Not Launching LOTRO via ISboxer today

I have an odd problem that I encountered just today.

When I try to launch my character set, it appears to work (starts turbinelauncher), and I get the login screen.

After attempting to login, it launches lotroclient, but never actually gets to start the game engine itself. I checked task manager, and lotroclient.exe is "Running" but only occupying about 100k of memory (sometimes 88k, sometimes 76k). I can launch fine through the normal launcher. Every so often, it makes the transition to the lotroclient.exe just fine, and I get to the character screen. However, this is rare.

Also of note, I have several instances of turbineclientclauncher.exe running (all taking between 11meg and 15meg of RAM), and several lotroclient.exe tasks. I can't "End Process Tree" on the lotroclient.exe instances (I get an "access is denied"). I get the same result on the turbineclientlauncher.exe.

When I ran an elevated command prompt window to try to use taskkill /im <PID> /f to force a task kill, it doesn't recognize the PID. If I try it in a non-elevated command prompt window, it gives me the "Access is Denied" message.

I tried toggling on the download development patches for ISboxer, but didn't get any patches. I also don't believe that there was a patch for the game itself since the last time I ran without any problems. I tried a re-boot of the system (which cleared out the bad processes), and the problem persisted.

Any ideas?

Obviously, since it's not hard-crashing, I'm not getting a crash notification or log to submit. :/

Still happening today. 28 views and no response? I'm suspecting that lax is on vacation?

[bob]

You probably have 28 views because people monitor the forums, and read to determine if they can help out. So far no one can. Lax was/is moving house.


Turbine have introduced a new step to their launching process. TurbineLauncher now loads lotroclientloader and lotroclientloader loads lotroclient.

Lotroclientloader is a wrapper which appears to report a number of crash details back to Turbine, and is presumably in place because they are having a number of issues with their recent updates, and a lot of people reporting crashing at various points (on the Lotro forums). A lot of these seem to be on Windows 8/8.1.

If you can't end task on the processes, then this is probably because you are a non-admin user, and these processes are being launched as admin. An elevated command prompt is sandboxed a little in Windows 8/8.1 so you might want to try another tool like ProcessExplorer from Sysinternals (now Microsoft). This can be launched as admin and generally grabs enough rights.


You could try the following.

1. Use Windows 7
2. Run a diagnostic and check to make sure Windows App Compatibility is not set http://isboxer.com/wiki/Diagnostics post the results back
3. Set your graphics for each client to DX9 and lower some of the fancy settings
4. Use basic sound settings, i.e. disable EAX if in use, set to Generic Software, etc.
5. Monitor your computer and make sure you are not running out of ram/cpu/vram/gpu
6. Stop background processes and minimize your setup, see if you can find a culprit
7. Along the same lines, exclude lotroclient.exe lotroclientlauncher.exe turbinelauncher.exe Innerspace.exe from AV, firewalls, etc.



I don't have the same issue as you with not being able to load a team, and others I know of don't either, although the new launcher process does create other issues with window switching because the lotroclientlauncher doesn't shutdown and gets included as a game process, so for our teams of 6, you end up with 12 windows in Innerspace that it will switch through. Depending on your ISBoxer configuration this may or may not be a problem for you (if you run everything via ATG's or direct to characters/slots you will probably be fine.

Thank you for the response! Historically, lax has been very quick to assist me with problems (dating back to the WinEQ2 days when I was running with DAOC), so I assumed that something IRL must be up.

Here is the paste link:
http://privatepaste.com/5828c5a4a3
As you can see in the task listing there, there is a lotroclient.exe task w/ no associated executable (launch attempted via IS first), then the non-IS launched version.

For your suggested options:
1) I don't think that I can downgrade to Windows 7 with this license. Nor do I wish to switch OSes at this time :/
2) Done
3) I'm using the My .ini files include the line: "GraphicsCore=D3D9" I'm pretty sure that indicates using DirectX9, and I remember downshifting for multiple clients
4) Using Generic Software "SoundProvider=OpenAL" and "SoundFeatures=Generic Software on Speakers (2- High Definition Audio Device)"
5) I'm not running out of RAM/Cpu/VRam/GPU. Task manager shows CPU % utilization not going about 10%, RAM at 3.6/16GB and I'm running an AMD R9 280, and with 5 clients running (previously) GPU Core was maxing out at about 60%. It also is the 3GB VRAM version of the card
6) I can certainly try this. What is odd is that the game launches sometimes. Just doesn't seem to be the first time run.
7) I will do this. The new lotroclientlauncher.exe wrapper information is new to me.

