Server Stability

12-15-2016 logged in (CT) PoK, the zone reset several times with 'mini' rollbacks.
Decided to try and set up trader and give up actually TS-ing or playing.
Bazaar kept resetting, I couldn't get any price changes to stick with the mini-rollback.
Anyone else having this problem or is it CT only?

This morning I have been having similar issues.

Background

I run 4 accounts, one (main) on one PC, three on a second PC. There have been three accounts on their own pc all sharing the same EQ directory, for 2 plus years, and two similarly for an additional decade. I patched both machines yesterday after the patch was over.

What's happening

Main - My main character logged off last night in the Grand Guild Hall. This morning I attempted to enter the world from character select. The process hangs up for about a minute or more, and the kicks me back to either character select or the log in screen. Waiting 15 mins and using Return Home worked, but when I tried to enter the GH from Guild Lobby, the same 'hangs for a minute, kick to Char Select' happens and the character is not able to re-enter the world. I made the run from Lesser Faydark to PoK and to the GL with no issues.

Alt accounts - The main toons on these accounts were all in the Frontier Mountains. Of the three, one entered the world in FM with no problem about 2:20 ago. Neither of the other two accounts has been able to enter the world on main characters. One of the two has not been able to enter the world on a second character shown as being in the Guild Lobby. The second account has not been able to enter the world on a second existing character (also in the FM) but creating a new character worked and that character was able to enter Gloomingdeep and zone from the entry zone in the Gloomingdeep proper.

Any suggestions on next step? I will use Return Home to get characters back in the world, but naturally I wonder what will happen the next time I log in.

Your situation appears similar to mine. Some characters between the two accounts I run can log into world (Felwithe, Blightfire Moors, and Bazaar), but a majority cannot, including my mains (in GL/GH to home city, PoK, many others). I'm not sure if there's a correlation with GH/GL or not as I have some toons parked elsewhere that cannot log in. I have posted other places in forum - including the thread of bug issues from recent patch and have not yet heard back. Additionally, I filed a ticket last night. I have not heard back about that either. I have tried many, many different things. Deleting log files, hitting Reset to Default UI button from Character Select screen, removing my UI files (name_server, UI_name_server), running a malware sweep, running file validation in patcher, restarting, and several other things that I found digging around in forums. Returning home for a character that freezes, though, does not get me into world actively. My main is now in her home town (always frozen at Character Selection, I never actually saw her zone/her home town) but still will not let me Enter World. Additionally, for the characters I am able to log into world (eg. the one in Felwithe), as I try and zone into another zone, the character freezes, and crashes to Server Select. And then that toon is no longer playable, I cannot log them in at all.
Nothing I have tried has worked. With the ticket I filed, I also had to send my DXDIAG and MSinfo files so hopefully I hear back soon. Keep me posted if you find something that worked to solve our problem :/

Addition to the above.

Characters exhibit similar behavior logging into a modest guild hall and the bazaar.

best fix ever

Usually when one specific character is crashing when entering the world deleting their ui file fixes it at least every time it has happened to me deleting the files fixes it. Or remain it temporarily to test whether it fixes it for you.

Thank you for the suggestion, but it did not work. Keep in mind I was able to use 'Go Home' and zone through two zone lines before crashing to server select on one toon, and that all of the toons on three of the four accounts seem to be affected, possibly excepting the one in Gloomingdeep, which has not yet been zoned out of that zone to any 'real' one.

By the way doesn't that bork all of the hotbuttons?

I would manually copy over things and Go Home worked for me to. Every time it happened to me it was just one zone that was the problem. If I got in the game without logging in to that zone I was fine. I think one time a dev explained something about why it happened but that years ago

It would always affect just one toon on an account and just logging into a specific zone most often it was pok but not sure if the particular zone matters. And it was funny because in none of the situations do I recall making any changes to the UI Never could figure out why it happened.

It does make sense though that it will have something to do with that one toon and the files associated to that toon.

