houtex

I'm not having this issue so far, and my ISP is Comcast... but in Houston, so perhaps there's something in Aurora... or perhaps a messed up server somewhere west of 35° 14' N, 100° 42' W -ish, maybe.

/yeah, that'll mess someone up...

I'm guessin' you're on Pinnacle, right Bill?

I didn't see this on Virtue, but I dunno if that helps ya or not.

Seems to be a few of this kinda thing going on tonight in the forums...

Well, ok, it may be labeled 'owner' in the advanced button of the security tab of the properties of the item in question... *gasps for air* but yeah, there it is.

/*pant, pant*

Yeah, that.

*squints at the post*

Um... I think it looks ok to me, but I'd feel better if you ran this once through:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Then I'd feel like it was clean...ish. As I'm not there to dig about and make sure myself...

But I don't see anything overt in there... am I missin' something?

/Is it a test?

Yah, I agree, live, the man and his band rocks the

Try this:

Make a folder in the deskop, call it CoH.

Find the CoHUpdater.exe file from your current install of CoH and make a *copy* in that folder.

Run it from there.

It should then find the original install and figure itself out.

Has to do with it trying to make a copy of itself the first time... this is the first time for her user account, so it gets screwed up. The second copy trick fixes that.

You can delete that folder, or use it to run in the future, doesn't matter, that'd up to you, after you get it working.

Hope that helps!

@Kheldarn:

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

Well, it's time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year
We'll eat a lot of broccoli and drink a lot of beer
You should be good and happy that there's something you can eat
A million people every day are starving in the street

Your daddy's in the gutter with the wretched and the poor
Your mama's in the kitchen with a can of Cycle Four
There's garbage in the water
There's poison in the sky
I guess it won't be long before we're all gonna die

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

Well, what's the matter little friend, you think this party is the pits
Enjoy it while you can, we'll soon be blown to bits
The monkeys in the pentagon are gonna cook our goose
Their finger's on the button, all they need it an excuse

It doesn't take a military genius to see
We'll all be crispy critters after World War III
There's nowhere you can run to, nowhere you can hide
When they drop the big one, we all get fried

(Come on boys and girls, sing along, ok?)

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

wow!
(background screaming, sound effects)

Well there's a punk in the alley and he's looking for a fight
There's an Arab on the corner buying everything in sight
There's a mother in the ghetto with another mouth to feed
Seems that everywhere you look today there's misery and greed

I guess you know the Earth is gonna crash into the sun
But that's no reason why we shouldn't have a little fun
So if you think it's scary, if it's more than you can take
Just blow out the candles and have a piece of cake

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

(Happy Birthday!)

And a pinch to gr

[ QUOTE ]
Wait, what? Changing ownership of a folder is easy? Since when?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes it's easy, and relatively quick.

Right clicking the item, telling it to take ownership in the ownership tab, and saying ok, and depending on the amount of items underneath the one you're taking ownership.... going to get something to drink and come back. Poof. Done.

Only real issue is if the preceeding folder won't let the ownership change happen. No big, move down one, repeat.

Been that way since 2000 for sure, I'm not *real* sure about NT, but it's probably true there too.

O23 - Service: Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Net (rpcnet) - Absolute Software Corp. - C:\Windows\SysWOW64\rpcnet.exe

O23 - Service: ATKGFNEX Service (ATKGFNEXSrv) - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files\ATKGFNEX\GFNEXSrv.exe

Possibles. Very iffy on the googling.

Please tell me you've already done the MalwareBytes Antimalware.
Please tell me you've done the Adaware.
Please tell me you've done Spybot Search and Destroy while you were at it even though it wasn't mentioned.

And finally...

PLEASE tell me you're going to give Norton the boot and get something better at the job... like AVG or Avira or something.

Thanks in advance!

Reminds me of this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...77907195969915

Like Spock on Genesis, only with his memories intact.

I'm sorry, I came in late, and did not check in to the top post.

The blockiness is either a bad card or messed up drivers. Or an old card. The 6200 isn't all that grand a master of video compared to today's.

But it shouldn't be an issue to use it. I've used them.

It has been mentioned that using the newest drivers on this old card is also an issue, most likely.

In any event, I am of the opinion that even though all that other work should help in other areas, the drivers are the issue for the blockiness. While you could get the 190.38s that are available, you might want to go here and get something older, maybe in the 160 range of drivers, say the 169.21s

And you'll also want to run a driver sweep to kill any old card info, such as the Intel and the old 5200. http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/

The reason being that if *any* other card's drivers have been installed, they can interfere with the correct working of the card you want.

