The Hidden Forest

Hey there. Hope this is the right spot. Been playing on Shards of Dalaya for years and wanted to test the waters of a different emulator.

Followed THF Player guide to the letter - all but getting the .rar of Underfoot, as it just failed halfway through the download. So I got Underfoot elsewhere.

Tried playing from the THFDownloader.exe after patching with it, and I get "GUI XML error"


Used search function here and tried everything in all the threads with the same issue to no avail. Here's what I've tried -
- THFDownloader.exe relocated in (D:\Games\everquest)
- THFDownloader.exe + eqgame.exe both set via compatibility to "run as administrator"
- Renamed "default" UI folder to "default.bak" and had the THF repatch that
- Found a fresh Underfoot default UI folder elsewhere and replaced with it (THF then repatched about 10 files into that)
- Tried running from eqgame.exe - shortcut (with the patchme addendum); it worked? Ish? But took me back to dial up days loading time and didn't load to character select, just perpetual loading screen. Logged in with the THF.org registration. Trying to load via THF.exe still pops up an error.

I'll confirm a few things -
- Fresh everquest folder untouched for THF
- eqhost.txt set to: Host=login.thehiddenforest.org:5999, account created here.
- Running Windows 8.1 (kill me) on a laptop with awful specs (i3, 4GB Ram, integrated graphics card) but I've played Live on it before back when they did free to play and it ran fine, and of course it runs Shards of Dalaya no problem (but we use an older client)
- UIErrors.txt did at one point have messages but now comes up with nothing since I fiddled with the default UI folder, as in no errors to report even after I get another "GUI XML error" pop-up

You're probably going to tell me to keep trying to download the .rar of Underfoot from the playerguide but I wanted to make sure there's nothing else I should be trying first. Hopefully I gave you all the info you needed, cheers!

How many files are in the default folder in uifiles? Should be over 500. I've seen similar errors and folks have like 20 files in their default ui folder. If less than 500 send me a PM and I'll give you a link to download just the default uifiles folder

524 files in Default

Check to make sure the uierrors file isn't somehow read only. it should be written to every time you login.

Hmm checked properties and it's not read only, but it is weird that it hasn't logged anything and is empty even though at first it showed a list of errors (aside from saying "UIErrorLog created at Sat Jul 18 05:48:09 2015").

Also I got a PM to try a different Default link and re-do the .exe shortcut. Still no luck.

Is there much / any downside to playing from a Titanium install vs Underfoot? Since I know for sure there's nothing wrong with that version I have on my PC

mainly convenience features. The patcher will make sure you have updated globalload file so you can see the graphics.

Silly clarification, the thf downloader and a full eqinstall are in that d:\games folder yes?

Yup all in the same folder. Well, actually, THFDownloader is in D:\games\everquest, should it be in D:games? I tried that at first but that wasn't working either

Razzo wrote:Yup all in the same folder. Well, actually, THFDownloader is in D:\games\everquest, should it be in D:games? I tried that at first but that wasn't working either

no they need to be in the same folder, was just verifying it wasn't in program files or something.

I had the same issue the other day. I tried 2 different UF clients.
I ended up downloading the THF UF client, the only change I had to do is the eqhost file and changing the port number to the correct one. After that it logged in just fine.
I haven't gotten the courage to mess with the updater again.

You'll need the updater to enjoy THF at it's best. There were several patches since the UF clients were uploaded and there will be a lot more, even now that Halloween is upon us!