1 - INSTALLER (SWTOR_setup.

exe, or the installer on the CDs)

1.1 - THE INSTALLER DOESN'T WORK!
If you run SWTOR_setup.exe and it runs through its progress very fast and then y
ou don't seem to have the game installed anywhere, there are two main issues whi
ch crop up here:
You are running a program which conflicts with the installer. Known culprits are
FRAPS, Ventrilo, RadeonPro, WindowBlinds, DLLFixer, Ivilinx Download Manager an
d Dell's "PremiereColor" color management tool. Some people -- though not all -have also had trouble with overclocking utilities as well, such as MSI's Afterb
urner or eVGA's overclocking tool. (There are probably a few others, too, so if
you aren't running any of those and the installer still won't work, go quit what
ever you can from your systray as well.)
Your antivirus or firewall is blocking SWTOR_setup.exe from running. Make sure y
ou have added specific exceptions for SWTOR_setup.exe, or otherwise made sure th
e antivirus is not causing the issue.
If neither of those works, as a last resort, you might want to try creating a se
cond administrator user on your machine, and try running the installer there -just in case some account-specific setting is causing troubles. In some cases, t
hat has fixed things for people.
If you have a second machine that does work properly to install, you can try cop
ying the SWTOR directory from the working machine to the broken one, and that ca
n potentially get you up and running.
Further Troubleshooting Info For This Problem
If the above fixes don't work and you're going to ask CS or other players for he
lp, you will need your installer log. Go to your Documents directory, and you wi
ll find a textfile called "Install STAR WARS The Old Republic" which contains a
log of everything the installer did. You'll want to include this -- wrapped in S
POILER tags -- in any post asking for further help.
2 - LAUNCHER/PATCHER (Launcher.exe)
2.1 THE LAUNCHER WON'T RUN
For almost every situation where the launcher won't run, the first thing to try
is repairing the launcher or reinstalling it.
The first, simpler thing to try is just to run the FixLauncher.exe program you'l
l find in your SWTOR directory. That will try to clear up a lot of launcher issu
es for you in an automated way.
If FixLauncher doesn't work, download the SWTOR_setup.exe installer again and re
-run it atop your existing installation. This will not touch the actual game fil
es that you've downloaded, but will replace the launcher with the latest version
and hopefully get things fixed
Some fixes for specific errors are below...
Not A Valid Executable / LIBCEF / ICUDT
If you get an error involving Launcher.exe not being a valid executable, or anyt
hing involving libcef or icudt, something's become corrupted in your launcher in
stall. There way to fix this is simply to re-download the launcher and reinstall
it as listed above.
Only One Instance

The problem below -- Launcher Doesn't Appear -- will often mean that the launche
r is running, but frozen. If you try to run the launcher a second time, you will
receive an error message about how only one instance of the launcher can be run
at a time. You'll want to open Task Manager (hit Control-Alt-Delete and pick Ta
sk Manager from the options), and then select Launcher.exe and click 'End Proces
s.' Once that's done, you can move on to the entry below, to figure out why your
launcher isn't starting up properly.
Launcher Doesn't Appear / Just Won't Start / Takes Forever to Start
When the launcher first starts, the UI won't appear until its finished a few thi
ngs. As a result, if the launcher freezes up on you at start, you won't see anyt
hing appear at all. You will still see launcher.exe in your Task Manager process
list, however, as noted above.
For some people, allowing the launcher to sit for 10-15 minutes actually allows
it to finish whatever its trying to do and recover. This situation (the long wai
t) apparently arises most often with college campus proxies that are automatical
ly assigned in Internet Explorer via a PAC file, where not all proxies play nice
ly with the launcher. Or where the computer has stopped being on college campus,
but is still trying to request PAC information.
However, some ad-blocking software will set up proxies in Internet Explorer that
remain even if the software's been uninstalled. It's worth checking Internet Ex
plorer's proxy settings, as a result, as the WinInet library -- and thus the SWT
OR launcher -- inherit system proxy settings from IE.
So, open Internet Explorer and pick the 'Tools' menu, then select 'Internet opti
ons.' Go to Connections, and click on 'LAN Settings' -- see if there are any pro
xy settings there which might be causing you problems, including 'Use automatic
configuration script.' You can try unchecking those options if so, and then runn
ing the launcher again.
If, however, that does not work, there are a few things you can still try. One o
r more of these may apply to you.
Check if there is a "patch" directory under your SWTOR install. If there is, the
launcher may have died partway through checking on patches. Delete that directo
ry and things will likely work.
You can also delete the launcher.settings file without any worries, and that may
fix things if the launcher had some broken state.
Hit up Windows Update and make sure you have the latest .NET updates installed.
Make certain launcher.exe is allowed through your firewall.
Some folks have reported issues with the Launcher even when added to the excepti
on list if using Avira, so you may want to try another antivirus to see if that
works if you are using Avira.
The same thing applies to Comcast's branded version of Norton.
If you are using ESET, try turning off Protocol Filtering.
Make certain that you have the latest build of Java installed. You may also have
better luck with the 32-bit version of Java even on 64-bit systems.
If you are running a game that uses GameGuard anticheat protection, GameGuard se
ems to conflict with the SWTOR launcher in some situations. In most cases, if yo
u ensure the game's launcher/update tool has been exited, GameGuard will go dorm
ant and you'll be able to play. This means quitting out of launchers for Lineage
2, Aion, etc. that might be running.
If none of that applies to you or nothing lets Launcher start working, you may w
ant to try rebooting Windows in Safe Mode + Networking, and see if the launcher
will start up for you. If the launcher starts in Safe Mode, then something runni
ng in normal mode is likely the cause. If you boot in Diagnostic Mode (which loa
ds all drivers, where Safe Mode doesn't) and the launcher fails to work, then yo

