Teleported, got error, now can't log in!

[Nevitosh]

I was in the residential district for Limsa Lominsa, and attempted to teleport to the Fallguard Float Aetheryte. The teleport cast correctly, but the loading screen never came up, just a black screen. Then I got a error dialogue box which said "An unexpected error has occurred. Exiting FINAL FANTASY XIV.(17)" and the client closed. I logged into the client 2 more times, and continuously get the same error after the loading screen attempts to load for a minute. I reset my network and my laptop, and still get the error. I was able to log into another character on the same server with no issue, but I cannot log into this character at all. Please help!

Nevitosh Chelewae on Crystal/Coeurl running on Windows 11x 64-bit

[Einmimiria]

Good morning and thank you for posting on the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

If this is only happening on one character, try removing the locally-saved data folder (My Documents > My Games > Final Fantasy XIV), then restarting the game. Be sure to make a backup of this just in case it doesn't resolve the issue.

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

[Nevitosh]

Hello Einmimiria,

Thank you for replying. I tried to do as you suggested, but when I remove the whole "FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn" folder from My Documents > My Games and then try to start the game, It acts as if it's a first time install, and when I select the Data Center (Crystal), the whole game just freezes/stops responding and severely drags down my HDD. If I put the original folder back, it works just fine but I am still not able to log into the specific character without getting the error at the loading screen. I'm not sure why it freezes there. Is there a more specific file or folder for the affected character I can remove that will keep my Data Center and Server settings at least?

I also was chatting with some other players from a Facebook group and they suggested a GM in-game can manually move my character to another area, which might fix the issue, is that something you are able to try or are you able to pass that along to a GM if you are not one?

I have submitted a Service Center ticket for this problem as well.

Please let me know if you have any other suggestions or questions, and I'll be happy to try them as I'm itching to play and specifically on that character as I've put a lot of time into that one. Thank you!

[Dynratygus]

Good morning and thank you for the reply.

Could you try doing a cleanboot? : Open the task manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) and select the 'Start up' Tab. Disable everything here and restart the PC.

Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums

[Nevitosh]

Hello Dynratygus,

Thank you for your response. I tried that and it did not work either. See below for a list of things I've checked/tried based on either my own limited PC and game knowledge, FB forum suggestions, and the official Tech Support forum suggestions here. So far nothing has worked. I can still get on an Alt and play without issues every time.

1- Verified GPU (Nvidia) software/drivers are current
2- Verified Windows updates are current
3- Ran windows memory diagnostic, no issues found
4- verified FFXIV is allowed through firewall, and tried loading after switching off all firewall/antivirus protections. Still get (17) error
5- removed and freshly downloaded each expansion pack data (ex1, ex2, ex3) found in "C:\Users\Lyle\Games\SquareEnix\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\game\sqpack" by starting the game without them. Still get (17) error
6- Switched to DirectX9.0c, immediately get fatal DirectX error (1000003d) as soon as I hit Play
7- Removed the temp settings/config folder found in "C:\Users\Lyle\Documents\My Games", tried starting the game per Einmimiria's suggestion above. After I select my Data Center (Crystal), the game freezes and bogs down my HDD for a few minutes, then disappears. Narrowed it down to the FFXIV.cfg file specifically doing this
8- Found that if I remove the temp settings/config folder AND switch to DirectX9.0c, the game lets me get to the character select, but still gives me the (17) error during loading of my main
9- Tried a "cleanboot" per the Tech Support forum. Disabled ALL startup applications and tried to start the game, still get (17) error.

Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of moving from Europe to the US, so I do not currently have access to my game discs or Windows discs in order to do a full fresh install on my laptop, so that is not an option.

One thing that was recommended to me was to have a GM manually force move my main to another location to see if that might break whatever error is happening, but no one responded to the Bug Report I submitted on my*Alt (Lille Chelewae) asking this to be done. Another suggestion I got was to have someone on a different PC log into my account and see if they can move my main themselves, but I do not know anyone I trust who plays on PC to do this. Are either of these things something your team might be able to do?

Lastly, i noticed that while i cannot load into the game because of getting the error, the game is still counting that my Main comes online. My Main and Alt are in the same FC, and if i check the FC player status on my Alt after I error out with my Main, it says I was online 1 minute ago. So that seems like an important detail to me. Seems like it's more than likely a Server issue?

