APPEAL TO E:D COMPUTER GURUS. WANT A CHALLENGE?

[g0d0fnerds]

Bear with me, because this one is weird and long:

About December 11th, before the last big update, my joystick failed, rendering the game unplayable. For Christmas, I got a new Thrustmaster joystick, so I went and plugged it in Christmas morning. And what happened next is that I hit The Play Button Problem.

The Play Button Problem is a known issue, documented in the FAQ here:

https://support.frontier.co.uk/kb/faq.php?id=66

So I began working through the FAQ, and got to the following point:

"These files are called elitedangerous64.exe, elitedangerous32.exe, Watchdog32.exe and Watchdog64.exe. These programs can be found in either the EDLaunch folder or the game folder. You can find these by using the folder locations FAQ.

Please note: Certain antivirus programs may cause the Watchdog files to be unable to load even after disabling the antivirus program or white-listing it. To resolve this, please white-list all Elite Dangerous folders in your antivirus and then delete the Watchdog files manually. You can re-obtain both Watchdogs by verifying the game files via Steam or by using the Validate Game Files option in the Launcher."

I whitelisted the files as directed, to no effect. I then deleted them manually. When I deleted them (later I discovered that it was WatchDog64.exe that was specifically responsible), the game went to the loading screen, loaded the shaders and the planetary generation system and then said: "LOGIN FAILURE To ensure you are playing the most up to date version, please use the launcher to start the game."

I have opened a ticket with FDev to address this, and so far the results have been ZERO.

Here is what we have tried over the past week:

I have uninstalled and reinstalled all the Microsoft C++ Redists.

I have done a complete uninstall/reinstall of the game.

I uninstalled the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.7.2 and reinstalled 4.6.1. This caused both Steam and E:D to completely fail to launch by hanging forever. I rolled back. Of course, before I did this, I was directed to "turn off" all the Microsoft .NET apps in Windows Launcher (running Windows 7 OS, BTW) before doing the uninstall/reinstall, and I tried that, but the box that was supposed to be populated with things to turn off was empty.

I whiltelisted the relevant files in my antivirys (AVG Free). I uninstalled the antivirus.

Again, none of this has had the slightest effect on the original Play Button Problem, except deleting the WatchDog64.exe file, which led to the LOGIN FAILURE message above, and rolling back Microsoft .NET to 4.6.1 which caused Steam and ED to fail to launch at all.

At this point, FDev's ED Customer Support Wing is starting to tell me to do things I have already done, as if I have never done them, and they don't seem to be listening to what I'm telling them. Anyone have any ideas? I'm NOT a computer whiz, but I WILL listen and learn.

Thank you.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

Originally posted by Manwith Noname:

Did this include manually deleting %appdata% folders?

No! How do I do that?

You make hidden folders to be visible in your files browser, then you will be able to see the AppData folder in your User folder (the AppData is a hidden one). It contains folders Frontier Development and Frontier_Development, that store some game configurations. You might want to try to delete those, to make a really clean reinstall.

[Manwith Noname]

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

No! How do I do that?

I'm not so sure that you want to, that's partly why I asked. It's mainly config files that remember various states of the game. Though there are launcher related files there for things like login details. I would make backups before trying to remove them so you can reinstate stuff.

"C:/Users/*your PC username*/appdata"

There are files in both Local and Roaming.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

But ED's executable's Properties doesn't HAVE a Compatibility tab.

Try this with EDLaunch.exe:

Find the launcher executable in C:\Program Files (x86)\Frontier\Products\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\ if you're running from Steam. Right click on the .exe, select 'Properties', 'Advanced' and tick the 'Run this program as an Administrator' box.

[g0d0fnerds]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Your firewall isn't blocking those watchdog processes?

I don't usually advice this, but maybe to try to launch the game as an Administrator?

Oh, and I meant to ask: how would I know whether my firewall was blocking the WatchDog Processes?

[g0d0fnerds]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

But ED's executable's Properties doesn't HAVE a Compatibility tab.

Try this with EDLaunch.exe:

Find the launcher executable in C:\Program Files (x86)\Frontier\Products\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous\ if you're running from Steam. Right click on the .exe, select 'Properties', 'Advanced' and tick the 'Run this program as an Administrator' box.

Okay, well, Dolphin Bottlenose ,you've achieved something no one else has: a new result.

After reinstalling the game again, I tried this. First of all, I must have been doing something wrong before, because THIS time when I clicked on the Properties it looked different, and that Compatibility tab was there. So I clicked Run As Administrator and launched it.

This time, when I hit the Play button, I got the following:

WatchDog64.exe - Bad Image

C:\Windows\system32\api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again on the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.

[g0d0fnerds]

Now, what's REALLY interesting about this is that this is EXACTLY the same message I got when I had a similar problem with a GOG.com game called EVERSPACE that I downloaded a little before Christmas. Their tech support advised me to launch the game just like this. But there were TWO executables in that one, one labeled Everspace and one labeled Everspace_32bit. When I launched Everspace, I got this EXACT same message, but when I launced Everspace_32bit, it launched successfully.