ur issue is almost certainly a conflict with drivers of some sort.

Known potential driver conflicts include:
Korg MIDI device drivers (thank you to shurikt for sharing this one)
Avid Mbox3 (thank you to Empire_Player for spotting this one)
If you have a Korg keyboard, synth or MIDI adapter plugged into your computer, y
ou might want to try temporarily disabling that and see if the launcher works. S
imilarly, if you have an Avid Mbox3 connected, try unplugging that and seeing if
the launcher starts. (Really, if you have random USB devices you don't need plu
gged in, try unplugging them all just in case one of them is a conflict.)
Further Troubleshooting Info For This Problem
If the above fixes don't work and you're going to ask CS or other players for he
lp, you will need your launcher logs. Go to your SWTOR directory, and you will f
ind a logs directory under it. Find the latest launcher log and include it, wrap
ped in SPOILER tags, when posting a request for help on the forum.
2.2 - LAUNCHER WON'T UPDATE
If the launcher runs but gets stuck in a 'Please wait, updating launcher' situat
ion every time you run it, sometimes just waiting for 10-15 minutes will correct
this. In many situations, this is due to a proxy server being set in Internet E
xplorer that really slows this down for some reason. Clear the proxy out of Inte
rnet Explorer as detailed in the "Launcher Doesn't Appear" section, and that may
fix things up.
It's been reported by a poster in this thread and a couple in other threads that
sometimes, if you go to the Launcher language settings and change it from Engli
sh to French (or really, from any language to any language) and back, that may g
et the launcher to recover and finish updating. That's a bit of an odd fix, but
can't hurt to try.
If the launcher really never recovers, however, you can try FixLauncher.exe to s
ee if that corrects things. If FixLauncher doesn't help, you can also just re-do
wnload SWTOR_setup.exe and try running that again to install the latest launcher
.
2.3 - LAUNCHER WON'T AUTHENTICATE
Congratulations! Now you have a launcher with a nice Star Wars logo and an impos
ing city skyline. Ideally, things go smoothly from here, and you can enter your
username and password to connect. Unfortunately, life isn't always ideal, so her
e's a couple more potential issues and fixes.
The login service is unavailable. / Server Not Responding
While the Launcher runs on your own machine, the Launchpad is Bioware's server t
hat actually handles authentication and validation of your account. If the launc
her isn't able to contact the launchpad when it starts up, this will be the mess
age you'll get. (If you beat the launchpad to the punch and try to log in before
that error pops up, you'll get 'Server Not Responding' instead.)
The first and simplest thing to check is whether your time and date are way off.
If they are, the authentication will probably fail; set Windows so that it upda
tes time and date from Internet time servers, and you'll be in sync. (It's also
worth checking your BIOS clock; some folks have reported that being off has also
caused them problems, even when Windows seemed to have the right time.)
The corollary to this is to make sure that your computer timezone and your timez