Please let me know what other steps you can do or I can try in order to get this fixed as I have logged A LOT of my free time on my Main and do not want to lose all that hard work. Let me know if you want me to post my System information also. Thank you for your time.

[Nevitosh]

Hello and Good Morning,

Additionally to my message I sent yesterday, I was wondering what the chances are if a World Transfer might be able to allow me access to my Main again. Is that something you could authorize? I would lose*Master of my FC, but that should revert to the next most active player which would be my Alt (looks like the rest of my FC has quit playing), correct? I'm still getting the error when I try to log into my Main as of this morning. Please let me know the next best course of action, and thank you for your time.

[Nevitosh]

Hello,

IMPORTANT---PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS.
There has been a new development. To try an experiment, I teleported my Alt to New Gridania and used the Aethernet to go to the Conjurer's Guild. Once there I ran out of the Yellow Serpent Gate, and the North Shroud loading screen came up. About a minute into loading, I GET THE SAME (17) ERROR I HAVE BEEN GETTING WITH MY MAIN!! Since the Game immediately quit, I attempted to reload and log in to my Alt, and now the same exact thing happens, the Gridania loading screen comes up for about a minute and then I get the (17) error and it closes out. So now I have TWO characters stuck in North Shroud. Up to this point I've been playing my Alt with no problems since my Main has been stuck for FOUR DAYS now.*

This tells me that there is a MAJOR issue with loading into the North Shroud area for some reason. Please advise and let me know if there is anything else I can try or if your team is looking into it. Also, let me know if you have any other questions, thank you.

[Einmimiria]

Thank you for the reply Nevitosh. We apologize for the delay in our response.

It doesn't seem as though you've attempted to reinstall the game. If the error occurs in the same location with different characters, there may be a corrupted install file.

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

[Nevitosh]

Hello and Good Afternoon Einmimiria and Dynratygus,

Good news! I am finally able to access and play all my characters again so a big THANK YOU! This ticket can be closed. Below is what and how I managed to get fully functional again in case anyone else has these issues or is curious.

After some more experimentation with another character on a completely different Data Center/server, i was able to verify that the problem was most definitely on my computer. After doing some research online I was able to narrow it down and verify I had a corrupt game file (0200000.win32.dat1) in the "C:\Users\Lyle\Games\SquareEnix\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\game\sqpack\ffxiv" folder. That specific folder cannot simply be deleted and reinstalled like the 3 ex folders can, I'm guessing because it's the core game files. So I did in fact have to do a full download/uninstall/reinstall of the game. Like I said, I'm in the process of moving, so unfortunately I'm only limited to Hotel WiFi (they do not allow Ethernet plug-ins for some absurd unknown reason), so it took some 14+ hours to download (which is why I was trying everything but that first).*

Even once I got it downloaded and installed, it was still freezing after picking the Data Center and maxing out my Drive R/W until the game shuts itself down, so again back to Google. I found out that there's been an ongoing problem with higher end and overclocked CPUs and/or GPUs causing the game to freeze when it tries to play the opening movie after a fresh install. The 2 workarounds I found were either turn off some CPU cores (which i have no idea about), or go into the FFXIV.cfg file in "C:\Users\Lyle\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn" with a txt editor and change the "CutsceneMovieOpening" option from 0 to 1. Once I changed that option, I was able to get past the Data Center selection screen and log into my characters just fine, even the ones that were stuck in North Shroud. After that I tried copying back over my original config folder, and my settings/UI is exactly how I had it and no errors!

So for now everything appears to be working with no issues. I just want to thank you again for your guidance and suggestions, and also for your patience with dealing with my issues and ignorance! I will make sure I leave a favorable comment on the Customer Service Survey if I can. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, otherwise have a good weekend and stay safe/healthy from the COVID-19.*

V/R
Nevitosh

[Dynratygus]

Good afternoon and thank you for the update.

Nevitosh , I am glad that that you were able to resolve the issue . In the event you experience anymore issues with Final Fantasy XIV, please post again in the Technical Support Forums. Thank you for kind words and I hope you stay safe and healthy as well!

This thread will be moved to the 'Support Center Resolved'.