Playonline not starting and causing heavy background CPU load
Details:
Clicking on the PlayOnline icon produces a spinning circle cursor, which then stops 3 seconds later, same with the FFXI desktop icon. Rundll32 in Task Manager then starts to climb to ~80 in terms of CPU usage, the Playonline process is also running . If I start POL again, it will load to the menu this time, but CPU load is now at 100% and everything slows to a crawl.
Steps:
1. Uninstalled FFXI/POL and reinstalled.
2. System file check
3. Graphics card drivers up-to-date.
Date & Time:
17/06/19
Frequency:
1. Always
Platform:
PC
PC Manufacturer & Model Number:
Own build: AMD A8-5600k/Radeon HD Graphics 3.60ghz, 8GB RAM.
Operating System:
Windows 7, 64 bit Home Edition.
Graphics Card:
AMD Radeon HD 7560D
ISP:
VM
Type of Internet Connection:
Fibre Optic
Same / similar problem that seems to have started just today 6/17/2019
Hi Sirmarki,
I seem to have a similar problem that just started for me today (6/17/2019). The game/application was fine last night, but this morning, launching POL (1 instance), the cpu shoots to 100% usage. 1st launch does nothing but has a spinning loading icon. 2nd launch launches the application and I can log in, but cpu is too high at this point which causes lots of choppiness making the game unplayable. This is done on a fresh PC reboot with very little other applications opened.
I'm also on Windows 7 like you.
This fixed it for me, but try at your own risk, discretion.
Hi Sirmarki, Dawnfire,
My brother and I did some Googling and came across these 2 posts that seem likely be the issue for Windows 7 (not sure if more current versions of Windows are affected):
https://social.technet.microsoft.com...w7itprogeneral
https://superuser.com/questions/8051...the-first-time
They talk about Window's gameux.dll being problematic for some older games, but I'm not sure why the problem happened suddenly and recently for me.
I followed one of the suggestions, specifically editing the Registry key one, which fixed my issue. I'm able to launch/run the game with no choppiness, and my cpu usage is no longer at 100%. Let me warn though, that editing the Registry may be risky/dangerous if you're not too familiar with it. Just throwing this out there in case you want to try it, or it may be safer to wait for an official fix/suggestion from FFXI's developers.
The Registry key that I edited is:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > Local Settings > Software > Microsoft > Windows > GameUX > ServiceLocation > Games
I doubled clicked on "Games" and made its Value data empty (in essence removing the "https://games.metaservices.microsoft.com/games/SGamesWebService.asmx" value that it had.