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Bob-Morane
Bob-Morane
Join Date 05/2009
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[1z1] "conflict" with Online Armor IDS

April 11, 2010 9:29:26 AM from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Well, i just started testing Elemental yesterday but when i tried startring it for the first time, i had some troubles related to the IDS functionnality of my Firewall : Online Armor

Online Armor has a function that monitors new unknown applications starting, registry changes ... When a new application starts, it displays a pop-up window above the notification area. This po-up has options for allowing or not the application, an option to "Trust" it ...

The trouble is, when Elemental started, OA tried to display the Pop-up to ask me whether or not i allow it to run, but Elemental apparently didn't quit the full screen mode, and didn't allow the pop-up to be displayed. So my system was left with Elemental waiting to be allowed to run, and OA wiating an answer to the question i never received.

I tried alt-tabing to the desktop, hitting the windows key to bring the start menu and bring focus to the desktop, win-D to use Fences "show desktop" feature. Nothing worked and i had to hard reboot my computer.

I tried manually adding Elemental.exe to the list of trusted apps, but apparently Elementals had to start another process because it once again locked at the loading screen (the one with the "ode to beta1" text ). Well, this time i was more clever cause i didn't try to alt-tab, but i blind-clicked where i knew OA was probably displaying the "allow" button, and this actually allowed the game to run.

I'm now able to test the game (well, test the crashes would be closer to the truth ). If this happens with OA, it might as well occur with other IDS or process guards applications.

Here is my System Information

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Bob-Morane
magus
Join Date 08/2001
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Reply #1 April 11, 2010 9:46:56 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

It's a fundamental issue with how Online Armor works and the problem will recur every time that Elemental is updated.  There really isn't anything that Elemental can do differently to "fix" the problem.

There are two things that work for me:

1.  After hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete pull up task manager.  That seems to be sufficient to nudge Windows to display the desktop.

2.  Run Elemental in Windowed mode, it's a setting on the options screen.

 

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Bob-Morane
Bob-Morane
Join Date 05/2009
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Reply #2 April 11, 2010 10:30:09 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

I know other games, even final builds have the same issue, but some others don't. It means something can be done.

If Elemental does cede focus or allows alt-tabbing even during the loading screen step, it will fix the issue. Or maybe use windowed mode for the loading step rather than full-screen, and only go to full screen when everything is loaded and every process is working. Well i'm no programmer, so i can only guess what might work. I just wanted to port this to the attention of the developpers. If noone tells them about the issue, they won't do anything about it will they?

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Bob-Morane
Mictavius
Join Date 12/2007
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Reply #3 April 12, 2010 12:31:19 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

It's actually a fairly common issue with firewalls that a game won't quit full screen but will also freeze either at the start or when trying to access some online functionality

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Bob-Morane
Bob-Morane
Join Date 05/2009
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Reply #4 April 12, 2010 8:25:01 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Yep, but we all hope Elemental will be better than most games out there don't we

BTW, is it the right place to report issues. It's what i understood from the reporting guide, but i'd like to be sure cause a public forum is rarely the place to report bugs to.

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