Strange problem I cannot find an answer to

[Pasquale1223]

When you uninstall, are you 100% sure that no trace of anything gets left behind? Have you made sure that all of the sub-folders used by DAO are completely gone before you re-install?

 

In the typical Steam install, I believe most of the files are located in a DA folder under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common.

 

There are also files installed in your documents directory, ..\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age. (Saved games are stored under the Characters sub-directory here).

 

To the best of my knowledge and belief, both the main game installation and mod installation may install files in either or both locations.

 

What I would suggest is this:

1 - Uninstall all DA mods with whatever mod manager you used to install them.

2 - Uninstall the game through Steam.

3 - Backup your save games (from ..\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Characters) to another location.

4 - Delete these directories and everything under them:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ whatever the dragon age subdirectory is called

..\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age

5 - Reinstall the game through Steam.

6 - Copy your save games back to their original location.

[Thandal]

My recommendation is; with a completely re-named "\override" folder, (so the game ignores it) uninstall the Steam version and install the EA/Origin version. You use the same product code/cd-key.

 

(No need to lose all your characters and saves.)

 

See what happens...

[MoCheese22]

Took a couple days away to get rid of the all that icky holiday sickness and I've arrived here in the future much healthier. Along with all the Hovercrafts and self-lacing shoes that we all own now, if the movies have taught me anything. Sadly my game is still not healthy but one step at a time.

 

When you uninstall, are you 100% sure that no trace of anything gets left behind? Have you made sure that all of the sub-folders used by DAO are completely gone before you re-install?

 

In the typical Steam install, I believe most of the files are located in a DA folder under C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common.

 

There are also files installed in your documents directory, ..\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age. (Saved games are stored under the Characters sub-directory here).

 

To the best of my knowledge and belief, both the main game installation and mod installation may install files in either or both locations.

 

What I would suggest is this:

1 - Uninstall all DA mods with whatever mod manager you used to install them.

2 - Uninstall the game through Steam.

3 - Backup your save games (from ..\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Characters) to another location.

4 - Delete these directories and everything under them:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ whatever the dragon age subdirectory is called

..\Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age

5 - Reinstall the game through Steam.

6 - Copy your save games back to their original location.

 

Oh I completely destroy everything in the re-installs. You're right, when you just right click -> un-install, it gets rid of most things, but not everything. Certainly doesn't get rid of anything extra put in those folders like mod files which I imagine has to be the cause in some way. So when I did a reinstall, I backed up everything in the steamapps\common folder that I'd want to save like the 4GB patch and mod rars which I hold onto so I don't have to re-download them again. I also backup the only character I care to keep and then completely nuke the entire Dragon Age folder located in Documents\BioWare. Reinstall everything, return the save folder, ran a new character that far and tried the old one as well and still happens. Maddening.

 

 

 

My recommendation is; with a completely re-named "\override" folder, (so the game ignores it) uninstall the Steam version and install the EA/Origin version. You use the same product code/cd-key.

(No need to lose all your characters and saves.)

See what happens...

 

Certainly sounds like a good idea. I'm gonna have to give this a try after the latest run through. Just blitzing through the game without too much side salad so it shouldn't take long. I dunno why it would be any different this time, but the bug makes no sense(yet) so why should attempts to fix it? I'll report back in when there.

Edited January 2, 2020 by MoCheese22

[MoCheese22]

So I have an update to this confounding problem that just keeps getting weirder. It has lead to the identification of what the problem IS, but not WHY it is. I have more questions than answers now then I did before...

 

So I sprinted through the game again on Easy again, tried some different choices, avoided doing other things, etc, just to see if the bugs would happen again, and of course they did. Utterly infuriated, I left it for a bit and came back to reinstall via Origin. No difference, same problem. Beyond annoyed at this point, I left it for a day or so and came back to it with fresher eyes to see if anything would pop into my head. After a while I got a really stupid idea so I decided to try it. I figured, well, I've uninstalled every mod and tried that, and that didn't work, so what about the DLC's? Aren't they mods of the game, technically speaking? I've already tried a completely fresh install and that didn't work, so why would this, right? So I go into the main menu, and turn off every single BioWare DLC, they have a different icon beside their name in the window. Go to the load the game, get captured for the millionth time by Cauthrien and... it works?! What?! I got in! And I far as I could tell, it works perfectly. Captured in Fort Drakon and Alistair was talking and I had the option to wait or to try to break out yourself. Tried many different companion combinations and they all seemed to work. Didn't want to go too far before I can go through with it working fine, but it seemed to have no issues.