Instructions:
1) Download these two, install driver sweeper, DO NOT install drivers YET.
2) DEINSTALL all drivers for video in the Add/Remove programs in the control panel. Nvidia, ATI, Intel... If you're unsure, then don't.
3) Reboot to safe mode (F8 during boot process)
4) Run driver sweeper, kill all video cards regardless of whether you had it or not.
5) Reboot to normal, let the system figure itself out and get stable.
6) Install 'new' drivers.
7) Retest

Hopefully, one time will be the charm, but it's been known that two or three might be needed until you find the right combination.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

The Inquisition! (Let's begin) The Inquisition! (Look out sin!) We have a mission... to convert the

/it came to my mind, so I thought I'd

Although it kinda sounds like a heat issue (check heatsinks and clean if needed, make sure fans are working, etc.), it could be drivers. Coh Helper is going to be required.

http://home.roadrunner.com/~dasloth/CoH/CoHHelper.html

Read it and post it. That'll probably help us more than the Hijack This. Thanks!

Excellent points Kistune! Allow me to respond and fill in gaps I missed?

---

re: "weird ports"

Naturally, Co* (and others) shouldn't hijack commonly used ports such as 80, 21, etc. That would be naughty. And it wasn't to say they were picked and are weird... but to a router that has port priorities, they are exactly that: Weird. Odd. Non-important. Call it what you will, I simply used weird. I like the word weird. It's weird.

---

re: high data needs

Yes, truly, it's not all that much, in comparison to other data streams. I'll grant that. But the sheer volume of the amount of each item in the game on the client that needs to know where it is, it's directional stance, and *each limb, and sub limb* position... that's way more than Character 123 is at position X,Y,Z.

Multiply it out by all NPCs (waving and such), characters, enemies... items, objects, etc, etc. Even the boxes have full positional information, or they wouldn't spin on their own, "looking" at whatever they're targeting.

Add more and more data to be dealt with on top of THAT... (say, with a raid)

And finally, into the mix... routers possibly 'screening the calls', or being screwed up.... being on satellite maybe... whatever the network issue...

Boom. LCTM. Pop to Login. Not terribly surprising, if all that works out as I think it might.

So yeah, lower latency is key... hence I stand by my "ISP router chain" is the problem, and having a good one is key to the whole works.

---

Now, just for flavoring, I recently started having dabbling interest in Left 4 Dead. That game is... interesting. Solo, I can play it NO ISSUES. My computer likes all the hordes, the graphics, all that, no problems, no complaints.

While trying to play multiplayer, which only has 8 users, plus the zombie hordes about the map... Getting on a bad server, or a bad chain (I don't really know how to test for that, for this game, they're random over the US) yep, I've gotten the equivalent of lag, LCTMs and PTLs. And we go find another server, 'cause it's just the way it is.

It's like the old days of Quake, Quake II, etc. There were a few programs made for the *sole purpose* of finding, for you, the lower ping servers so that you could find a good match for your worldly position. QuakeSpy comes to mind. So I might play on servers in the nearest states, never hitting one in Virginia. And the guy in California might never hit the one in Louisiana. All because the pings would be sucky. Even QuakeLive has pings listed and part of the filters, if I remember right... might need to revisit that.

Point is, we don't have that kind of luxury the Quakes and L4D and others of this kind of multiplayer have. We have three, THREE server farms. One on each side of the USA, plus EU. Lower half of the world must really get screwed, dontcha think? I have no idea about (the game what's name shall not be mentioned) has for server farms, but they have a *ton* of shards. Not only for to split up the player base, but I bet they're also scattered in multiple locations.

Unlike Co*. So again, bottom line is, near as I can tell, you gotta work the problem, deal with it, or, sadly, decide you're done.

Dunno how to do it on a Mac. However, you might try to run multiple copies of the updater until one of them connects... up to 20 I think is what is sometimes needed.

You don't happen to be on Satellite internet, are you?

It's an organizational thing. If you do this, you know where everything is... there's no guarantee that covering your eyes and hitting 'Enter' is going to *always* plunk the program in the C:\Program Files folder. Besides, it's also easier and faster to do this:

Click Start
Click Run
Type C:\Games

Than it is to

Click Start
Click Run
Type C:\Program Files

By a few strokes.

And that whole permissions thing. Some people (like myself) don't like to be restricted for certain things... Games is one of them, let them be unfettered.

After reading this...
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...age=0&vc=1

in this thread:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat....=0#Post13787050

...it made me think. Please excuse me for the text wall, but it's a little complicated what I thought up...

I really wish I knew what you guys who have this issue were talking about, but I hate to say it... it just does not happen for me. Period. Even during Rikti raids. I never see this.

That's not to say I haven't had the obvious "I don't have a Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition, thermocouple cooled, overclocked to uber, coupled with the top of the line NVidia card, also uberoverclocked, so I just don't have a system that can deal with all that crap going on, so slide show it is" type frame rates. I ain't got that kind of money to get something to deal with all that stuff going on. But the the *very* occasional LCTM? The *extremely rare* 'pop to login'? So rare you could start a pool on when it might happen to me, and there would probably be several months involved before it hit.

