Hate to be the one asking this, but...

[Darki]

... is the game still on maintenance, or did my client get busted again?

Everytime I run the shortcut for the game launcher, it pops the patcher up, fills superfast and goes to the launcher, but when I click on the game start button, it just closes and does nothing, no gameguard and no game.

[UnLucky]

Server's definitely back, and something else should definitely happen after clicking the big button!

[Darki]

Whoop-dee-doo. back to downloading the exe. -_- Will they fix that ever...

[darkante]

I guess its that "admin rights thing" that's interfering with your PSO2 Exe file or updater.
I always seem to have that problem whenever the game is patching.

I usually just give me rights back on them while having launcher on.
Have worked so far for me.

[Ana-Chan]

I guess its that "admin rights thing" that's interfering with your PSO2 Exe file or updater.
I always seem to have that problem whenever the game is patching.

I usually just give me rights back on them while having launcher on.
Have worked so far for me.

No, it is guaranteed to have admin rights.


Whoop-dee-doo. back to downloading the exe. -_- Will they fix that ever...

Have you tried doing the updates with your system set to the Japanese system locale? The game is Japanese after all.

[kazuuya]

My brother and me have exactly the same issue like Darki and I tried setting it to the Japanese local system thingie but PSO2 still don't works.
Right now I'm reinstalling the game. It's really pretty annoying that with every single patch there are coming new issues like this one. *sobs*

[Ana-Chan]

My brother and me have exactly the same issue like Darki and I tried setting it to the Japanese local system thingie but PSO2 still don't works.
Right now I'm reinstalling the game. It's really pretty annoying that with every single patch there are coming new issues like this one. *sobs*

Did you set it to Japanese before or after the updater ran? If it was after then the damage was already done. You'd have to fix the permissions yourself.
Basically, try to run the launcher as Japanese when there is an update.

To fix the permissions back to the defaults that ran in the first place is pretty easy too. Go to the PSO2 directory, in there, there should be the pso2_bin directory. There should be 4 applications. These are pso2, pso2download, pso2launcher and pso2updater (there are backups of the launcher files too, so don't get confused). Anyway, for all 4 of these, right click on the file, select Properties, go to the Security tab, click the Advanced button, if you are using Windows Vista or 7 then click the Change Permissions button (this step can be missed if you are using XP), and then make sure the checkbox at the bottom is selected. Once you done this, click all of the OKs and then you have access to the file again.

[Feggge]

This happens to me as well, but the only thing that needs fixing is adding the rights to pso2.exe over again. Every time it is patched. Once I do that, it's go time baby!

[Ana-Chan]

This happens to me as well, but the only thing that needs fixing is adding the rights to pso2.exe over again. Every time it is patched. Once I do that, it's go time baby!

Of course, what I've been trying to do is figure out a way where you don't even need to do this every time the game has been patched. Since you are capable enough to fix permissions on your own, the next time there is an update available, could you set the system locale to Japanese before you update and give feedback on whether you needed to fix the permissions again?

[UnLucky]

I don't think changing the locale or language helps anything, but manually adding back the permissions usually does. Or downloading a "fixed" copy of the four culprits.

[Ana-Chan]

I don't think changing the locale or language helps anything, but manually adding back the permissions usually does. Or downloading a "fixed" copy of the four culprits.

It is really hard to explain this, but it has a lot more to do with it than you may think. The list of functions that the updater uses is as follows, and before anyone claims "hacker" no, this is a public list available from the executable with freely available tools that is in a well documented part of the Windows executable file format.

Microsoft (R) COFF/PE Dumper Version 11.00.50522.1
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


Dump of file pso2updater.exe

File Type: EXECUTABLE IMAGE

Section contains the following imports:

...

ADVAPI32.dll
51F000 Import Address Table
55E44C Import Name Table
0 time date stamp
0 Index of first forwarder reference

269 RegQueryValueW
129 GetFileSecurityA
142 GetSecurityDescriptorDacl
11E GetAclInformation
11D GetAce
18A LookupAccountSidA
171 InitializeSecurityDescriptor
170 InitializeAcl
10 AddAccessAllowedAce
2B0 SetSecurityDescriptorDacl
249 RegEnumKeyExW
242 RegDeleteValueW
278 RegSetValueExW
233 RegCreateKeyExW
188 LookupAccountNameA
25E RegOpenKeyW
24A RegEnumKeyW
23E RegDeleteKeyW
25B RegOpenKeyExW
268 RegQueryValueExW
22A RegCloseKey
2A3 SetFileSecurityA

...

Summary

D000 .data
43000 .rdata
23000 .reloc
A000 .rsrc
11E000 .text

I cut it down a bit, but the important one is there. Do you notice SetFileSecurityA right at the end? Do you notice that A suffix? This means that it is an Ansi function, this means that it is Windows locale sensetive, so if you have Windows set to English then it will give different results to a system that is set to say Japanese, or Spanish or Italian. This function is also what the game is using to set the NTFS permissions. With how Windows works, if you try to convert a string that is in, say, Spanish and try to convert it to Japanese (this is a codepage conversion, not a translation, this is why it is technical). Then it will try to change the strings representation from the Spanish codepage to the Japanese codepage. If there are any characters in the string that can't be represented then they will either fail or replace them with a ? character (depending on what the programmer specified).
Right, do you see the other functions around it like RegCreateKeyExW? This means that it is a wide function. Wide functions in Windows uses UTF-16, in other words, Unicode. These functions don't use codepages so any strings used will be represented the same regardless of language used by Windows. The only thing language affects are things like sort orders and formats.

The game is a horrible mix of both the A functions (that are system locale dependent) and W functions (that aren't). Also, besides the FAT32 problem, the Japanese themselves haven't been having this kind of problem. So it is way more than a coincidence.

Normally, if you are trying to play a Japanese game and it misbehaves, it is better to just set the system locale to Japanese. There is the AppLocale option, but that is problematic and not guaranteed to work. Since the Japanese makes as many assumptions about the systems that it runs on as much as the Westerners. I've come across just as many things that fails to run on a system that is set to an East Asian language.

[Reiketsu]

Hmm, I have my laptop set to Japanese for a while now and probably won't change it back to German, anyways. I just patched and the pso2.exe was the only exe I had to do the admin rights thing on. However, it still doesn't work... u_u"

[Ana-Chan]

Hmm, I have my laptop set to Japanese for a while now and probably won't change it back to German, anyways. I just patched and the pso2.exe was the only exe I had to do the admin rights thing on. However, it still doesn't work... u_u"

Well, it is peak time in Japan, so it could be spitting out corrupt files. Try deleting pso2.exe and then file check again.

[UnLucky]

If there are any characters in the string that can't be represented then they will either fail or replace them with a ? character (depending on what the programmer specified).

Well that certainly explains why this other Japanese program that I run through AppLocale spits out ? characters when I feed it Japanese characters despite it being popular in Japan.