 

So now I begin the painstaking process of turning on every single BioWare DLC on one by one to see what one is giving me the issue. After a rather long time of trial and error, I finally narrow it down to the Stone Prisoner. I turned that one off, which having every single other one on, and it seemed to work fine and the problem identified. But not so fast...

 

I wasn't content with knowing that the DLC's were somehow the problem yet a completely clean install still was giving me problems. So I ran yet another new character through the game, this time with Stone Prisoner turned off completely from the start. So no Shale for me. Got to the part before the Landsmeet, traveled to Denerim with Eamon, insulted Loghain, left the Estate, re-entered the Estate, and... no Ghost Loghain reciting the same thing I just heard 7 seconds ago. So that's a great start I thought. Continued on into the next part with killing Howe and freeing Anora. Got to the moment of truth, I captured by Cauthrien and... it KINDA worked...? Yeah, the cutscene loaded with Anora and companions telling Eamon about how the Wardens were captured and how we have to free them. Then the loading screen and I was just... there. In the cell with Alistair and no equipment. No cutscene with Alistair talking to me played, and since my character was no Rogue, I was effectively trapped. However that is not the only strange thing that happened, because there was actually a third person in the cell with us, and it was Morrigan? Just there like everything was normal. She was in my crew that attacked Howe's estate and got caught by Cauthrien, so I guess that fits.

 

So with at least some narrowing of what specifically is the problem, I decided to try the turning off all the DLC trick again, and once again, it works fine. Alistair talks to me, gives me the choices, etc etc. Turn them on one by one and finally seem to conclude that this time it's Return to Ostagar that is the problem. So now I turn on every BioWare DLC but Stone Prisoner and Return to Ostagar and... no, it doesn't work this time? What? That doesn't make any sense, why did it just work, but not now? So I leave Return to Ostagar off and try as many combos of DLC's as I can randomly try until the thought hit me that maybe it's not actually the DLC's themselves that are causing issues, but rather the items that said DLC's give you? So I turn off Golem's Might, Blightblood, Witchcraft, and Battledress of the Provocateur, along with already having Return to Ostagar and Stone Prisoner off, and Praise the Sun, finally it's back to everything working.

 

So to recap incase you got lost and/or confused on this "War and Peace" long escapade. I have a problem where the DLC's or the items said DLC's give you for beating them cause my game to spawn "Ghost Loghain's" to repeat dialogue already performed, make it so Fort Drakon is either completely inaccessible and warps my character to stand right beside Eamon and Anora when caught, accessible but with a third teammate inside and no cutscene from Alistair to play causing me to be trapped in the cell forever. Turning off specific DLC's will make all problems go away, however other DLC's with items, like Warden's Keep seem to cause no issues. A clean install still gives me the problems, however installing the DLC's, then turning them off seems to fix the problems...?

 

So to say that none of that makes sense would be the understatement of the century. None of that seems possible, and yet I can't deny what is right in front of me. Can anyone even begin to hazard a guess as to why this is happening? Is my game copy cursed by Darkspawn taint permanantly or something? That seems about as plausible as the actual glitches and current workarounds.

 

(If need be, I will do a full reinstall and download the DLC's separately and try another runthrough again if it seems necessary. I would like to avoid this if possible, but I hate letting glitches and weird computer bugs like this win.)

[MoCheese22]

So I know I'm kinda talking to myself here right now, but I did say I was persistent. So if nothing else, if this can help someone else who is having similar problems then great. I had another idea and it led to some interesting results.

 

I did not know about this until doing some more research, but on this page, you can just download all the DLC's from the wiki free and clear, including the promotional items which I've never had before, so that's neat. Anyways, I decided to try installing every DLC including the promotional items AND those offer files, whatever those do, and install them through the DAO-ModManager. Installed and configured all my mods, and loaded the borked Fort Drakon character and the glitch still happened. Not a good sign, so I decided to start a new character and see if playing through the game would make it work this time. However I never got the chance, because when I got to the Camp after Lothering, a strange problem arose. Taking a look at the locations I had on my map, there were two missing. Soldier's Keep(Warden's Keep), and Sulcher's Pass(Stone Prisoner). They just... weren't on my map, at all? I checked my Journal for the quests, and Warden's Keep was there, but Stone Prisoner was not? I never had (visible) problems with Warden's Keep before, but installing DLC's this way I now am? I look in the Camp and Levi Dryden is nowhere to be found even though I do have that quest in the Log? I tried leaving the "fake" Camp, going somewhere, then going to the "real" Camp to see if that helps, but no, nothing, still no Levi but I still have the quest. I try going to the main menu and turning off the Warden's Keep and Stone Prisoner DLC's and going into the game, and another weird bug happens. In my quest log, where Warden's Keep used to be, it's now just a blank space? I can click it, and no text appears on the right side of the log, but it's still there. I go out to the main menu, turn the DLC's back on, the quest log is fixed now but still no Levi and no Sulcher's Pass or Stone Prisoner quest.