one setting here on the account page of your SWTOR.com settings are the same. Ba
sed on a couple posts by CS droids in other threads, if the timezones don't matc
h, you might get an authentication failure and the 'Server Not Responding' error
when you try to log in.
If time and date are correct, you might have a network issue. Make sure that you
've allowed launcher.exe through your firewall software and that it's not being
blocked by any antivirus or other security software!
There are also a few programs which can cause issues:
ESET: If you are using ESET as your antivirus and firewall, go and disable Proto
col Filtering in the settings and see if that fixes the launcher for you.
Kaspersky Internet Security: Turn off 'Scan secure connections' and see if the l
auncher works properly.
IPblocker: If you are running IPblocker, you will need to add Launcher.exe to th
e exceptions, or else it can stop the launcher from running.
Peerblocker: For whatever reason, even if you add the launcher to Peerblocker's
exception list, it doesn't always like the launcher and will stop it from talkin
g to the Launchpad. Try disabling Peerblocker and see if this fixes things.
Additional Verification Needed
This error crops up if you haven't set security questions on your account. Go ch
eck the security question page and set at least three of the five questions. Onc
e this is done, the launcher should allow you to log in with your user and passw
ord, to begin patching.
Certificate Failure
If you get a certificate failure error, the simplest thing to check first is whe
ther your clock is off. If your clock is way off, by years, the launcher fails t
o negotiate properly with the patch servers entirely. (This happens when securit
y certificate fails to validate, because your clock is set to some time before t
he certificate existed. If your computer thinks it's 2007, a certificate from 20
11 is clearly not valid yet.)
You may also have outdated security certificates which you've skipped over updat
es for. You can go find the optional 'updated certificates' update in Windows Up
date (probably the simplest route), or re-download the Verisign and Thawte Root
Certificates from the Verisign site manually, using this helpful guide by the Dr
unken Pirate Guild. Updating those certificates from either source can't hurt an
yway; Bioware's going to be far from the only place that'll eventually sign with
the newer ones.
I Keep Getting a Busted Security Question
Make certain your security question doesn't contain any accented characters. Eve
n if the website allows this (which I don't believe it does, anymore), the launc
her doesn't always like it.
Further Troubleshooting Info For This Problem
If the above fixes don't work and you're going to ask CS or other players for he
lp, you will need your launcher logs. Go to your SWTOR directory, and you will f
ind a logs directory under it. Find the latest launcher log and include it, wrap
ped in SPOILER tags, when posting a request for help on the forum.
2.4 - LAUNCHER WON'T PATCH
You logged in, and now the launcher is trying to pull down great heaping piles o
f Old Republic data to get the game patched up. If this is the point where you'r

e having trouble, there's a couple fixes for problems here, as well.

The first, and easiest, fix for this situation is to simply copy SWTOR from a co
mputer that is working to the one that is not. If you have multiple people in a
house playing, or a friend nearby who plays, just copy the directory entirely ov
er from the machine that patched properly to the one that didn't, and you'll be
up and running.
If you don't have a second machine that patches properly, there are still a few
things you can try for the following errors.
Patch Data Unavailable
Patch Data Unavailable type messages can happen when the patcher slows down to a
certain point and it will erroneously report 'Patch Data Not Found.' It's recom
mended to just let it wait for 5 minutes or so to see if it recovers, rather tha
n stopping and restarting the patcher.
If you previously had the corrupted CDN server issue and edited your hosts file
by hand, this can also be caused by that. Often, everyone who edited their file
by hand and hasn't changed it back is trying to hit one specific patch server, a
nd that poor server is getting a wee bit overloaded. You probably want to revert
your hosts file, then flush your DNS cache using 'ipconfig /flushdns' from the
command prompt. That should get you routed properly to a less-heavily-loaded ser
ver and the download should work more smoothly.
Stuck on some asset at some percentage / Patcher restarts the same file
The patcher patches in stages, and the most prominent progress bar is for the cu
rrent set of assets. When that set is done, the bar resets and it moves on to th
e next asset. This has apparently led some folks to the misapprehension that the
patcher has started over entirely chances are it hasn't, but rather just moved
on to the next set.
If you can
files, or
alling the
d" section
ror.

confirm it genuinely is looping over and over to re-download the same

has frozen in place on a specific percentage point, it's worth reinst
certificates as listed above in the "Certificate Authentication Faile
even if you aren't getting the 'Certificate Authentication failed' er

If that doesn't work, however, you can check the launcher logs (in the 'logs' di
rectory under where you installed SWTOR) to see what the error is.
Reliable source serving corrupt data
This means that one of BioWare's Content Delivery Network (CDN) servers is servi
ng you corrupted data. They've gone through and scrubbed corrupted servers from
the system, and changed the launcher's behavior; what the launcher should do at
this point is keep reconnecting to different CDN servers until it gets a valid c
opy of the file.
If you did edit your hosts file as was recommended in several threads way back i
n the early days of the game, the BioWare folks have asked that you revert that
change, because that causes all users to hit one specific CDN server, which caus
es that server to deliver data veeeeery sloooooowly and can cause other problems
. In fact, if you're now having problems with more recent patches, the hosts fil
e change is a good possibility as to the cause; when all the folks who edited th
eir file try to patch and all hit one single CDN server to download everything,
that server will be heavily overloaded and serve files slowly (or stop serving t
hem at all).

'Corrupt Source detected' error, 'Unknown file' error or 'File info: missing...'
error in launcher log
These errors mean that the file checked out on the CDN side, but was corrupted o
n your local side somehow. There's unfortunately no one fix for this. Many folks
with these errors have been able to fix the situation by running the Repair opt
ion in the launcher, but if the problem persists, there are a few other possible
fixes with no clear front-runner.
Important note: Though the 'repair' option will appear to redownload the game, i
t is not necessarily actually doing so. It's examining the assets, comparing, an
d figuring out what it needs to redownload. See this post from BioWare for furth
er details.
Now, some people have seen the corruption due to other (hardware) issues: becaus
e the files are so large, the launcher seems more vulnerable to memory issues th
an some things are (simply by virtue of touching so much of your RAM at once as
the files are uncompressed, patched or copied around). Running memtest86 can hel
p to expose if there are issues in your memory, but there can also be misconfigu
ration. For instance, BioWare's also noted that they've been internally able to
reproduce patching errors on a system where the CAS Latency in the machine's BIO
S was set wrong for the memory installed, causing memory errors which corrupt th
ings in much the same way. So you can check your memory speed in your BIOS.
If your memory is good and your configuration is good, there's also a corner cas
e in some 64-bit editions of Java which can affect the patcher portion of the la
uncher; if you're on a 64-bit machine, there seems to be a bug in the 64-bit JRE
that can cause large buffers to get corrupted in certain edge cases; this cause
s the patch process not to work right. The simplest fix is thus to uninstall the
64-bit version of Java and reinstall the 32-bit version of Java 1.6.
If even that still doesn't work, BioWare folks are trying to track down other ca
uses, and are asking that people send them information, as per this sticky threa
d. So, if you find these error in your launcher logs and your memory tests out g
ood and the configuration is right and the Java suggestion doesn't work, please
contact them with the information they request in that thread. The more informat
ion they can gather, the more easily they'll be able to make fixes that will hel
p get everyone up and running more smoothly in the future!
In the meantime, the best workaround for this issue is to get a copy of the SWTO
R directory from a friend (or a second machine) whose copy you know is not corru
pted and which has patched successfully. That's not an ideal solution, but it'll
get you up and running in the meantime.
Further Troubleshooting Info For This Problem
If the above fixes don't work and you're going to ask CS or other players for he
lp, you will need your launcher logs. Go to your SWTOR directory, and you will f
ind a logs directory under it. Find the latest launcher log and include it, wrap
ped in SPOILER tags, when posting a request for help on the forum.
3 - STARTING THE GAME (SWTOR.exe)
3.1 - NO PLAY BUTTON
Your launcher is working, everything's downloaded, and now... the play button is
grey! And there's an error message!
The error message flashed past too fast to read!

If the error message flickers past way too fast, chances are it says "The curren
t environment is unavailable for play" or something similar.
Okay, then, the error is "The current environment is unavailable for play."
That means 'none of the servers you have access to are available right now.' Thi
s usually means, you want to check the server status page or forums for stickies
or posts about server downtime or maintenance.
You may also want to make sure you're not accidentally using the Public Test Ser
ver at a time when the PTS isn't around.
3.2 - ERROR CODES
You're ready! You click PLAY and...
ERROR CODE 1
If you're getting a black screen followed by an 'Error Code 1' dialog box, some
users are reporting that downloading the Origin client and running it once adds
some missing settings or setup to your machine and can resolve the error.
ERROR CODE 3
This seems to have something to do with administrator accounts in general. If yo
u aren't on an administrator account, you'll need to run the game on one. If you
are on an administrator account, try making a new one and running the game ther
e to see if that works. The usual caveat applies: don't use any strange characte
rs in the account name, just stuck to A-Z and 0-9.
ERROR CODE 5
This error code usually means one of the asset files has become corrupted on dis
k somehow. Running 'repair' in the launcher may work to get you back up and runn
ing, by re-downloading the broken asset. Alternatively, if you have someone else
in the same household (or a friend locally) who has a good, working copy of SWT
OR on their own machine, you can just copy their directory over to your machine
and that should fix the problem.
ERROR CODE 6
The most common cause of this error is when you don't have at least 3 gigabytes
of disk space free. If you installed TOR on a drive other than your main Windows
system drive, make sure there's 3gb free on both some data is likely to be stor
ed in temporary directories or otherwise in your user profile data, which will m
ost likely be on your system drive.
The Bioware folks have suggested also making use of Microsoft's Disk Cleanup too
l to try and free up space. If you have 3GB free on all applicable drives, bad s
ectors could be confusing the situation. Run scandisk, and check again.
This error can also happen if you have non-standard characters in your Windows u
sername -- Chinese or Japanese, Cyrillic or Greek letters, or even just accented
characters can cause the game to erroneously return error code 6, thinking ther
e's not enough space in the AppData directory. If you have accented characters o
r other non-ASCII characters in your Windows username, try making a temporary se
cond Windows account and running the launcher.
ERROR CODE 7

One of the common issues here is if your graphics drivers aren't up-to-date. If
your graphics driver doesn't support the Direct3D Shader Model 3, this error wil
l happen. So, double-check that your graphics drivers are current first, because
that's the easiest fix. Unfortunately, if you don't have a dedicated GPU (i.e.,
if you don't have an Nvidia or ATI graphics card) you probably won't be able to
play.
If you are on an ATI-based Mac using Bootcamp, the drivers included with Bootcam
p do not always work and may trigger the issue. You can hit up AMD's GPU driver
download page and pick specifically the Mac/Bootcamp option and the appropriate
version of Windows; the drivers AMD will give you from that page are known to wo
rk properly with SWTOR.
If your card is definitely good and your drivers are current, this can also be c
aused if your .NET Framework is out-of-date or if you have an older version of D
irectX installed, so hit up Windows Update just in case. And one last possibilit
y is that your copy of PlatformInfo.dll is missing from the installation (or cor
rupted). If that's the case, you can try reinstalling, or you might be able to g
et a copy from a friend's installation of the game.
Another issue is apparently if you use ASUS GamerOSD to allow overclocking of yo
ur GPU, something in that program conflicts with the system check and can cause
the Error Code 7 issue to surface. In general, if you are running anything you d
on't absolutely require for the computer to function, you should probably try qu
itting it to see if it was causing a conflict with the game. You can even try a
Clean Boot just to be safe.
Unfortunately, those don't seem to be the solution for everyone. The CS droids a
re aware of that, and are trying to collect information for the developers in th
is thread, where they'll also presumably provide updates on any fix. If everythi
ng is current, you'll want to check over there.
SERVER ERROR 1002
Error 1002 actually means that you've become stuck in a queue. According to Biow
are, you'll want to make sure there are no SWTOR processes running in the task m
anager, and then just wait 30 minutes. That will give the servers enough time to
see that you're a ghost, kick you from the queue, and allow you to log back in.
SERVER ERROR 1003
Normally, this means the server has gone down -- or been taken down for maintena
nce. It can also be related to firewall issues, so the usual 'check your firewal
l' instructions apply.
For some people, this happens without any firewall issue and while the server is
demonstrably up. For many people, setting the launcher to run in Windows XP SP3
compatibility mode seems to solve the problem as an interim workaround. Otherwi
se, there is currently a sticky BioWare information thread where they are trying
to gather more information on this particular error.
SERVER ERROR 1005
First, do make sure that SWTOR is being allowed through the Windows firewall, as
per the instructions here on Microsoft's site. If you use a different firewall
program, make certain that SWTOR is allowed to function as a server as well as a
client (i.e., to accept incoming connections as well as make outgoing ones).
Secondly, make certain you're not running Peerblock, IPBlock or Hotspot Shield.
For some reason, Peerblock in particular can conflict with TOR at the actual gam

e level and will prevent the server list from downloading. Make sure to add SWTO
R.exe and Launcher.exe to the exemptions, or else temporarily turn the blocker/s
hield off while playing.
Bioware CS has noted that the following ports need to be open for SWTOR, as well
:
80
2052-2053
8995
12000-12999
20000-30000
For the vast majority of modern routers, SWTOR will be able to negotiate opening
these ports for you. Unfortunately, if your router is not allowing SWTOR to pro
perly request these ports to be opened for you, you may need to go to your route
r and forward them to your machine directly. The process necessary to open the p
orts on your router will be specific to your router, so you'll probably need to
Google the make and model number, along with 'port forwarding' or 'open ports.'
If you are on a college network, you may have to contact campus IT to ask them a
bout getting access through a proxy server of some form.
Further Troubleshooting Info For This Problem
If the above fixes don't work and you're going to ask CS or other players for he
lp, you will want to grab your DxDiag output. Go to the Start menu, pick Run, an
d enter DxDiag in the field. Click the 'Save All Information' button, and save t
he report as a textfile on your desktop temporarily. Open that textfile, and you
'll see a report suitable for pasting into the forum. You will also potentially
want a client log, which can be found in your SWTOR directory; go to the SWTOR d
irectory, then pick the 'swtor' folder in there, then 'retailclient' and then 's
wtor' and then 'logs'. Be sure to enclose all logs/reports in SPOILER tags to ke
ep from making threads unreadably large.
3.3 - GAME DOESN'T START / BLANK SCREEN
Game Crashes Immediately with a Message about MSVCP90.DLL
The MSCVP90.DLL is part of the Visual Studio 2008 runtime set. Normally this is
installed by a number of programs, but especially if you skip installation seque
nces it's possible to end up missing this file, or with an outdated copy. The qu
ickest fix for this is to go grab the latest copy from Microsoft in a handy VS20
08 runtime redistributable package. Once you're up-to-date, things should go bet
ter.
Game Crashes Immediately with NodeSpecCache error
For some people, running the FixLauncher.exe program in your SWTOR installation
directory will solve this. For others, they may have to use the Repair function
in the launcher.
If neither of those helps, one of the more common causes of this issue seems to
be having a language other than English (United States) set as the fallback lang
uage in your Windows preferences. If you're running Windows 7, this can be set f
rom the 'Region and Language' control panel go to the Administrative tab and mak
e sure the 'Current language for non-Unicode programs' is set as 'English (Unite
d States)' -- if that's not the setting, change it and try running again.
Another cause is if your Windows user account name contains extended characters
(accented characters, Greek characters, Cyrillic characters and so on). You can
try creating a second administrator account using only basic numbers/letters and

see if that works.

If neither of those applies, there's a chance the game's caches are corrupted. A
s per this thread, you can go to your SWTOR settings directory (either under \Us
ers\<youraccount>\AppData\Local\SWTOR or \Documents and Settings\<youraccount>\L
ocal Settings\Application Data\SWTOR) and try to remove the DiskCacheStatic and
DiskCacheStream files from the 'swtor' subdirectory. If you can't remove them, y
ou can try the trick in that thread and move the 'swtor' subdirectory out of the
way, making a new one and copying the other files over.
In addition, some folks have reported that ZoneAlarm Extreme Security 10.x does
not coexist well with the launcher, where 9.x worked fine. There doesn't seem to
be a current workaround for this other than disabling ZoneAlarm or downgrading
back to v9. If you're a ZAES user getting the NodeSpecCache error, double-check
what version you are running.
Game Crashes Immediately with 0xc0150002 error
This seems to mean a missing support library, so it's worth running through Wind
ows Update before doing anything else. Just in case there are support updates yo
u need.
If that's not enough, generally, installing either Microsoft .NET Framework 3 ma
nually or anything that installs .NET Framework as a prerequisite (Quicktime, fo
r instance) will fix this. As some folks have had trouble getting .NET 3 to inst
all, reinstalling Quicktime from Apple's website is a quick workaround.
Game Crashes Immediately with some other Message (or no message at all)
For other crashes, another potential fix for folks is removing Nvidia Forceware
Network Access, which seems to conflict with SWTOR in some situations and cause
a crash.
Yet one more potential fix is apparently a corrupted launcher.settings -- if you
clear that file away from your SWTOR directory and try running again, that fixe
s the issue for some people.
In addition, if you are running with two monitors, apparently the addition of an
tialiasing in patch 1.1 can cause issues, as the value defaults to on. If you di
sconnect or power off the secondary monitor, the game may start correctly for yo
u. If you then disable anti-aliasing, you should be able to run in windowed mode
again with both monitors on.
Further, if you've tweaked your client settings file, try going to the AppData d
irectory (C:\Users\<youraccount>\AppData\Local\SWTOR on Windows 7 or Vista, C:\D
ocuments and Settings\<youraccount>\Local Settings\Application Data\SWTOR on Win
dows XP) and finding the client .ini files and moving them to the desktop (or ot
herwise out of the way) to let SWTOR start with default settings. If you've over
ridden game settings using Nvidia Control Panel or ATI's Catalyst command center
, revert them to default as well.
One more thing that can cause problems for people is having the magnification se
ttings of their computer set to something non-standard. On Windows 7, there are
two options -- an actual 'Magnification' setting in the Display control panel, a
nd a text size option. On Windows Vista and XP, there is only a text size option
(on XP this is buried in the Advanced settings of the Display control panel). I
f you've changed the magnification or system text size, try reverting to default
and see if that lets the game run properly.
Game Doesn't Start / Stuck at Loading

If you click Play and the game seems to hang for several minutes, this is not un
expected. Don't panic over this either just wait a few minutes, and you should s
ee the opening movie.
If it still never starts after that, some players have reported that having a se
cond monitor active causes the game not to load if you're set in fullscreen mode
. Try temporarily disabling your second monitor, and the game might start up.
If you get a screen that only has the SWTOR logo and the blue 'loading cog,' the
n you may have a firewall or security dialog that popped up behind the game, ask
ing whether or not to allow it access to things. If that isn't the case, you mig
ht be in a server queue there appears to be an issue where the queue position po
pup doesn't come up in all situations. Just hold tight, and you might pop in whe
n your queue number comes up.
My Screen Goes Black!
If you only get a black screen indefinitely, check to see if you are running an
ATI/AMD Radeon card. If you are, there is a known incompatibility with the Catal
yst 11.8 (and occasionally 11.9) drivers they will not work and will result in a
black screen. Either update to newer drivers, or roll back to old ones, and you
should be fine. 11.10 and 11.11 are known to work fine, as is the 11.12 that AM
D/ATI released on December 13th.
There are also rumors that the current beta build of the Nvidia unified drivers
has a similar problem for some people if you're a GeForce user with the black sc
reen problem and grabbed the most recent beta, you may want to try downgrading t
o the last real release.
If your monitor is saying something like 'invalid resolution' or 'bad signal' or
whatever, chances are that the SWTOR default resolution wasn't working with you
r monitor. You'll probably want to go find the 'client_settings.ini' file in you
r SWTOR directory and change a few modes.
You can find the client_defaults.ini file in the installation directory of the g
ame. By default it is located at:
For 32 bit Operating Systems - C:\\Program Files\\Electronic Arts\\BioWare\\Star
Wars - The Old Republic\\swtor\\retailclient
For 64 bit Operating Systems - C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Electronic Arts\\BioWare
\\Star Wars - The Old Republic\\swtor\\retailclient
Open the file in a text editor you'll find many graphics settings there.
The most common settings to change for people are:
fullscreen (often changing from 'true' to 'false')
D3Dfullscreen (often changing from 'true' to 'false')
windowed mode
You'll also find width/height/refresh and other options, if you know what you're
doing. Once you've edited the file, save it and exit the editor, then try runni
ng the game again.
If that doesn't help, there's also a Bioware thread on video and sound issues yo
u might want to check, and one on specifically the black screen issue, with deta
ils on some troubleshooting steps you can take.
My Screen Goes Black And (For Added Fun) I Crash, Too!
Apparently, this is often a partially corrupted DirectX installation. Unfortunat

ely, the smaller web-installer version of DirectX cannot repair a broken install
ation, where the bigger actual DirectX distribution can. If you think this might
be your problem, you'll want to download the full DirectX redistributable packa
ge and run a repair from that, then try again.
As mentioned earlier, as well, if you have two monitors, apparently the renderin
g changes in patch 1.1 also can cause issues; if you disconnect the secondary mo
nitor, the game may start correctly for you.
If that doesn't help, there is a thread on this, where folks are trying to track
down possible causes.
My Screen is All Stretched and Everyone Looks like 'Fat Hobbits.'
There are two main causes for this.
First, if you're on a Mac running Windows under Bootcamp, the version of the ATI
drivers included with the Bootcamp disc doesn't like SWTOR. Don't bother trying
to update the ATI drivers via Apple Software Update or Windows Update, just gra
b Catalyst from ATI's site directly and install.
Secondly, apparently some people have had Windows Update install an erroneous mo
nitor driver. Since SWTOR reads monitor settings differently than some games, th
is has caused it to think it needs to run the 3D portion in 4:3 mode. If you've
had an odd monitor driver appear that doesn't match your real monitor, try unins
talling it and either reinstalling your real monitor's driver, or reverting to t
he generic Plug-and-Play driver monitor.
If neither of those works for you, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way
to override this at present.
Further Troubleshooting Info For This Problem
If the above fixes don't work and you're going to ask CS or other players for he
lp, you will want to grab your DxDiag output. Go to the Start menu, pick Run, an
d enter DxDiag in the field. Click the 'Save All Information' button, and save t
he report as a textfile on your desktop temporarily. Open that textfile, and you
'll see a report suitable for pasting into the forum. You will also potentially
want a client log, which can be found in your SWTOR directory; go to the SWTOR d
irectory, then pick the 'swtor' folder in there, then 'retailclient' and then 's
wtor' and then 'logs'. Be sure to enclose all logs/reports in SPOILER tags to ke
ep from making threads unreadably large.
3.4 - GAME ISSUES AFTER PLAYING A BIT
I Get Disconnected with "Error 9000"
Error 9000 means your internet connection went away... or at least, the game thi
nks it did. If you're playing on a link that has a tendency to drop, this error
is probably real. However, apparently some folks have seen Ventrilo cause this i
ssue while playing on an otherwise-solid Internet link. If you're getting this p
roblem and are running Ventrilo, try quitting and seeing if that helps. (No, tha
t's not an ideal solution, I admit.)
Another interesting factor is that some setups -- it's unclear where in the chai
n of things, whether at your router, your modem or your ISP or what -- don't see
SWTOR connections as actual network traffic, and so will reset your connection
periodically. Setting something that will be recognized as a live connection -streaming video in the background (BBC iPlayer works for those who have access),
or BitTorrenting a Linux ISO or something similar (please only choose LEGAL tor
rents, folks) -- can prevent this sort of reset/disconnect, and thus keep you co

nnected. If you BitTorrent something, set the bandwidth to be pretty low; you'll
stay connected, and it won't eat all your link. This trick does not work for ev
eryone, but has worked for a surprising number of players who were suffering the
Error 9000 disconnection issue.
Blue Screen of Death
If you're getting a
e most likely cause
eaning out the fans
ry turning down the

blue screen of death after you've been playing for a bit, th

is an overheating video card. Opening up the computer and cl
is one of the best fixes you can try if that doesn't help, t
graphics detail for a while and see if that helps.

3.5 - EMPTY SERVER LIST

The same steps as server error 1005 apply here make sure SWTOR.exe is given an e
xemption in your firewall, that you're not running Peerblocker type software, an
d that the ports are open if necessary.
If even that doesn't work, some folks apparently have a build of the game that's
still looking for the beta server list, and which hasn't patched to current. If
this is the problem you're having, some folks report that running the 'Repair'
option in the launcher fixed things for them by forcing the appropriate stuff to
update. If even that doesn't help, apparently a complete uninstall and reinstal
l does work (though, obviously, redownloading the entire game is not particularl
y fun).
At least one player has also remarked that if you previously set SWTOR to run in
Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode to deal with issues under a previous patch, t
urning that back off can make the server list appear for some folks.
Further Troubleshooting Info For This Problem
If the above fixes don't work and you're going to ask CS or other players for he
lp, you will want to grab your DxDiag output. Go to the Start menu, pick Run, an
d enter DxDiag in the field. Click the 'Save All Information' button, and save t
he report as a textfile on your desktop temporarily. Open that textfile, and you
'll see a report suitable for pasting into the forum. You will also potentially
want a client log, which can be found in your SWTOR directory; go to the SWTOR d
irectory, then pick the 'swtor' folder in there, then 'retailclient' and then 's
wtor' and then 'logs'. Be sure to enclose all logs/reports in SPOILER tags to ke
ep from making threads unreadably large.
4 - THAT WAS A LOT OF READING, NONE OF WHICH FIXED MY PROBLEM! I HAZ A SAD.
There are a few other general tricks you can try. Some of these are detailed in
specific sections above, but I'm going to include them here in a short general l
ist.
Try running FixLauncher or re-installing the launcher from a copy of SWTOR_setup
downloaded from swtor.com again. You would be startled at how many problems thi
s fixes.
Make certain you are running the launcher as administrator. (Right click the lau
ncher icon, pick properties, and check the 'run as administrator' box.)
Make certain your computer's time and date are set correctly, both in Windows an
d for the BIOS. If they aren't, the encryption necessary for various steps might
fail.
Try changing your region/locale/language to English (United States), if you have
it set to something else.
Try creating a second administrator account on your machine, and running the ins
taller, launcher or game (whichever is malfunctioning) from there.
Make certain your installed copy of .NET Frameworks is completely up-to-date, an
d that you have everything from Windows Update that looks important.

Make certain your installed copy of Java is up-to-date; if you're on a 64-bit sy

stem, try downgrading to the 32-bit version of Java instead of the 64-bit one.
Try doing a Safe Boot with Networking (or a complete Clean Boot) of your compute
r, to see whether something that's loading at startup is causing conflicts.
If your problem is somewhere after patching has completed, try running the 'Repa
ir' function from in the launcher.
Double-check all antivirus and firewall settings. Even if you had an exemption b
efore, sometimes certain firewalls 'forget' that exemption when the launcher upd
ates itself. You may need to remove and re-add the exceptions for launcher.exe a
nd SWTOR.exe -- and yes, you do need both of them in the exceptions, not just on
e or the other.
If none of those helped, keep in mind that while I do try to update this post pe
riodically, this is just an effort by a fellow player. Always, always check this
board to see if there's anything in the stickies listed at the top or do a sear
ch to see if there's a thread about your specific error. If you do end up creati
ng a new thread, again, make sure to listen to the Customer Service Forum FAQ be
fore doing so, in order to provide the maximum amount of info for the CS droids
to work with.