Maybe I'm not on the same times you are, the same servers you are, and most probably not the same internet connection and therefore chain of routers that you are.

Still, how can that be that I don't have issues and you do? It makes no sense on the face of it. If the game is universally broken in this way, I should see this problem, yes? But it's not like that. It's a 'personal' issue, sort of. And so I thought about it... and came up with this:

It seems that the ports used by Co* are very non standard, if I remember right. It's also true that routers can and do get set to give lower priority to weird (to them) ports. For example, at my work I have my routers set to allow only certain traffic on certain ports, websites, etc. It's easier to block or set to low anything that screws up my bandwidth. More to the point, the prioritization of web pages is top, because we've become quite the users of websites, so any traffic that's not a web page... such as Co*... get screwed because I don't *want* that traffic on my network, we have work to deal with.

Given my needs, and what I do about it, it's easy to see how it's *possible* your ISP, or the routers in the path to the game servers you're forced to use, have prioritization issues that just might cause the spiking, LCTM, and popping.

*If* that's the case... and I kind of suspect this has to be it... then of course, NCSoft can't control that. They have no real choice but to say "it's your ISP or the chain of routers somewhere." They also have no choice but to throw it back to you. They cannot possibly be held responsible for investigating why one person in one location on a certain ISP can't get in right. That would just be too costly and time consuming once you multiply that out to all of the problem areas.

Before any mention of (the game what's name shall not be mentioned) is made, and how "it doesn't have this issue, so Co* shouldn't!" (which seems to be the most popular argument about this and other issues...) let me say this: Co* = <300K users. (the game what's name shall not be mentioned) = >10M users. The squeaky wheel would get the oil... and their ports, or their server IPs, get bumped up to prevent the issue, because woe be the ISP that doesn't allow (you know what) to be flawlessly dealt with.

That and it's likely (you know what) isn't sending NEAR as much information as Co* is regarding body parts. Ragdoll dontcha know. That info is a lot more data on top of the situation, so the prioritization affects it even more than if it were a simpler amount of data.

If *all that* were even remotely close (because it's a theory, mind) It's no wonder that during a Rikti Raid, some of you guys and gals get messed up. Imagine if all the things those grav 'trollers toss about were also synched? Everyone saw a pool table, instead of the various different things? And their positional info? During a raid? Yeesh... Bad enough we have to deal with what we have to already, ya ask me... Unless you would like the ragdoll/positional stuff turned off to save data 'space' on the packets...

(Hey, there's an idea... Nah, that'd be complicated to figure out and implement... But who knows... they said that about Power Customization, and here comes I-16...)

Again, I don't know if I'm remotely close. I highly suspect that I am. Heck, there's a chance I smacked that teeny little finishing nail dead straight and centered with a gigantic 3 mile wide hammer. Although that's probably pushing it... maybe a 2.7634 mile wide one.

In any case, this has been going on for *years*. After everything else I've seen regarding this, and especially a certain case in Alaska (where it was emphatically proven to be the 4th or 5th router in the chain causing them to be sent to Japan or something on the way to SoCal) the only conclusion is this:

It's IS your ISP. I know you don't like that answer. People who take their car to a mechanic don't like hearing it's the transmission and it needs replacing. People who go to a doctor don't like the answer of "we'll have to operate." These answers suck, but they are the right answers, regardless.

It is your ISP, because *somewhere* in the entire house of cards that is the chain of boxes, wires, and circuits between your computer and the game servers is the issue. A router that's having a bad hair day, a circuit that has spilled spaghetti sauce on it's shirt, a cable that got a flat tire, someone spilled beer on the server (probably Pinnacle)... It's amazing it works at all, really.

However, I also blame NCSoft. For using weird ports, first, and secondly, for daring to have such a complicated program that has such high data needs. There is probably a good set of reasons they did this (like, it's more realistic to have ragdolls than not, for example, so they added that to the data transmission needs.)

So. Now what? Well, you have some choices to deal with:

1) Work the problem. You can't do anything about the data or the ports. So figure out where in the chain of routers your issue might be. And then work with both your ISP and NCSoft and get them to figure it out, and like the Alaska case, it was. (This took a month, btw, before he got it done, but his ISP fixed it like the proper ISP they should be. They changed their backbone *supplier*, if I remember right. Be like you changing from Cable to DSL and fixing things. How's that for an ISP?)

2) Change your ISP. This one rankles so many, I know. I have Comcast Cable Internet in Houston. I will not have it taken away easily. It works, I *rarely* have issues, and I attribute that to the awesome that is Comcast. A good router system such as apparently I have is the backbone to Co* working. That is why I'll not likely leave anytime soon. But if they did have issues, I would jump to UVerse, or DSL, or whatever lets Co* work right. I'd first attempt to find the problem, but if I couldn't or I found it and they wouldn't fix it, I'd be cancelling things and telling them why. Of course, there's no guarantees you can ever find an ISP that will work well with Co*, depending on your situation... in which case you're kinda left with either...

