"Waiting for Character..."

[Ryan Dancey]

We have a problem affecting some players that creates a situation where their characters cannot be returned to the game correctly after they die or are disconnected. The primary symptom of this problem is seeing the client hang at the "Waiting for Character..." message during the Enter World process.

We have built a short-term fix that we will use to periodically sweep the database and change these character's locations to the middle of the Hex they were in when the problem occurred which will allow them to be logged in correctly.

We built this fix yesterday and we have not yet made it a routine automated process so if this problem occurs to you on Sunday the 4th of January, we will likely not be able to restore access to the character until the following Monday.

Work continues to fix the underlying problem causing this condition so that we will not need to do this character repositioning in the future.

If you are affected by this problem please email [e-mail] so that we can track the issue.

We thank you for your understanding!

RyanD

[Giorgo]

@Ryan,

Any idea of what is causing this? Are there things we should NOT do (like use "Charge") in the mean time?

[Ryan Dancey]

No, theres no clear pattern. If it were just a broken Feat we would have hundreds of affected characters.

[<Kabal> Daeglin]

All right! Back to using Balestra!

[TEO Pino]

<Kabal> Daeglin wrote:

All right! Back to using Balestra!

I was using Balestra when I 'reacquired' the waiting for character screen. Coincidence I'm sure.

Cya Monday !

[Bluddwolf]

TEO Pino wrote:

<Kabal> Daeglin wrote:

All right! Back to using Balestra!

I was using Balestra when I 'reacquired' the waiting for character screen. Coincidence I'm sure.

Cya Monday !

I would not use it until there is an actual fix of the bug, and I'm not willing to accept that it is completely random at this point.

/takes Balestra out of Actions Tray

[Caldeathe Baequiannia]

I think the system was girding its loins to pull this one on my yesterday. A combat that ended up with an elevation difference ended up with me dying on a hillside, seeing a brief flash of blue, and the client threatened to lock up. I came back in the air, falling, and the client was not responsive.

Rather than forcing it to close when windows said that it wasn't responding, I kept clicking on "wait for client" and hitting the close box in the top right whenever I could (i.e., whenever the ui was responding). Eventually (at least 5-8 minutes later) the client closed successfully and I was able to log back in with no problem.

I think maybe any time you force the client to quit, it is not leaving the character in a graceful state.

[TheDarklord]

Interestingly on mine after it bugged out the chat window was still updating slowly, so I could see others chatting in Help, but couldn't type.

Daniel.

[Nihimon]

Thanks for posting that, Cal. Hopefully, following this procedure will help folks minimize their chances of being unable to login.

[TEO Pino]

I agree, and I am going to remove it from my bar, Bludd.
My alt has done literally everything but charge, and never crashed the client.
I am not saying I know why it happens, just that I will stop using charge maneuvers.

Because I'm a superstitious savage who changes d20's when he gets a low roll ; )

@Cal interestingly, the 2nd time I had this happen I did try leaving PFO alone to see if it would recover (though I never saw myself falling, just solid blue behind my UI)
After 15 minutes of trying to quit the game 'properly' (as you describe), I gave up and closed program.
If I see it again, and I hope I don't, I will give it longer.