Persistent black screen when launching - spent over 2 days trying to get it to work

[jimavet]

And, to clarify, it is the launcher that is fully blacked out (i.e., shy of 3 completely random times), I have never been able to get past the blacked out launcher window.

[Raist]

hmm.... sounds like something is either monkeying with the script engine or the site itself somehow.

See if you can get the EULA from the frontier site:

http://frontier.ffxiv.com/arr_win/eula.html?lang=en

Not much in there too unusual...mostly basic HTML and the text of the EULA. There should be a check box at the bottom and a "Next" button. The button should change it's shade slightly when you hover the mouse pointer over it, and if you click to put a check in the acceptance box, it should light up completely.

If none of that rings true, than something is monkeyed up somewhere with your browser/network/internet. check your internet properties to see if a proxy is running--some malware will lock you through their ad servers or something and it does strange things. For that matter, if you haven't done it yet you might want to hit it with a full scan of malwarebytes or something similar to try to rule out any malicious stuff in the background. To the extreme end, we could look at resetting your protocol stacks and such I guess. Need to run a CMD prompt as admin to call:

netsh int tcp reset c:\tcpreset.log

Make note of your IP settings if you are running a static IP beforehand, as this will be resetting things to the defaults.


Crud...almost forgot. May want to double check your router configuration for UPnP settings. It tends to be flaky in some setups (especially playstations), so turning that off may help prevent some other weirdness you might experience down the line as well. Really don't need any kind of port forwarding set up for this game unless you are in an environment with really tight security like work or a university that has their networks configured to block just about everything by default. The router has it's own mechanism for tracking and forwarding your packets properly (NAT, SPI, etc.).

[jimavet]

I was able to get the EULA from the frontier site, and was able to click the check box, allowing the "next" button to light up.... so that aspect is working fine.

I'm not very "behind the scenes" computer-savvy.. but I was able to open the gateway to the router (http://10.0.0.1).... but couldn't find any settings that had "UPnP" in the name... is there another name for it? Actually, scratch that, I was able to finally figure out how to check this part of the router... UPnP had been enable, but I switched it to un-enabled.

I also tried what Laraul suggested and installed Lord of the Rings Online and had that open and running while attempting to open FFXIV. Still no luck.

I did not try the netsh int tcp reset c:\tcpreset.log but should I do you think? I'm open to trying about anything.... just frustrating to feel like I'm just stumbling in the dark :-(

[jimavet]

Bumping... just in case anyone else has any ideas - since no matter what variations on the above I try, I still can't get the game to get past the all-black launcher screen. Thanks.

[TheFirstKel]

Are you on Windows 10? If so, it happened to me when I reinstalled my system (Windows 10) and the game. Give this a try, run the FFXIV launcher as administrator.

Edit: I see you've tried with running as administrator. Hmm that is strange then.

And if you found yourself unable to save the username, ensure Edge/IE11 is not blocking 3rd party cookies.

Add frontier.ffxiv.com to IE's trusted sites list

From: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...roblem/cvugjtm

[Raist]

May be a long shot, but just to make sure it isn't knackering things up...let's make sure some Java components aren't part of the problem.

Let's double-check that basic javascript is working in Internet Explorer. Even if you don't use it, it's core components are at the heart of Windows and the launcher is using them (it basically is a custom IE browser of sorts). Open Internet Explorer and load this URL:

http://www.javatester.org/javascript.html

It is a simple page that should tell you if javascript is working, what version is supported, your browser version, and spits out your user agent string. Hopefully all that is working properly.


Go into your Settings/Control Panel and launch the Java control panel, then move over to the Advanced tab to check on a few things.

One of the first few sections there will be one for browser support. Internet Explorer should be checked and possibly grayed out, and there should be another box for Mozilla Family. Make sure a check is also there for Mozilla support (this isn't limited to just browsers like Firefox---MSIE originally was sort of Mozilla as well). Thoughts here are just in in case for some reason the ID string for IE11 isn't meshing well. It should be reporting itself as a Mozilla 5.0 variant, so this might make it behave properly if there is a problem with the launcher not being able to parse the java components properly. Just something I thought might be worth trying.

A more important option may be listed further down though. Just like the Internet Properties settings for Windows and MSIE, there are also options for SSL/TLS support as well. Scroll to the end of the list on the Advanced tab. You should see some checkboxes for TLS 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 just like in the Internet Properties page for Windows. Make sure to enable those TLS options.


Last but not least, may want to try clearing your caches. On the General tab of the Java control panel, there is a section for Temporary Internet Files. If you click the Settings button, you should see an option for deleting files. Should probably also do this for your Internet Properties as well (inetcpl.cpl from the search/run box, Delete button will be on the General tab there).