Freelancer Not Starting At All Help

Malevolent_Sponge wrote:

This problem only started to happen about 3 weeks ago.
I got problems when ever i logged on like “User Account failed to log on” etc i went searching on the net and tried to find a solution. One day it jus got real bad and it refused to log on at all. So i went onto another account and looked for a solution and the only real easy way out was to delete the account and make a new one. So i jus went ahead and retrieved all my documents through the other account and put them onto a new account. I havent had any account problems and so on all programs work fine except for Freelancer which doesnt start at all.

Maybe try to think very hard what have changed when this start.
You say that you use the pc from your parents, ask mom or dad what they have changed on it.

Did you already try to start in compatible modus to?

This definately sounds like the accounts folder is screwed up.

I note that you mention having freelancer previously installed on a different windows user account, the answer to your problem probably lies there, perhaps the accounts folder still exists on the other account and that’s killing the game on launch.

If all else fails, backup all your data and recover your windows installation, your os might be more screwed up than you know if you have a dead user account, stinks of a trojan to me.

It is difficult to help you with this one, MS, but the only thing that stands out is a possible rights issue. Files installed in one user profile (ie, desktop) may not be accessible by another – not even to delete or uninstall. It is best to keep programs in the Programs folder for this reason.

For the future, I would recommend a different approach to debugging. Try making one change at a time, keep notes of your changes, and take frequent backups. Try to avoid making a confusing mess out of your computer by changing many different things at one time.

I’m not picking on you – I have been there and done that, too, once upon a time. Experience teaches you quickly to be more methodical.

By the way, when I say that you should “run installers as Admin”, I do not mean being logged in to an Admin account. I mean using one of these methods:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11841-run-administrator.html

Unfortunately, if others use the same computer for work, then the best advice would be to stop messing with it. That goes double for the Registry. I know that is not what you want to hear, but it sounds as though you are the Administrator for this machine, which means that you have a responsibility to the other users. Consider how much trouble could be caused for your users if the computer were to suddenly become inoperable… before you have all of their software and data backed up?

Regarding the ChkDsk experience, that only means that files were open when the computer crashed. If you terminated Freelancer (or Windows) with Ctrl+Alt+Del, then that could cause ChkDsk to have to clean up failed entries. NTFS does a pretty good job of keeping your disk safe, short of a hardware failure. If ChkDisk runs repeatedly, then it could be sign of a failing disk drive. Otherwise, if ChkDisk only runs after you terminate a running program, then it is usually not a problem.

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We hate to lose you pal.

I’ll bet that if I come over I’ll find you still have the \My Documents\My Games\Freelancer\Accts folder somewhere on that machine!

But it will cost you:-

1 full day travel and pay @ £300
1 return taxi fare from my house to the nearest rail station
1 return rail ticket to your home town from my home town
1 return taxi fare from your rail station to your house
2 mugs of tea
1 evening meal if it’s after 5pm

You’re looking at around £550!

So instead….

Do the following 10 steps, step by step by painful step, and report back with details and screenshots if you have any problem…

1. Log in on each computer user account, go to My documents and delete the whole My Games folder on all of the computer accounts.

2. Try very hard (i.e. repeatedly, don’t give up on the first failure, try at least 3 times!) to uninstall Freelancer from Control Panel. If it does, great. If it doesn’t don’t worry, if you get the option to remove it from the list of programs then do that.

3. Delete all of your Freelancer folders manually. Be SURE that each and every one is deleted!

4. Open an Explorer and right-click on your drive, and search for “Freelancer”. If any are found, go find and delete all those folders too. You may not be able to do so unless you are logged into the account that created them! So be sure they are deleted!

5. Do the same for all other disk partitions (D:, E:, F: etc) if you have them.

Don’t worry about the registry, leave it alone.

4. Log into the account you want to run Freelancer in.

5. Ensure you are not connected to the Internet, and disable MS Security Essentials if you have them, and disable any anti-virus programs, especially if it’s Symantec or Macafee, (AVG and AntiVir and Avast are usually OK).

6. Install Freelancer. It cannot refuse to install unless your CD is corrupt or you don’t have rights!

7. Copy the entire Freelancer folder (with it in the right Explorer panel, click on it to select it, press Ctrl-C then Ctrl-V), and leave it alone for future use.

8. Start Freelancer and run the SP game for a while

9. Apply the GLS Workaround patch to your Freelancer folder.

10. Start your Internet connection, start an MP game, note your account ID, and see if you get the list of servers. Let us know!

