PW Player Troubleshooting Problems

Troubleshooting For Players – Or im crashing what do i do.
This post often is related to crashing by the players.

First of all what is a crash and what is a disconnect.

A disconnect is when you disconnect form the server, and you drop back to the main menu, or if you seem to lock up, when you wait long enough you eventually drop back to the main menu. The number lock key still working is a good sign this is the case. This could be an issue with the server, the internet, or heavy activity, but is not a crash.

A crash on the other hand will either result in your system seeming to lock up (You cannot turn number lock on or off), the game will shut down with no error message, the game will shut down and display a Microsoft error message, or your computer may reboot (this is usually a video card or direct X issue).

Please report crashes that you experience in http://www.dungeoneternal.com/phpBB2/ftopic7332.php ( a thread on your PW or other offical thread ??? ) to allow obsidian to get enough information to correct the situation.

Many times if you are crashing, or disconnecting even, this is caused by the servers 2da files, PWC or other resources not being the same version as what are on your client computer you can Reset your player folder. To ensure nothing is wrong this technique will get rid of anything that is not supposed to be there (Assuming everything you've done has been in this folder, double check your override folder in your main program folder to ensure it is empty as well.)

Reset your Player folder. Go to your “My Documents” Folder or equivalent. Inside you will see a “Neverwinter Nights 2” folder. You can rename it ( for example “Old NWN Folder” or just delete it. After you do this start up the game and you will get a brand new clean “Neverwinter Nights 2” Folder. Run the updater for your world and you now have a clean play folder, doing this is a good idea whenever you start with a new PW-just rename folders so you can have one for each world, and if they install things it won't mess anything up for you on other worlds this way. (Your save game files, and ini setting for your interface (ui/custom/ and it's an ini file) are in this folder, and can be transfered out)

Crashing
[list]
 * Crashing while transition or logging in
 * Corrupted Hotbar – Turn off your hotbars in options- interface and uncheck all 4 ( Arcane Scholars do this a lot ) If crashing stops, ask your dm to delete the hotbar nodes from your character file, play without hotbars, or create a new character.


 * Crashing while logging in
 * Corrupted character files – Try a different character to test, or create one. Inspect file to see if it is extremely large (DM or other means). Check and see if entire server crashed if you isolate to a single character, and if so contact a DM.


 * Crashing While Idle, Random Crashes
 * This can be caused by another player having one of these issues. Just double check that you are not the cause, check your files are up to date.


 * Crashing Entire OS / Video Card Issues
 * This is usually related to your video driver, make sure it is up to date. The ATI Catalysts driver (7.10 released on Oct 11) seems to have made things better for a lot of people


 * Disable AGP fastwrite. You can turn it off in your BIOS. If that option is not in your BIOS, Nvidia video card owners can download an application that does it for you here
 * http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=4432


 * Dual Core Crashes
 * Neverwinter is designed for single core, and dual cores report more crashes
 * But you can avoid this by setting the “affinity” to just a single core.
 * Start the game and then hit CTRL-ALT-DEL which brings up the task manager. Right click the nwn2main.exe process, then hit “Set Affinity...”
 * Then set the affinity to run on only one core by unchecking one of the boxes.
 * (There is a dual core hot fix, that helps some timing issues for XP running SP2, something about the power manager being incorrect... http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896256 )


 * Familiar Crashes Transition only when you control your character, possessing a familar or similar can cause a crash.

[quote]While playing on the Legends of Arcadia( www.legendsofarcadia.com ) server I started experiencing transition crashes. I didn't know what the problem was. I tried all the solutions on the Self-Help but none of the solutions there helped. Finally, the quarterstaff I was carrying I noticed had a flaming spell effect on it. From which spell I'm not sure, however once I sold the quarterstaff my transition crashes ended. I then purchased a new quarterstaff to see if it was the item itself or the VFX of the spell. The new quarterstaff did not cause any transition problems. I suspect it was the VFX on the weapon that was causing the problem. Also, the spell's effects on the quarterstaff seemed to last for several days and between server reboots and crashes. [/quote]
 * Transition Crash While VFX on Weapon is visible.


 * Turn Off Party AI Turn off party AI before transitioning is said to improve stability.


 * Lower Your Sound Settings
 * Completely turn off sound in your game, either to trouble shoot or just gain some performance.
 * [Sound Options]
 * DisableSound=1


 * Turn Off Movies
 * And if you crash too often, save yourself some time
 * [Display Options]
 * Disable Intro Movies=1

Reporting Crashes

 * There is an error log saved in your program directory.


 * To get detailed info on your system you can use DXDiag
 * To get your DXDiag you can go to Start -> Run and type in "DXDiag" (without the quotes) and press enter. A window will appear, after loading all your system information you can click "Save all information" and choose a location to store the text file. You may then attach it to your post.