Launcher issue: "A system error has occurred: -2146697208"

[Luteypie]

I installed the game on this computer tonight. It worked fine, I launched it and everything, patched and launched into the actual game just fine, then I accidentally clicked the wrong Service Account when it asked me which one to use and it said it couldn't use it so it closed the game. So I figured I'd start it back up and pick the right one this time.

Now when I try to start the launcher, the launcher starts then immediately gives me this error message:

A system error has occurred: -2146697208
http://frontier.ffxiv.com/arr_win/index.html?rc_lang=en&time=2015-05-28-07

Then it closes, and I can't do anything. Every time I try to start it again it says the same thing and I can't get the game to start up again, which is frustrating.

[Raist]

Forget the exact number for the error, but that may be the https one we had a notice on last month.

From the search/run box, run inetcpl.cpl to open your Internet Properties. Go to the advanced tab and scroll to the bottom of the list. Make sure all the SSL and TLS options are checked and apply any changes made. May want to go ahead and add the frontier site the launcher uses to the trusted sites list too (Security tab) for good measure. May be a good idea to add it to pop up blocker and such too while you are at it. Here is the address:

frontier.ffxiv.com

Then give your system a reboot just in case the installer engine still has a lock on a file or service. Sometimes they won't complete the update and release the lock until Windows is reloaded.

[Luteypie]

Unfortunately that didn't work, but thank you for replying.

[Raist]

yeah... looks like that one is tied into the Microsoft products. Translates to a hex error code of 0x800C0008, which shows up all over the map from Windows Update, to .NET, to Microsoft Office products.

May want to check that you have both .NET 3.x and 4.x enabled, and then run Windows Update to make sure everything is up to date there.

They stopped enabling .NET 3.5 by default a few releases back in Windows, so you may only have v.4 active. A lot of older stuff got nixed in v.4, and some installers are still calling some of it which causes odd behavior sometimes. If you go to the Add/Remove Programs control panel (appwiz.cpl from search/run box), and then click the link about turning Windows features on/off, you should see them listed there with check boxes to activate them. On some versions of Windows, it might be listed under a legacy category.

Edit: Just to rule it out, make sure to run FFXIV as Adminstrator to see if it behaves. (Right-click shortcut, run as Admin). If that does manage to resolve it, you can set this option permanently in the properties of the shortcut. Another bizarre one is to make sure your system's date/time are correct. Believe it or not, this has been known to trip up Windows Update, and when I searched the error I got hits on time synch errors.

[Luteypie]

It started working once I did all that and also ran as an administrator, thank you very much.

Still a suboptimal solution though, sadly, because I don't have administrator privileges on this computer in particular and in order to run it as an admin I have to physically get the owner to come over and type his password. Wish it could be run normally like most other games!

[Raist]

Could try going into the advanced properties of the shortcut and set it to run as another user and set his/her credentials. Not sure if that will completely get around it or not though. Things got screwy when they changed the security scheme after Windows XP.