There is another way - give someone here who has Windows 7 Remote Access to your computer for a while to sniff around and try to find your problem.

Good luck pal.

ST pretty much summed it up on this one. If you still can’t get it to work, get Teamviewer, someone can probably help you that way.

Freelancer works on windows7, I can vouch for that because I’m using it, it’s not the reason for your problem.

Nice post, StarTrader!

Note: (6) Install AS ADMINISTRATOR and install INTO THE Programs FOLDER (both for Win7 and Vista – for XP they do not matter).

@Malevolent_Sponge: Don’t take me wrong, I do not mean to discourage you. Many people run Freelancer on Win7. I am just suggesting a more methodical approach… such as StarTrader’s.

Good luck!

Malevolent_Sponge wrote:
it not a problem with installing or running the game. The problem is initiating the game it’s like the game application is refusing to start.

Right. So the question is, why won’t the game start?

There are many things that will cause Freelancer to crash, but the vanilla game is usually pretty reliable about starting from a clean installation with no saved games.

Common causes for Freelancer to crash:

[olist]

• Bad Saved Game (including Restart.fl)
• Improperly (or incompletely) installed mod
• Mod with ENB Shader on systems that will not run it
• Vista/Win7: Rights issues caused by non-Admin installation.
  [/olist]

The last point is more commonly associated with FLMM than with Freelancer, but your initial post showed Freelancer installed on the Desktop. The Desktop is in your profile, which has very different rights than the Programs folder.

So a clean installation, from the CD, into a folder where you have proper rights, with no interfering saved games… that combination should work.

The fact that does not work for you suggests that either your installation or your saved games are causing trouble.

As for following instructions, remember that we cannot see your computer. We may ask you to do something redundant just to make sure that we understand the state of your computer before a next step. As you say, something you did was not correct, so starting from the beginning is the best way for us to help you to make it right again.

Dont’ panic – You are getting good advice in this thread.

PS: You do not have to delete the entire My Games folder. You can delete My Games\Freelancer.

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I tell you what you could try, click start and type freelancer in the search box, if you have a saved game folder hiding on another account that may well find it. It should show you any folder existing on the machine under that name.

If you see any after you have uninstalled freelancer and FLMM then delete them all.

Yes Mal, very frustrating, and the best thing is if someone here who has WIndows 7 experience can connect to your machine via Remote assistance connection and take a direct look at the machine and folders.

Can anyone do this for Malevolent Sponge?

Heheheh - that’s a mouthful to type!

I sent him a PM but have not heard back from him.

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But please let us know the solution, this is a very curious problem.

We gave the system a thorough review and this problem does not appear to be any of the normal Freelancer CTD scenarios.

Rights are good, no saved games anywhere, nothing obviously wrong about the installation, no files quarantined by the A/V, and turning off A/V makes no difference (McAfee).

When double-clicked, FL runs for a few seconds, errors, and quits.

There are Event Log entries every time that FL quits, but they just say EventID 1000 in Freelancer.exe at 00000000.

That suggests to me that Freelancer is not running at all.

Clues:

1. Registry entries linking GameUX with Freelancer. That is the Game Explorer. I have seen reports that the Game Explorer can interfere with games if it is allowed to collect information about games. Some users report that telling Game Explorer to stop collecting information about games has allowed some games to run.

2. Registry values referring to C07ft5v. I have seen that before, and tracked it down, but it was years ago and I do not recall what does that – some security software, IIRC. Of course, Google and other search engines show no hits for it, but I know they are lying. What other search term can you enter into Google and get zero hits?

3. Malevolent_Sponge traced the first date of failure to a day when he created a new user profile. Nothing obviously wrong with either profile. However, I found THREE user profiles rather than the two that he knew about. We were just about to investigate the third profile and check FLSpew.txt when our connection failed.

Other than Freelancer, the PC is running fine.

So my best suggestions, at this point, are to fix Game Explorer (above) and to make sure that third profile is not causing any trouble.

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Oh dear!

That’s disheartening. If nothing else is found soon then it would be a Windows re-install next.

If you need to do that it would be a good idea to partition the hard disk if it’s not already done, and move your user data to the or E: disk first to save it.

And make a system image of the clean install before loading any games, just only install your Office and whatever you will always need on it, then make the image of the disk, it’s worth the extra 20 minutes needed to make it (make the bootable CD first).

Here’s a reminder link for the system image:
http://forums.seriouszone.com/showthread.php?55706