Zoning/PS2/3 Freeze Issues

[Baccanale]

Greetings, Gropitou!
Upon further review of the information that you have provided regarding your concerns with your game freezing, it does seem that the matter may need to be reviewed, so I will make sure to move this thread from "Technical Support" to "In-Game Bugs, " just in case. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused. Thanks for your patience!

[Baccanale]

Greetings again, Gropitou!
Thank you for posting your concerns about your system freezing. I can understand how greatly frustrating this matter has been for you, so I made sure to submit your information to the development team for a thorough investigation. I recommend checking on this thread for any information on the investigation. I also suggest consulting www.PlayOnline.com for any further developments, just in case. Thanks again for your report!

[Baccanale]

Greetings again, Gropitou!
Thanks for your patience with waiting for a response. After a thorough investigation, the development team determined this matter to be a technical issue, so I have made sure to move this thread from "In-Game Bugs" to "Technical Support," just to make sure that your report is properly addressed. Thanks again for your patience!

[Apocalypse]

that happen to me on my PS3.. zone into abyssea misar and vunk once every like 5 zone it freeze / black screen and it annoy me like hell lol

[Nadeu]

Gropitou,

We can offer a few suggestions if you are experiencing any of the following:
• Have difficulty connecting to or staying connected to the PlayOnline Viewer or FINAL FANTASY XI
• Crash, receive a black screen error, or get stuck at the downloading data screen upon clicking your character handle or character select button
• See your the lag meter turn red
• Encounter increased lag or connection problems near crowed areas
• Have trouble accessing specific zone(s)
• Have trouble logging in with specific character(s)
• Receive any of these errors: 3113, 3100, 4001, 1160

Suggestions:
10. Check to make sure you have properly configured or turned off any of the following: Routers, Proxy Servers, NAT Servers, Internet Connection Sharing services.
11. If you are using any kind of software/hardware Internet Sharing service/device the following ports need INCOMING access to your PC: TCP 1024 - 65535, UDP 53, and 50000 - 65535. Also, check to make sure that the ports mentioned are not blocked by your ISP for INCOMING access. Proper configuration of any of the above items mentioned should be done by following the instructions in the software/hardware manual or calling the manufacturer's technical support.
12. If you are using a router, and have configured that router for port forwarding, temporarily bypass that router and connect directly to the modem.

Please take note of the following:
• Proxy servers, and satellite connections are not supported and do not work correctly with FINAL FANTASY XI.
• Your router may require that you use a PC to configure your network settings. For more information about how to configure your network settings, please refer to the instruction manual that came with your router or contact the manufacturer directly.
• If your Internet Service Provider (ISP) specifies a DNS server, you need to make sure to configure your settings to allow packets to pass through UDP Port 53 as well. For more information, please refer to the instruction manual for your router or the information provided by your ISP.

[Gropitou]

Nadeu,

All the suggestions you have put forward have been tried and failed. My problem is not with the game in general or with internet connections, my (all most PS2/3 users) problem is with specific areas inside the game that cause either intermittent or full time problems.

For a long time, the Whitegate NPC selling coins used to cause a freeze everytime we started the dialogue, this was so widespread a fix was done and publicize and that situation was permanently resolved.

Now my/our problem is zoning thru a Cavernous Maw or Runic Portal. Nearly 50% or more of the time, once the animation begins we either stay frozen in it or the screen goes black. Similar zoning problems occur when going into past Windy while doing WotG missions where the CS occurs in that zoning effect. Since this problem is very specific to the zoning process in very specific locations, how about looking at your code and seeing how it is different there versus all the other areas of the game where no problems currently are reported occurring, this may offer some insight.

[Legomike]

i see we are no closer to having this get fixed then before. froze x2 on echo awakens and i believe more and more npcs are starting to freeze

[Untergang1987]

I have personally experienced the following issues with the following NPCs:

Outpost NPC in Bastok Mines (forget his name) - Begin chat to OP warp and can take 2-10 minutes to finally give me the OP menu

Chocobo NPCs in Bastok Mines (all 3) - Same issue as OP NPC but I have actually sat stuck on 1 of them for 7 hours straight with no option to actually ride a chocobo, ended up resetting my PS2 and haven't ridden a chocobo in Bastok since as I always have the same problem

Luto Mewrilah in Upper Jeuno - Went to start an Adventuring Fellow quest and was stuck for around 10 minutes before the submenu options finally appeared

Einherjar CS NPC in Nashmau (forget his name) - Every time I go to do the initial Einherjar CS it gets a few lines in then black screens, have yet to be able to buy anything with all my ampules.

That's all the NPCs I remember getting stuck or freezing on since this problem first hit me last summer, and like Legomike I've noticed more and more seem to suddenly start doing so (initially it was only the Bastok OP NPC). I've also heard about the freezing in Aht Urghan in the past, something I haven't personally experienced but my ex-girlfriend did on our old PC. Luckily I've had no issues with Maws or Runic Portals but having already lost access to chocobos and the ability to spend my ampules from Einherjar, this problem has already gotten far out of hand. I feel I should also note that since this problem began I have reinstalled the game on my PS2 on 3 seperate occassions, used my character on other people's connections in different locations, and even purchased a new PS2 thinking that may be the cause of the problem, so the problem is most definitely SE and not our platforms/connections.

[finiteHP]

I've been having the black screen freezes when I enter or exit Abyssea areas too. I have also noticed that I get black screen freezes in cutscenes as well. I play FFXI on a 60GB PS3. One of the specific ones I get is the first cutscene in the Optistery for Windurst mission 7-1 The Sixth Ministry. The cutscene freezes when the view switches from Heaven's Tower to Toraimarai Canal. I have to restart the game to get out of the freeze. When I come back in I have the key item from the cutscene and the game acts like I have seen the whole cutscene. Viewing the scene from the scene replaying npc causes a freeze at the exact same spot. Another freeze is at the end of Aht Urhgan mission 31 Shades of Vengeance. I get a black screen freeze as the cutscene ends. Restarting the game puts me right back into cutscene meaning that I can not continue on with the game.

[Sarick]

Gropitou,

We can offer a few suggestions if you are experiencing any of the following:
• Have difficulty connecting to or staying connected to the PlayOnline Viewer or FINAL FANTASY XI
• Crash, receive a black screen error, or get stuck at the downloading data screen upon clicking your character handle or character select button~~~~~~

Nadeu, hello..

I've already explained the cause of the PS2 black screens in CS's. If you truly can contact the developers directly ask them this. If you increase the size of the client features does this not consume more resources? With this knowledge do you think maybe that the extra features added are consuming memory resources that are conflicting with older cut scenes that worked perfectly in the past? I would assume that by the extra data being loaded in the game engine older large cut scenes can no longer LOAD fully with the finite memory resources available to the consoles. This is not a connection issue if the game stops receiving after it's already crashed AKA BSOD. (black screen of death) It wouldn't matter if the client had a direct ethernet connection to the server the system would still crash or lock up.

Tell them to please check the resources when loading those CS with the PS2 DEV KIT.

It's like a bag that holds four regular hamburgers and two drinks. If those hamburgers start getting cheese, bacon, tomato, lettuce, onions and pickles the two drinks can no longer fit in the bag without ripping it.

With the broad range of cut scenes crashing it's apparent that the problem is getting worse as more cut scenes are being affected after each update.

Not sure about the ones below >>

When entering maws and zoning with PS3s this issue is probability a result of memory violations also where the system isn't able to fully load the next zone and the download is halted. (Not a connection issue if the game stops receiving because it's already crashed.)

No idea what could be causing the NPC's to halt unless they are stuck in a loop.