There is a lot of confusion in the forums right now about the 4109 error. I would like to put all the technical cards on the table so people can understand this problem and what their options are for dealing with it until we resolve them.

The first part of the problem is that there are 3 totally unique error cases that lead down this error path. They are as follows:

1) You may have an X or Y drive mapped and you are trying to start a PC game
2) You may have a problem initializing the 3rd party drivers that are used to play PC games
3) You may have a problem retrieving a multiplayer key that is needed for one of the newer games like Titan's QuestThis case has been resolved

Our messaging for this error path was originally targeted toward problem 1) since this is typically the main reason this error path would come up in a fully functioning environment. Unfortunately, there are bugs that we are currently fixing and working around that have caused problems 2) and 3) to happen the vast majority of the time.

The 4109 "fix" that we posted last night should improve the situation of people who were running into case 2). If you can play any of the older PC titles (by older I mean games that were in GameTap more than 6 months), then your drivers are fine.

If you are specifically having problems playing some of the great, newer games like Titan's Quest, Dawn of War, and Full Spectrum Warrior, then your problem is most likely due to a multiplayer key error on our "new" server. We are working furiously to get it fixed. Many of the "fixes" that people are telling you to do on the forums are not in fact fixes. Some folks are just getting lucky because they have launched these games so many times that they managed to catch the server when it wasn't losing its mind. Until the server is fixed, there will not be consistent launch behavior for these games.

Please let me take a moment to personally apologize to you for the totally unacceptable performance of GameTap since our 4.0 launch. We hear your complaints loud and clear; we love these games ourselves and are killing ourselves to get these issues resolved.

Let me also assure you that we did not become idiots overnight, as several posters seem to think that we have. Most of us on the technology and support teams have been with GameTap much longer than you have. I could write an essay on why this product got released to you in this condition, but frankly it wouldn't help you play games any faster. All I can ask for is your patience. We love this product and we will fix it. We are already working on things like full screen support and a number of other technology additions that will greatly enhance the service. Oh, and by the way there are some great games coming down the line. I won't steal anyone else's thunder on that one.

Tyrion
GameTap Technical Lead / Architect

Well that explains why when I updated the Direct X to March release and it worked for Titan Quest and now I am getting the same error again and failing to launch all games. I can't begin to imagine the stress at your workplace. Given the economy and lack of opportunities out there I would suggest putting in the extra effort to correct this. Alot of people are frustrated with life in general and need thier fix of GameTap.

I would still really like to know why this was done and we were not give a choice about updating. My dad-burn instant messenger gives me the option not refuse the update.
Are we going to get any type of credit for the lost time and FRUSTRATION?

1) and 3) don't seem to be true for me. I definitely don't have X: and Y: actually mapped, and older, non-multiplayer Windows games (such as Icewind Dale) don't work, either. However, the fix posted for 2) hasn't done anything after several attempts.

Tyrion wrote: Please let me take a moment to personally apologize to you for the totally unacceptable performance of GameTap since our 4.0 launch. We hear your complaints loud and clear; we love these games ourselves and are killing ourselves to get these issues resolved. Tyrion GameTap Technical Lead / Architect

I appreciate the apology and am crossing my fingers for quick results! I need meh games!

just wanted to say Thank You, the provided driver fix solved the problem on my end.

Thanks Tyrion for the more technical explanation. I was going to post that I can once again play Titan Quest this morning and it may have to do with the fact that I'm on an Ethernet connection to my work network when it has been working (the mornings) while at night when it doesn't work I'm connected to my protected wireless network at home.

But this behavior is just as likely caused by your multi-player key server dieing at night with the higher player count.

When I heard you guys were switching to a web based application I was worried, I've been a web developer for mid to high traffic sites for 12 years now and I knew, just knew this was a potential disaster in the making. It's almost impossible, no it IS impossible to accurately model high traffic and user behavior without at least partially opening up the floodgate (soft launching). But to HARD launch a site, to completely remove your old working application and to foist your paying user-base into a beta application that clearly wasn't ready for it... well I just hope the people who made that decision (or people up the ladder who forced such a decision) are taking the heat they deserve.

The site has potential, there are good things there (or placeholders for such things) and you'll reach a wider audience without being tied to a desktop app. So far the news sites have been kind to you too. Much kinder than they are to MMOs who launch in such a state, so you're probably going to pull out of this Okay.

My sympathies to the devs who have been killing themselves to make this right.

My Question is what we can do to help;
im running vista.P+32bit+core2+dell E521
and the games tab is comming up blank in the control panel.
I was able to play a couple games on the first day but now nothing.
I did restore and tried to take old game tap off.No luck I tried the new drivers no luck.

So now you have my running system if that will help in any trouble shooting.

yes thank you for the opology.This is the first room that makes sence and i know you are working hard.

Any feedback would be great and if you need any feel free to contact.

Michael.

Thanks and good job with the fix, guys.

Thank you for the post explaining the situation, and thank you for the apology.

The fix you released, as well as whatever other work you have been doing has solved the majority of the technical issues I've had so far, so I'm sure you will get the rest sorted out quickly enough.

p.s. it's ok to tell us what great games are coming. no-one will notice here in the tech support forum, it will be between you and us

Any insight into what may be causing the problem for those of us still having it?

If you are still getting this error after you have applied the fix, and you are *not* trying to play one of our new games that requires a key download (Titan Quest, Warhammer 40K or Full Spectrum Warrior), then please post your logs here so we can try to figure out what may still be happening to some of you.

Khaki-189

Aricene,

Your logs look like you are having the classic case of the driver init error. I would like you to try a slight variation on the reset process we provided in the knowledge base.

*deleted to prevent on going confusion*

If you get a failure at either step 6 or 9, let me know and someone on our team will do more detailed debugging with you via email. Sorry for all of the reboots above, I just want to be very careful about the state of the registry and minimize the variables.

We will get your problem solved.

These instruction were for a specific user, please follow these steps to apply this fix.

Failed on step 6, unfortunately. I tried Texas Hold 'Em Poker.

Thank you very much for the attention paid to this issue, though.

Double-posting because I think I did something to fix it. Running the driver reset executable as an administrator (I'm new to Vista and hadn't thought of that before) seemed to work. Either that, or I just got lucky.

If anybody else is having problems, running the driver reset executable as an administrator might do it.

I should not have to go through six steps to get Gametap to run. That is ridiculous. These problems should have been ironed out before the update. I have no idea what logs you are talking about, but I only tried to play shadowgrounds.

I just ran the driver fix in safe mode and now my Shadowgrounds works. Though one still should not have to go through this to get games to run.

Aricene wrote: Double-posting because I think I did something to fix it. Running the driver reset executable as an administrator (I'm new to Vista and hadn't thought of that before) seemed to work. Either that, or I just got lucky. If anybody else is having problems, running the driver reset executable as an administrator might do it.

This solved the problem for me! The fix did not work until I ran the driver reset as administrator. Thanks Aricene for the post.

I have the 32 bit Vista Home version, with 2g of ram an 8800 and 3.0cpu.I'm still running into the same problem with a different error code. Before the update I was able to play a couple of windows based games, but after awhile I would get an error message and would have to reboot my computer to play, say FarCry or Icewind Dale again.
Now I just got done playing a little FarCry and then some Matt Hoffman then got the 4109 error message. I tried running your patch then the double reset, using Admin settings still have the same problem, I'm limited to the number of times I can play without rebooting, unless I want to play the oldschool games, which suck in this new windowed mode, I like fullscreen imaging, I'll go back to Emu's if you keep that up.

Great catch with the admin rights, Aricene. We will update our fix instructions with that key information.

Please, anyone that continues to have this problem after trying the previously mentioned fixes, we would like you to post your logs. This would be greatly appreciated and will speed up our ability to assist you.

Tyrion wrote: Please let me take a moment to personally apologize to you for the totally unacceptable performance of GameTap since our 4.0 launch. We hear your complaints loud and clear; we love these games ourselves and are killing ourselves to get these issues resolved. Let me also assure you that we did not become idiots overnight, as several posters seem to think that we have. Most of us on the technology and support teams have been with GameTap much longer than you have. I could write an essay on why this product got released to you in this condition, but frankly it wouldn't help you play games any faster.

Thanks, Tyrion. See, someone in marketing thinks you have to pretend like all this is being done entirely for the customers' benefit and golly-gee aren't we all lucky and excited. That's a big part of what's pissing people off - pretending like things are fine and like the severe glitches and loss of functionality are all just standard operating procedure.

I for one appreciate the frank explanation and apology above. It's obvious to everyone that this was a business/marketing decision and not one based on immediate software engineering or end-user concerns. That's unfortunate, but it's life. But it adds insult to injury to pretend like this is some exciting new development for the customer.

Again, thanks for not B.S.ing us.

I don't think any of the staff is pretending like there aren't problems. We're just trying to keeping level headed so we can get these issues fixed. Like the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy tells us, "don't panic"

Hello,

Thanks for the effort. I just want to say that I tried downloading the fix, restarting the computer and all. It didn't work. Don't know why. Any way you guys can just scan my computer like in the old days and find a fairly quick solution?

Thanks!

We're you logged in as admin when you applied the fix?

clarone wrote: Aricene wrote: Double-posting because I think I did something to fix it. Running the driver reset executable as an administrator (I'm new to Vista and hadn't thought of that before) seemed to work. Either that, or I just got lucky. If anybody else is having problems, running the driver reset executable as an administrator might do it. This solved the problem for me! The fix did not work until I ran the driver reset as administrator. Thanks Aricene for the post.

My troubles are over! just ran the reset as Admin and vuala!