Character(s) blind - ui problem

[cbarrett]

I've searched the forums and found many posts from people with the exact same problem, but there was not any resolution except for those people who did not have the correct spell file.

Short version:
I've been playing 6 characters for a couple of months and just yesterday all 6 of my characters suffer from the "blind" effect. I can see every part of the ui but the environment is pitch black.

Long version:
By process of elimination I have figured out how to fix this problem, but I have not identified the exact culprit, and the solution is a giant pain in the butt. This all began when my pc locked up solid while I had all 6 of my characters online. I was forced to do a cold boot and ever since then all 6 of my characters are "blind". The only fix that I have found that corrects this issue is to find your characters UI file (ie: UI_CHARNAME_HiddenForest.ini ) and rename it to something else or delete it. When you relog back in your client will regenerate this file and all is fine and the blind effect is gone.

Except all is NOT fine, it takes me forever to get my UI pieced together exactly the way I like it and having to rebuild my screen takes a lot of time. As soon as I get home I'm going to fix my ui the way I like it, log out, and make a backup copy of my file. I should have done this a long time ago but this lockup problem only happened twice for me in the months that I've been playing and both times it perma-blinded my logged in characters. FYI it does not make any of my characters "blind" who are not logged in during a pc crash so this is a file corruption issue with UI_CHARNAME_HiddenForest.ini. I've compared my "corrupt" UI with an auto generated one in WinMerge and there are vast differences, I've yet to determine exactly what in there is getting fried.
Another interesting piece of information is when I'm "blind", it doesnt matter what I set the game resolution to, still blind. But if I change the settings to full screen I'm no longer blind, but when I switch back to windowed mode I'm blind again. This is not a fix for me, I'm not playing 6 characters full screen, it's windowed mode or nothing.

Client: Underfoot (separate directories per character)
OS: Windows 8.1
Video: Nvidia GeForce 760 R331 Game Ready Driver Version 331.65
Updated spell file & THF game file: of course
Skin: doesnt matter, blind with all custom skins and default. /loadskin default doesnt help
Zones: it doesnt matter what zone I'm in, still blind

Blind with default skin:


Blind with custom skin:



Question:
Has anyone been able to identify what elements in the UI file are getting jacked? My goal is to find out exactly what text in the UI files are getting jacked so if this happens again I can just open the file with Notepad++ and quick fix the problem. This is a tedious trial and error process, there is tons of junk in that UI file for every window you have ever opened.

[Nexor]

Could be several problems,

Corrupted Texture file which a EQ re installation could fix, but i would check your log files first in your EQ folder if there any UI or general related error messages poped up.

Also does it still shows everything as black if you only have one char loged in?

Did you tried WinEQ/ISboxer WinEQ has still a free version and ISBoxer you can test out for a week for free, it might be that if you run either that one of there setting might fix your problem.

Since i don't like the look and feel of Win 8 and not use it as my OS can only guess but it could be a Desktop setting there that might is the reason.

Gcard/Directx problem maybe ?

[cbarrett]

It's definitely the UI_CHARNAME_HiddenForest.ini file. I've gone through and deleted it for all my eq folders and logged in those characters and rebuilt their ui's.

There is something weird that happens to that file if my pc locks up.

[Nexor]

It's definitely the UI_CHARNAME_HiddenForest.ini file. I've gone through and deleted it for all my eq folders and logged in those characters and rebuilt their ui's.

There is something weird that happens to that file if my pc locks up.

Yes i get it that the ini file is the "cause" currently for the black screen problem for you.

So did you checked your folder for any error log's that might indicate what might be wrong game wise ?
Also the day or days before the "lock up" happened did a windows/software update happened ?
Or did you intentionally or unintentionally installed something ?

[cbarrett]

I am currently not at my desk, I'm sitting in the hospital waiting room so I cant intelligently answer most of your questions unfortunately.

So did you checked your folder for any error log's that might indicate what might be wrong game wise ?

I know there is an error log in there and I've read through it a few times, and nothing jumped out at me as a smoking gun. When I get home I'll read it more carefully.

Also the day or days before the "lock up" happened did a windows/software update happened ?

None that I'm aware of, i always let windows patch itself so it's possible that when my system froze and locked up, upon restart a bunch of patches could have been installed.
PC lockups have nearly 100% vanished from my home system over the years, I was surprised this one happened. I can reproduce this one fortunately, I saw that there was a duplicate printer installed on my system and when I tried to right-click remove it, it caused a hard system freeze. I chalk that one up to a Windows 8.1 bug and it's actually fine with me because it can be avoided.

Or did you intentionally or unintentionally installed something

This one I can definitely say no, I havent messed with the pc other than eq for a few weeks. I keep my main OS relatively clean of any software, I do most of my work via VM's as to not pollute my base OS.