And I'll note that my account on this machine is an Administrator account. I didn't previously have Innerspace set to run as admin, but I've added that option to the shortcut to see if that does anything as well.

I noticed that I've gotten some "userpreferences.raptr_XXXXXXXXXX.ini" files that have shown up in my configuration directory, and I noticed a new process running "Raptr" that I'm unfamiliar with, but assume it's part of Turbine's patch distribution and/or debug tactic

[bob]

So,

I'd get the non happy cloud version of LOTRO (if you can). This is usually the Full Download version from the website, rather than the Play as you download version.

2. Raptr is some comm type software. It runs as a shell, but allows launching of various overlay software like mumble and xfire, which Innerspace is known to have issues with. Raptr has previously been found to be a problem piece of software.

You can see it is running here.

Code:

raptr - Process ID: 7036 (C:\PROGRA~2\Raptr\raptr.exe)
56. raptr_encoder_server-90652 - Process ID: 5656 (C:\PROGRA~2\Raptr\raptr_encoder_server-90652.exe)
57. raptr_ep64 - Process ID: 7072
58. raptr_im - Process ID: 5568 (C:\PROGRA~2\Raptr\raptr_im.exe)

If it is news to you, I'd find the installer and remove it. This is the mostly likely cause of your issues.

The other thing that looks odd is this, which is a hook into the lotroclient that you've reported on. You should find whatever is doing this hook and remove it. It looks like some weird leftover process.

Code:

112. D:\Users\Daniel\AppData\Local\Temp\Creative_Audio_Engine_Cleanup.0001.dir.0000\~df394b.tmp
113. D:\Users\Daniel\AppData\Local\Temp\Creative_Audio_Engine_Cleanup.0001.dir.0000\~de4692.tmp


I removed the raptr program. It was part of the driver update that I performed to try to fix the issue (I was previously running the built-in windows driver, no Catalyst stuff).

It didn't solve the issue.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to get rid of that Creative_Audio_Engine_Cleanup.0001 from being created. All of the searches point to some check during Macrovision loading, which I expect is happening because the game's video files...

I didn't originally download/get the play as you download version, I didn't think. I removed happycloud from my system. LOTRO still starts stand-alone, but is giving me the same problem via IS.

I see that there was a beta/debug build deployed today. I was excited to see the initial instance of the game load right up. However, the subsequent instance did not (88k RAM used for lotroclient.exe). I was able to get the 2nd instance up and running on the 3rd attempt to load my 2-character set.

Is there any additional data that I can gather to assist?

Also, I noted that I was getting that Creative_Audio_Engine_Cleanup.0001 previously (it appears in my AppData folder on an old system drive). I can certainly try to install a Creative-labs Sound card and disable my on-board audio, if that will help in the diagnosis.

[MiRai]

Also, I noted that I was getting that Creative_Audio_Engine_Cleanup.0001 previously (it appears in my AppData folder on an old system drive). I can certainly try to install a Creative-labs Sound card and disable my on-board audio, if that will help in the diagnosis.

Now that I finally updated the game on this computer to see what the audio options were, I was going to suggest that you choose a different sound playback device (something generic and non creative/soundblaster related) in the options to see if that changes anything.

You'd have to launch the game w/o Inner Space, change the setting, and fully exit the client. Then find where LotRO keeps its config files (I don't have that location at the moment), delete the virtual files/folders created by Inner Space, and then try re-launching your Character Set to see if things change.

[lax]

Just wanted to note that I'm working on LOTRO issues and hopefully will have some of these new issues taken care of in the next few days. I have been extremely busy lately with having just moved into a new house (this is still going to take a lot of time yet), along with being sick and having sick kids home from school constantly for the last month. Not to mention Christmas.

Anyway, I do expect to be back on track and moving forward shortly.

[lax]

Inner Space build 6040 should correct various LOTRO issues since the recent LOTRO update, including turbineclientlauncher.exe and some hanging processes.

Close and restart Inner Space to let it patch up.