Playonline not starting and causing heavy background CPU load

[Sirmarki]

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

[Lynh]

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.

[Dawnfire]

I'm also having the same problem but mine started on Friday. I was able to get logged in and stayed logged in all weekend but this morning I had to reboot PC and ever since then I have not been able to get POL to launch.

Running Windows 7.

[Lewyo]

I have this problem as well, Once i start POL the cpu usage goes up to 99%
This only started to happen today
My O/S is Windows 7

[Lynh]

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.

[Dawnfire]

Thank you Lynh!! That worked like a charm.

[Sirmarki]

The Registry key that I edited is:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > Local Settings > Software > Microsoft > Windows > GameUX > ServiceLocation > Games

I was just about to post a work around but your post beats it hands down

Fantastic work

100% Fixed! Thank you!

PS: I'm guessing that website has been closed down or is having issues. The software (In my case rundll32) then decided to go into an infinite loop because it wasn't getting the response it needed.

[Haldarn]

Thank you very much for this Lynh!

[Sirmarki]

Maybe we need an official patch to this? (I know its a windows related issue).

I believe there are many people suffering the consequences of this and overheating their systems, that and don't know how/want to mess with the system registry.