3) Give up, and cancel your accounts. I hate this choice, because I just can't quit Co*, but if that's what you have to do, then that's what you have to do. It's not likely that Co* is going to change it's ports, or reduce it's data needs.

or

4) Put up with it. You're a trooper. 'Nuff said. This'd likely be me... maybe. I don't know, I've not had to deal with it.

I don't know if that helps or not. But I'm posting it anyway, in the hopes that it maybe, just maybe, helps explain the situation... or maybe a Dev will show up and go "you suck, houtex, completely wrong." Either way, something good might come up from this.

That, and I was up at 4am (WAY before I should have been) with a splitting sinus headache and couldn't sleep, so there's that... ow...

---

I just realized, Co* is the ultimate testing program. Seriously. I will now use it to diagnose internet issues, as until I thought about this lag/disconnect issue... it never occurred to me that Co* could be used in this way. But now it's obvious: Not only does Co* kill unworthy computers, it will show unworthy ISPs and/or their router chains. Nice!

Yeah, but it did finally let go of Luke, but only to have the compactor

Just came in to say I have 3 forum handles picked out, no issues with anything gettin' lost, and 'IN' for the Superbrawl. See y'all there, if ya need tech stuff.

*skips to end to say...*

Please do not pick me at all. I don't want in Closed Beta for I-16. I do not want to attempt to try things to make sure that the game is solid. I do not want to be helpful to the devs at all. I see no point in being picked for this silliness when it will not be very much long after Closed Beta that Open Beta, and then Live happens, and then I'll get to see what things look like. No sir/madam, I'm a happy camper to await Live on this. Really, I am. Thanks, but no thanks, I'm good.

/Not real sure that reverse psychology stuff works, but hey, I'll try anything once.

Pretty much what Kitsune said there...

Specs:
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...cs.htm#1084976

In particular, you have a single core P4 3.0G, which isn't bad... but a dual core would be better. That would require a whole new computer, really, to get.

You have 512 MB memory... I am frankly *amazed* you don't crash straight to the desktop. Just for that, the computer's a keeper for other things! But if you want to keep it, 4G of memory for it is rather cheap and would resolve one of the problems you're having... that of memory swappage to hard drive. Get two of these kits, perhaps, although one kit would give you 2GB memory, which will do wonders:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820141308

Finally the video card. Well, the problem is you have a 250W power supply, and it's likely a Dell only one. This precluded you from a LOT of video cards from that standpoint alone. Most of the video cards we'd recommend want a 500W power supply. Not many power supplies will fit a Dell due to WIRING, not mounting. They *look* the same, but you will kill a motherboard putting in a standard ATX power supply, don't do it. OCZ bought PC Power and Cooling, who made Dell compatible higher wattage power supplies... and they be rather 'spensive.

The other limitation is the AGP form factor for video card. Not many AGP cars in Nvidia to choose from... even less with the power issue. There's a few ATIs, but they have their issues, and the power thing is still limiting. Matter of fact, since I only spec NVidia and don't bother with any other vendors, I can't find anything available at newegg.com that would fit the bill, due to the power issue.

Perhaps someone will come in and recommend an ATI card, if you wanted to put up with that. Me, I think I'd be saving my pennies up for a new box. However, if you're happy with the graphics, then the memory is really going to help a lot.

Having said all that, that doesn't mean that your spiffy new internet connection isn't the problem. You said you had to swap the modem, and that's when the stuff started being a problem, right? So... sounds like a bad modem? Maybe you need to get another one? Or did I read that wrong?

/Aloha, bruddah! *shakes shaka*

Ditto the new posts thing.

re: not making new rules...
If it weren't for recent events, I'd agree, the rules are the rules. But there's been a few like this where the ever so patient (and probably distracted by real life... damn them...) potential Co* victi...er, gamer did wait 3, 4, 5 days, and then did the bump.

I even grok the 24 hours thing. Kinda like checking back to see if they were "just gonna call you" about whatever it was.

So I dunno what the real deal should be. Just hate to see a person 'suffering' (as it is a game, but there's mental issues sometimes with not being able to do something) to be slapped down because they had the gall to say 'anyone?'

Well. There ya go. I leave it up to others I suppose. I won't be enforcing the bump, I'll just do what I can to help and go on with things.

*sigh*

Must I? Really? Oh, all right, fine.

No man is sexy. There. I said it. Matter of fact, all men are pigs, ya ask me, and not just in looks.

But even I will succumb to the allure that is a forum meme... and there it was, ripe for the taking. Sue me.

/I believe we've well and done sabotaged the OP's thread. Sorry 'bout that Quinch.
//oink.