.
I have tried it a few times and it has worked for me. It is annoying, but it is workable while they are working on a permanent solution.
And also, while the fonts are messed up and it messed up being able to launch after you exit the game, the Market was otherwise working fine for me. I was able to but Beam Rifle, the Rocket Board, and an extra Enhancement tray, as well as add points.
I hope this helps! And CuppaManga, extra big kudos to you and all the help you are giving us!
Characters I am Currently Working on:
Corcra Dragan - MA/Regen Scrapper (Hero) - Virtue
Chronian Phoenix - Time/Fire Defender (Hero) - Virtue
Mindzeye - Psy/MM Blaster (Hero) - Virtue
Valence Vixen - Elec/Elec Stalker (Villain) - Virtue
Guess it was a fluke, dunno how it managed to work, but now it won't launch and repairs crash. :/
---Dave
I did the repair from a few days ago but nothing changed, I can still play Beta but trying to access the store still gets me the Assertion Failure
Quote:
Try uninstalling and reinstalling the Beta. It is a bit of a pain as the download is bout 6.5 gigs, but that allowed me to access the Beta and the store, and then use Z's trick to get the Beta Client to work again.
|
Originally Posted by Triomphe
I did the repair from a few days ago but nothing changed, I can still play Beta but trying to access the store still gets me the Assertion Failure
|
Characters I am Currently Working on:
Corcra Dragan - MA/Regen Scrapper (Hero) - Virtue
Chronian Phoenix - Time/Fire Defender (Hero) - Virtue
Mindzeye - Psy/MM Blaster (Hero) - Virtue
Valence Vixen - Elec/Elec Stalker (Villain) - Virtue
Cuppa: You may be interested to know that I can launch both clients without issue, without needing to move anything, without a hitch.
Not sure what happened.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Quote:
Did you open the Paragon Store after launching it?
|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Cuppa: You may be interested to know that I can launch both clients without issue, without needing to move anything, without a hitch.
Not sure what happened. |
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
Quote:
Yep. And I can do so as many times as I like. It's still unreadable but it's not bothering my clients any.
|
Originally Posted by CuppaManga
Did you open the Paragon Store after launching it?
|
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
Quote:
Maybe the latest publish changed something with the Registry writes. I'll check into that.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Yep. And I can do so as many times as I like. It's still unreadable but it's not bothering my clients any.
|
EDIT: Nope, still broken for me. I'd like to find out if people who have to throw out the preferences each time are in the majority or minority. Where do you have your copy of Beta installed? Maybe it's requiring it to be in Applications for some reason.
Manga @ Triumph
"Meanwhile In The Halls Of Titan"...Titan Network Working To Save City Of Heroes
Save Paragon City! Efforts Coordination
---Dave