Is it possible that installing EVERSPACE somehow turned my machine into some sort of 32-bit emulator and now it won't run 64-bit apps?

[tomg2012]

Did you try lauching the game without the thrustmaster plugged in? Also, is your os win7 32 bit or win764 bit?

[g0d0fnerds]

Originally posted by tomg2012:

Did you try lauching the game without the thrustmaster plugged in? Also, is your os win7 32 bit or win764 bit?

I haven't, but how could the mere presence of the joystick interfere? And it's 64-bit.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

C:\Windows\system32\api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again on the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.

This one looks like a Visual C++ Redistributable is being missed.

To fix this one you probably need to download and install the Windows' KB2999226. This link should work (can't check from my phone):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49077

[g0d0fnerds]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

C:\Windows\system32\api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again on the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.

This one looks like a Visual C++ Redistributable is being missed.

To fix this one you probably need to download and install the Windows' KB2999226. This link should work (can't check from my phone):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49077

That's what FDEv said, but I've reinstalled all of them.

[g0d0fnerds]

Hmm. And now I tried uninstalling some programs I added since last time it worked. I took it off Run as administrator and tried to launch and I got: FORC-FDEV-D-1013: The requested operation requires elevation.

[g0d0fnerds]

Originally posted by Dolphin Bottlenose:

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

C:\Windows\system32\api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again on the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support.

This one looks like a Visual C++ Redistributable is being missed.

To fix this one you probably need to download and install the Windows' KB2999226. This link should work (can't check from my phone):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49077

Thanks, but on trying to run it, it said this download was "not relevant to my computer."

[tomg2012]

Originally posted by g0d0fnerds:

Originally posted by tomg2012:

Did you try lauching the game without the thrustmaster plugged in? Also, is your os win7 32 bit or win764 bit?

I haven't, but how could the mere presence of the joystick interfere? And it's 64-bit.

Driver conflict when it tries to talk to the device maybe? You mentioned you rolled back some libraries. Maybe there’s a better driver available for your windows version. Check the manufacturer site and see if there’s a win 7 specific download.

[ZombieHunter]

You shouldn't be doing any of this. All of that stuff is unnecessary if the install is working as intended. Don't go messing wtih .NET or redists b/c that is guaranteed to get you into trouble.

C:\Windows\system32\api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll

This cannot contain an error b/c it is part of the VC++ redists. If it had an error developers all over the world would be banging down MS's door to fix it. Servers set to auto update would install this bad dll and then millions of services worldwide would simply crash and burn. If this contains an error the error happened on your system.

Is it possible that installing EVERSPACE somehow turned my machine into some sort of 32-bit emulator and now it won't run 64-bit apps?

Not in a billion years. A reboot would fix this. And EVERSPACE isn't in the business of making emulators or using them or anything of that nature. It is a game. That is all.

WatchDog64.exe - Bad Image

It means the exe is invalid. It is corrupted, can't be read and thus is not a valid executable. Usually means Windows cannot read the EXE header information thus it cannot relocate the executable and/or execute it. The EXE header contains a bunch of 'stuff' to tell Windows how to run the application. If it can't read it, it can't fixup the address, it can't load the data into memory and it can't jump to the right address to run the program. Note that .NET can have this error as well as standard Win32 executables. Bad image format is another one you can get.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.badimageformatexception?view=netframework-4.7.2

So my diagnosis:

After all this my guess is you either have a failing hard drive or bad RAM. Do a surface scan of your drive and you might find multiple bad sectors. This or you have some bad RAM sticks that are causing installs to install the wrong data. If it is a RAM stick that is rarely utilized except by installation (and installation does take a lot of memory) then you won't see it until you install something like an application or game.

Do some RAM tests. This will send various patterns to your RAM and see if what the data it sent is the data the RAM holds. If it isn't then the problem is when you install the data is sent to the RAM, messed up by the RAM, and then written to disk as corrupted data. Data can be anything from raw data to binary machine opcodes and if those get messed up nothing will work.

My advice is NOT to install anything at this point. Leave .NET and redists alone b/c based on what you are telling me there is a 50 / 50 chance if you reinstall them they could also be corrupted. If you corrupt .NET in the GAC (Global Assembly Cache) then you have a big problem. If you corrupt a redist then you will have a bunch of failed applications that rely on that version of the redist. If you corrupt MSVCRT.DLL then Windows is borked and you must reinstall. If you reinstall with your current system I say there is a chance Windows won't install or run correctly at all.

Check your disk and RAM.

Also check Event Viewer and see what the error code is. Then you can go to MSDN and cross reference the error code with the information on the site. MSDN contains all the information about Win32 and other Microsoft technologies.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

WatchDog64.exe - Bad Image

It means the exe is invalid. It is corrupted.

This error also happens when there is a problem with the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables. Which is consistent with the C:\Windows\system32\api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll error.

I would bet it's not corrupted, but his machine has a problem with the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable.