Attention: Known issues and how to fix them

[Lilem]

At this time there’re several bugs in the game. We’re working on fixes, but there are some ways to neutralize them.

Issue: If you click on any pop-up message (like Skype notification), the game crashes with error "Can't restore all surfaces (0x8876024B)”.
Solution: Avoid using such programs while playing.

Issue: in the 3d mission of Vitals campaign after the ship docks the hero model it not showing. It doesn’t show if you return to the ship.
Solution: Load the latest save file and restart the game.

Issue: In the Diamanda campaign (4th level) not all textures are loaded.
Solution: Save the game, load this save file.

Issue: When playing in windowed mode on a notebook (1366x738) the “Start” button is shown and if you move your cursor to the taskbar all opened folders and programs start blinking.
Solution: Try to play in the fullscreen mode.

Issue: If you try to turn the second monitor on or off the game might crash with a critical error.
Solution: Turn the second monitor off before launching the game.

Issue: If you set 16bit colors graphic artifacts appear on the cursor.
Solution: Don’t launch the game with 16bit colors (32bit is set by default).

Issue: After launching the game works in compatibility mode (Run.cmd) and Steam counts it as the actual game client. When thr Run.cmd closes and the real game client opens, your Steam friends will see your status as “online”, not “Playing Etherlords 2”. Because of this some Steam functions are not available (overlay, screenshots, etc.).
Solution: This feature is currently unavailable. This issue will get fixed soon.

Issue: After loading the game a bat-file appears followed up by a black screen (like the one before the cinematic), after which the game crashes to desktop.
Solution: Wait a bit and try to launch the game again.

If you find any issues not mentioned above, please list them here!

[Nom]

Hi. I just bought the games. E2 says it will ask for a key. It never did. And there are no mission maps (single player) in my list. What's happening?

[Lilem]

Hey there, nerbu!
Etherlords 2 doesn't have singleplayer maps, only main campaign and PvP mode.

[Nom]

oh, ok then...why the empty list of singleplayer maps then?
thanks for the reply!

P.S.: I'm assuming you're one fo the devs, any chance this series gets revisisted in the future? such a great game...

[Lilem]

nerbu,
I'm a part of the team as a Community manager, yes :)
Unfortunately, there is no information about revisiting the series at the moment.

[Nom]

Well, thanks for the prompt reply anyways !

[Lilem]

nerbu,
Just doing my job :)

[CherryKiss]

Issue: When I do "this" the game has problems.
Solution: Don't do "this"

yeah...great guide, really. My issue? I can't alt-tab out of the game...seriously, this is not acceptable in a modern PC game.

[topolskiego]

This is not modern game. It was out in 2003 and this version is not super ultra hd new version, but just the old one possible to buy through digital distribution. A lot of old games on Steam has problems with Steam Hub etc. I don't see the point.

[Darthsmith]

My friend has problem with master servers. When we make a game, we are able to play about 2-3 tures and then he got kicked, he gets message "lost connection with master servers" How to fix that?

[koala]

Hello.

I recently picked up the game, and just could not get it to run on Windows 8.1.

Ikeep on getting errors about the game not being able to clear / access / use primarysurface due to thesurface memory running out. Something about "DirectDrawSurface"

I tried setting the compatibility mode as shown in the screen shot, but a few options were missing.

I tried downloading XNA, but apparently I already had it where I only had the option to delete or to repair when I triedto install it.

I was wondering if there are other things that I can try to get the game to work.
Thanks.


Edit:I tried a few things, and managed to get the game to work. I turned on all the compatibility options in properties and set it to run in Windows 98 / ME mode, and changed full screen in settings.ini to 0. This seemed to fix the issue and I was able to play through the tutorial with sound without any trouble.

[Nexus]

i cant use the "cloak of fear" spell without a crash to desktop

windows 7
compatibility mode and xna didnt help either

[Dr. Strangelove]

E2: same issue as others have mentionned, crash due to runtime, fixes mentionned here (XNA, compatbility options) did not work.

@fracturbob: I don't understand what exactly you did to fix the widescreen issue (fix the offset?), could you be more specific?


E1: stopped crashing after 2 min when I used the fixes suggested (compatibility settings, edit of run.cmd. etc.)

However it still crashes every time I try to pick up an artifact or enter a creature dwelling. It just go back to desktop saying the exe has stopped working, nothing more. Worse, since I'm just on the second map there could be other sources of crashes later on that would make it impossible to complete.

Anybody has experienced the same problem and found a solution (I run Win 7-64 bits)?

And @Lilem: if it is true "you are working on fixes", why can't the fixes of the GOG version which supposedly run smoothly be implemented on the Steam version?

[ctr2yellowbird]

I had the same crash after intro movies issue with Etherlords 2 as I had with Etherlords. Same solution as I described here (post #83), except nVidia already had a profile for Etherlords 2.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Thanks a lot ctr2yellowbird

Unfortunately that did not solve the issue for me, but I think I've found the source of the problem, at least for E2. Crashes started to happen when for some reason the game started running in widescreen. At ifrst it ran non-widescreen with black margins, but for some reasons it suddenly started running in widescreen after a few days of palying (I did not change any settings in or out-game). However I don't know how to revert it. The only solution I found is to run it iin a window (but that way you can't see the numbers of your cretatures very well) or change the whole windows reolustion to a non-widesrcreen one, which is not very satisfactory either. If the game itself changed to non-widescreen at first, there should be a way to make it do that again.

I thinlk fracturebob may have had the solution but I don't understand what he did and he does not seem to follow that forum anyomre. Anyone else?

[DEATH Knight]

Игра не проходит хеширование, докачивает 2,9 Мб и пишет, что обновление остановлено. И так до бесконечности!!! Чего с этим делать?