Are you able to log that toon in via another computer? If so you could changing your set up on the other computer to match the character settings on your regular computer then copy them over. I will do some searching and see if I can find any other ideas.

Okay found this thread on allakazam. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=1&mid=132146310537365821

If you get in game using return home as soon as you get in be sure Show Offline in the guild managter ALT G is turned off. Worked for the person in that thread at least.

I can 'Return Home' and zone out of my home zone and into PoK. Show Offline was already off in the Guild tool. I can log out using Ctrl-X and log back in. I can zone from PoK to Blightfire Moors and back again. I could not zone from PoK to the Guild Lobby, and instead got kicked to Server Select.

I do not think the .ini file has anything to do with it. I renamed mine to .BAK and was unable to load into the GL earlier today. I still had it renamed when the sequence of events in the prior paragraph took place. The other computer is having the same issue with two of the three accounts that live on it.

Next I will try toons on a different server.

Tried a toon on Xegony, but on the same computer. It was a nearly identical result except that trying to load into a Modest Guild Hall bounced me to the log in screen.

Tried my main toon on a second computer. The .INI file is one that has not be modified for at least several months, perhaps longer. Same result: Could not load in to GL, bounced to Server Select.

Today I copied over my EQ folder to a thumb drive (just to keep a copy of it) and am now proceeding to download an entirely new Everquest folder to my computer. So far, I've only had one snag - the launchpad kept getting stopped on a file download, saying it was corrupt or that an update was happening and to try back 20-30 minutes later. I ran a Check Disk (Tools under Properties of C: drive) after that happened and it took forever (my computer is a bit old and probably pretty broken), and 2-3 hours after that finished up, I opened launcher to only again find the same launchpad error. I went ahead and found the file it kept snagging on (dranikhollowsc.eqg, oddly enough) in my OLD Everquest folder, and copied it over into the new EQ folder. The launcher was happy and it is continuing to download game again. I still have quite a bit of the download left but we will see if reinstalling it solves some of these issues. I pondered that this might be the problem as my old EQ files were originating from the old SOE folder rather than the Daybreak Games Folder, which might be the issue, but I honestly have no idea. Still have not heard back about my support ticket.

Just attempted to get into EQ from the fresh download, and no luck. Still the exact same problem. I only tried logging into my main character (who was originally parked in GH, and who I was able to hit "Return Home" with and who is now in Shar Vahl, but never actually got to move her around/see her in world), no other characters. Going to try a few more things. Will of course post back with any news/updates.

The login server has experienced another issue in which it cannot be reached.

Looks like those server connectivity problems still hanging around eh?

No criticism here, running a server farm is harder than it looks, hope you all get it fixed.

Return Home no longer works for my main character.

By sounds of it def seems corrupted ui files but if people are deleting files and still having issues then most likely it may be a newly patched / worked on worn item thats bugging out? Seems every patch we have there are ui issues or something preventing logins for players. Only thing i can really think of is to fully validate game files to ensure the patcher has not left something out and needs to be downloaded. And to answer questions above yes deleting ui files will delete your layouts and hotkeys.

So I suspected just what you have said I have tried everything to remedy the issue.
I ran File Validation in patcher several times on old files. I also deleted my character's UI files (name_server and UI_name_server), as well as deleted the entirety of the UIfiles folder in the Everquest game folder and had the patcher redownload them.
On the new Everquest folder that I reinstalled on my computer, I also ran File Validation after it was done. There were no hang ups on downloading the UI stuff in the patcher for the fresh download.
It seems that I've done all that I can on my end to address any UI problems but I'm really not sure how to proceed/if you have any other suggestions.

Sadly it look's like daybreak will have to hotfix something in at this point.

Looks like Xegony booted everyone from the server for a minute but it is up again.

I think it is not asking too much to throw the dbl named, dbl exp, dbl faction bonuses and roll them all until you folks get these problems solved. Nearly every time this happens, I have guild members logging on complaining that the aug they had just looted is gone now or they have to rekill a mob for hunter, or do a mission again, or lesson of the devoted is poofed.
This should be a no brainer.