Lotro won't load! :/

[PrplGrl]

Ever since this update happened last night, I absolutely cannot load the game. I type in my password to load into it at steam, it goes into the loading screen, the one just before it takes you to the main menu, then it crashes out, every single time. I've never had a problem with this before, after playing the game for years, think this update has broken my game. is anyone else experiencing this, and is there a solution for this??

[Running-Target]

- There are several log files in folder ( lotroclient.txt, lotrolauncher.txt, patchclient.txt, ttepatchclient.txt ) Read them to see if there is any error msgs that show the problem.
> c:\user\yourid\appdata\local\the lord of the rings online

- Try the repair option in the LOTRO game launcher.
Top of the LOTRO launcher, there is buttons : Community, Account, Support, Language (EN, DE, FR), Launcher Menu (V), Minimize( _ ), Close (X). If you put your cursor on the buttons it gives a description. In the Options there is Options, About..., Explore Screenshot folder, Explore Log folder. In the Options there is 3 tabs: General, Repair, Proxy. Look in Repair tab of the Options for the Repair button.

- Make sure your Firewall and active defending anti-malware programs have LOTRO directory or game exes in exceptions.

- Make sure you are running the game as Administrator or an account with administrator rights.

- Use the troubleshooting compatibility options in Windows 10 or 11 OS.

[PrplGrl]

Thank you for the all the solutions, but unfortunately nothing worked when I tried it. Had to have some further help from a family member, and it's fixed now! Weirdly enough, I had to download the game from the actual site of lotro and launch it from there, and everything's fixed. Seems it's a problem with steam itself, not the game, so will have to launch it from the site from now on, but I still have my progress.
Thought I'd mention this in case anyone else comes up with a problem like this. Thanks very much for the other solutions though, I'm sure it will be a helpful read for others who might come up with this problem if it's not a steam-related thing.

[10sir]

Originally posted by PrplGrl:

Thank you for the all the solutions, but unfortunately nothing worked when I tried it. Had to have some further help from a family member, and it's fixed now! Weirdly enough, I had to download the game from the actual site of lotro and launch it from there, and everything's fixed. Seems it's a problem with steam itself, not the game, so will have to launch it from the site from now on, but I still have my progress.
Thought I'd mention this in case anyone else comes up with a problem like this. Thanks very much for the other solutions though, I'm sure it will be a helpful read for others who might come up with this problem as well.

This has been known to happen with the steam version of the game. It's impossible for us to pinpoint exactly where steam is inadvertently corrupting some important .dll files for lotro, but it does this quite frequently. If you are unlucky enough to have this happen, seemingly the only way to fix it is to ditch steam and download the regular client from the lotro site.

Like you, I had this happen just yesterday with my steam copy and had to swap to using the normal version. You can go through the launcher's logs and see exactly where it crashed in the booting process; for me it was "OpenAL32.dll". I tried every possible troubleshooting method to ultimately no avail. The fault is somewhere with steam's either handling or obtaining the files in the d/l process.

If this happens for anyone else, ditch steam. Download the normal lotro client and launch with that OUTSIDE steam.