Missing Something: UI Not Working

greyfin10 · #1 09-11-2007, 06:35 PM

I'm currently unable to load custom UIs. I've followed several threads here and on the Sony boards regarding EQ.INI settings, Custom file locations, etc, and it "seems" like I have everything right. I'm wondering if it has to do with how I reinstalled EQ2 on my machine. I had deleted all the files previously and had moved my girlfriends copy across the network onto my machine. This caused all sorts of havoc at first, but finally I got the game to load up and was able to play.

Unfortunately, my Profit18 interface that I'd been very happy with no longer seemed to work (she runs the same ui successfully on her machine currently). I blew that away and tried Profit Reborn with no better success. Here's the basics of what I do have:

Folder is created in C:\Program Files\Sony\Everquest II\UI\ProfitUI
EQ2.INI file reads:
cl_ui_skinname ProfitUI
cl_ui_subdir UI/

When I logged into a toon after blowing that characters UI ini file away, it offered to use the ProfitUI 1280x1024... I accepted thinking I'd gotten it to work. Unfortunately, what actually rendered was the default UI.

Another issue I had was I'm now having to run EQ2 as Administrator (this is XP Pro not Vista btw). If I try and run it as my local account (who is actually in the administrators group ironically) it fails when the patcher completes. Could this be effecting the UI? Has anyone seen this before? This might NOT be UI related at all, but I thought I'd ask. I'm going to post a similar question on the Sony boards to see if anyone has any ideas there.

Thanks for reading this... if I've left any vital details out (and I'm sure I have) let me know.

**gm9** · #2 09-11-2007, 06:39 PM

Does typing /loadui in game bring up a window that lists Default and ProfitUI? If it doesn't you installed in the wrong path.

greyfin10 · #3 09-11-2007, 06:52 PM

It does not... /loadui only shows the default UI. Could there be a problem with Path resolution? For that matter, would it accept an absolute path? I assume you are referring to the path in eq.ini. Is there anywhere else where you "register" the path to the UI files?

**Landiin** · #4 09-11-2007, 09:14 PM

Do you have a directory in C:\Program Files\Sony\EverQuest II\ that looks something like LP_REGION_XX_XX? If so that is the directory you need to extract ProfitUI into.

greyfin10 · #5 09-11-2007, 11:13 PM

No, but thanks for the thought. This is a standard American version of Everquest. Unless there's a moving part that effects success other than the custom ui directory and the eq2.ini, I'm leaning towards this being some weird file permissions problem.

**gm9** · #6 09-12-2007, 03:44 AM

Assuming that the necessary files are in that ProfitUI folder, it still sounds like you are running the wrong EQ2 installation.

Try running the everquest2.exe in that C:\Program Files\Sony\EverQuest II\ folder and see what happens.

greyfin10 · #7 09-12-2007, 07:47 AM

Same behavior in regards to /loadui when I run everquest2.exe directly from the directory. I'm getting pretty confident that this isn't directly an interface issue, but that something deeper is messed up in my install. Thanks a bunch for all the suggestions though.

**gm9** · #8 09-12-2007, 07:51 AM

Maybe an NTFS permissions thing? You said you have to patch as administrator, i.e. the administrator apparently has exclusive access to the files. Maybe permissions for the ProfitUI subfolder do not include the account you use to run eq2?

ShadowProwler420 · #9 09-12-2007, 09:34 AM

I'm thinking all your problems are stemming from how you got the game onto your machine (copied all the files from one machine to another over a network instead of going through a true 'installation' with the discs).

By doing it this way, I believe some key entries were not written to the registry, thus causing the game to function improperly.

So I would suggest doing a clean reinstallation of the game using the discs then load your custom UI back on and see if your problem remains.

**Landiin** · #10 09-12-2007, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShadowProwler420

I'm thinking all your problems are stemming from how you got the game onto your machine (copied all the files from one machine to another over a network instead of going through a true 'installation' with the discs).

By doing it this way, I believe some key entries were not written to the registry, thus causing the game to function improperly.

So I would suggest doing a clean reinstallation of the game using the discs then load your custom UI back on and see if your problem remains.

You can do that with out any issues as I have EQ2 on 3 comps and have only used the install CD's on one. When you run the patcher/launch pad I assume it reads the systems %programfiles% dir and installs it there. Mine always puts it in Program Files\Sony\EverQuest II.

greyfin10 do a file search of your hard drive for everquest2.exe and see how many results it returns. If more then one look at the paths to each one. Then go from there. ShadowProwler420 is correct in some aspects; If you copied it to you hard drive doesn't mean thats where it is going to patch too.

greyfin10 · #11 09-12-2007, 05:46 PM

Well, I had an old copy of my original files that I never knew about on D:/, but the latest file in that directory was from May. Other than that, there's a copy of Everquest2.exe in my Test subdirectory and nothing else. I'm assuming the Test copy is normal (although I mention it in case its not).

greyfin10 · #12 09-16-2007, 10:19 AM

UPDATE:

This was at least two seperate issues. I finally made some progress by moving the application to another drive. I actually uninstalled and and reinstalled to the same drive/directory first; words cannot describe how angry SOE's patcher makes me. The end result of THAT was the same exact situation... had to run as administrator, and custom UIs were completely ignored.

When I gave that up, I simply re-copied all the files from my girlfriend's machine again, though fior some reason I copied them to my D:/ drive this time. I then installed the UI files, revisited and tweaked the NTFS permissions, and it suddenly worked. Not only did the interfaces start working, but my previous crippled install would always re-download files (about 15 minutes worth) every time I played. Now it immediately plays (assuming no patch).

I said above that it was two seperate issues because, even though the files are being recognized now, I am still being forced to run this as Administrator, even though my normal account is in the Administrator's group. So those two issues appear to be unrelated.

My assumption is that there was some sort of disk corruption on my C:\ drive that the patcher was SO sensitive to that it failed to work. Honestly, for a collection of software as profitable as SOE's stable of games, I'm surprised that their patcher is as brittle as it is. But whatever, it is working now, and it was apparently hardware related somehow.

I wanted to post the end result since everyone has been so helpful here. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

**gm9** · #13 09-16-2007, 10:41 AM

Glad to hear it works now. The thing about needing to use the admin account, if you fixed the NTFS permissions now, is probably because you installed the patcher it under the admin account, so it does not find it's registry entries?

The patcher is actually quite sturdy, but if you use it to update several installations like I do (I have one for every language + Test), it helps to know its command line options. You can get them from the EverQuest2Patch.log files it creates.

E.g. for my japanese installation I would use the following:

D:\Sony\Station\Launchpad\LaunchPad.exe /nopatch /multiple "/gamepatchpath:E:\EverQuest II JP" /env:jpmain /lang:ja_JP /game:eq2 /restarted

The bolded part is where I want it to patch to on my system, i.e. the EQ2 folder, the other parts define the language. Might be useful to you if you ever move your installation to another computer/drive again.