 

So now I'm confused even more than I ever have been, and I start trying to think of what could possibly be the problem, and the only thing I could think of was that it might be a registry problem? One of the few things that stays somewhat consistant between re-installs and mod additions.

 

I start searching around the interwebs to see if anyone is having a problem similar to the missing DLC's problem I'm now having, and I come across this. This topic talks about the same problem about having the DLC's installed, but not being visible. You can see the pictures down the first page a little bit, mine looked exactly like that. It also talks about not being able to make Female Warden's, a problem I've never had. I also found this topic which mentions that they have the same problem with the Warden's Keep quest being visible but no Levi. The solution in there was just installing the game on a different computer, which again may point to a registry problem. And finally, this topic where another user, suddenly at random, couldn't make Female Warden's anymore. The solution here was to delete registry values and it did fix the prolem.

 

So I'm gonna try it. The installed, but not visible DLC problem along with the not being able to make Female Warden's mentioned in the first and third topic's which was solved by deleting registry keys. The 2nd topic where the solution was to just install the game on a different computer which can also point to bad registry keys and values(and hopefully not a bad O/S). It seems to line up. I've backed up my registry and will try a completely fresh install this time with absolutely no values in my registry. I deleted every key I could find named: "BioWare", "DragonAge", "Dragon Age", and "Origins". If this does not solve the problem, it most likely does point to a problem with my O/S setup, And if it is, I'll truly be lost, because I'd have no idea what would even be causing the issue or how to fix it. So we shall see. Another reinstall of the game has been done and I will try another run through to see if that fixes it. When I know either way, I'll come back here and update. Reading a lot of topics where the original poster never came back to update what happened, and what worked to fix their problem was very annoying. So if my saga can help anyone having similar bizarre issues it will be worth it.

Edited January 13, 2020 by MoCheese22

[theskymoves]

Did you manually install the offer files for the DLC?

[MoCheese22]

Did you manually install the offer files for the DLC?

If you are asking about the time on my previous post, then that time, I installed everything through DAO-ModManager. And I did the game thing this time as well. Not entirely sure what you mean by installing a DAZip "manually", so if you can give me a step by step and I'll follow it.

 

 

And now for my return and report. I know it took a while, mostly because I'm getting burned out with all the re-installing and playing through the same parts of the game. But I plugged on through and after absolutely nuking everything in my registry and doing this cleanest install imaginable. After going through this damn game one more time... it still happened..

 

:mad: :mad: :mad:

 

I just don't have any more words for this really. I want this to be fixed badly, not only out of curiosity, but so I can have resolution and other people who may have a similar problem can know what to do. Alas, I just don't have any more ideas as to why this is still happening. So if anyone else has any ideas, please, drop em here and I'll certainly look at it. And as for @theskymoves, lemme know what you mean by a "manual" installation of the offer files, and I'll try it.

 

(Le Sigh...)

 

 

EDIT: So I don't know if this is backwards momentum or forward progress, but I just tried the turning off the DLC's in the menu and trying again like before. That used to work as I mentioned somewhere previous, but now it isn't working? Still getting the glitch where after I get caught by Cauthrien, I'm just standing infront of Anora and Eamon with Alistair being captured, but my Main Character not. Even with all the DLC's off in the menu it's still happening. Wonder what that means, if anything, but it is a difference.

 

Edited January 26, 2020 by MoCheese22

[theskymoves]

What I meant was, did you also download and install the offer files for the DLC, from the links on that same wiki page? (Way down at the bottom of the page, after the list of DLCs.)

 

Origin, and I'd imagine Steam, does that part of the installation of the UE behind the scenes, so to speak, so it isn't obvious that those files are required when installing the DLC individually, as you are.

[MoCheese22]

 

 

What I meant was, did you also download and install the offer files for the DLC, from the links on that same wiki page? (Way down at the bottom of the page, after the list of DLCs.)

 

Origin, and I'd imagine Steam, does that part of the installation of the UE behind the scenes, so to speak, so it isn't obvious that those files are required when installing the DLC individually, as you are.

 

Oh, then yes I did. Downloaded all 10 of them, installed all of them in through DAO-ModManager. I even went into Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Offers to see if the folders were in there, and they are. To push it even further, I went to the Dragon Age\Settings folder, opened addins.xml through Notepad++ and changed every instance of (RequiresAuthorization"1") to a 0 as detailed further down the page. Still doing it.

 

EDIT: Not sure how I quoted myself there, but I fixed it.

Edited January 26, 2020 by MoCheese22