POL Error: 1153

[Hapernack]

Basically I've been having a major problem with corrupted ROM files lately. They grew in number as I played the game until finally my game shut down completely and refused to start up. The problem I witnessed was weird.

Everytime I started POL up, it was like the installer began with it. The window to "configure PlayOnline and Tetra Master" would continually pop up, and I'd tell it to cancel. This process would be caught in a loop and would restart in an attempt to re-install POL&Tetra Master from what I can figure.

It would loop 2-3 times before POL would pop up. At this point, the loop ceased. I could get all the way to FFXI fine, but then it would not let me play. Upon hitting the "play" button, it would start up a DIFFERENT "installer" and attempt to Configure Final Fantasy XI. I would continue hitting the "cancel" button and it would loop once more. 2-3 times of cancelling, and I was able to get the game to start loading.

The problem was, that was where it stopped. I didn't even get to the intro movie. It would be a 100% black screen of nothing. Then a text-less dialogue box would open with nothing but an OK button on it. I couldn't do anything. There was no shape, no colors, no text, absolute nothingness except for that blank dialogue box with an "OK" button on it. Hitting the OK button caused POL to crash out entirely and quit.

I checked POL files, some were corrupted. I checked FFXI's files and it found something like 40+ corrupted ROM files. I uninstalled FFXI and POL viewer and then reinstalled. POL worked fine, but when I tried to reinstall FFXI, it said "Warning: The contents of this folder will be overwritten". The pathway was to my old FFXI folder which... should've been deleted along with the uninstallation process. When I opened the folder, I found all the corrupt files.

There were more than were on the original scan. Sound effect files as well as ROMs were in that folder. I tried deleting them but I got a warning box that only gave 2 options. "Try Again" and "Cancel". The warning was that the files were corrupt and unreadable so the delete operation failed. Hitting "Try again" repeatedly for each file proved futile. Basically now I have unremovable undeletable corrupt ROMs and SE files on my computer now.

To make things worse, I tried moving them and renaming them so they wouldn't be in the way and maybe I could still re-install FFXI. It worked when I moved them (I'll find a way to delete them later). The problem stemmed from when I tried to re-update FFXI. POL updated fine and works fine now.

Now I'm receiving POL Error Code - 1153. Saying there's a problem with my "HDD data". There's only one problem. The file pathway it gives me for the problem is... nonexistant. It specifically reads as follows:

"Error CodeOL - 1153
Problems with the HDD data were detected. Version Update Failed.

D:ROM/91/3.DAT"

Now before anyone asks, I don't use any .DAT changes or augmentations to the game. Just basic windower with things like LL and IME. I don't even have things like "Distance" or "Recast" on it. I don't mess with stuff like that for fear of things like... this happening. I might start messing with .DATs now that I know this kind of shit happens regardless.

Anyways, that pathway to drive "D:" would imply that something was in my disc drive. There is nothing in my disc drive at all. How can you encounter an "HDD" problem on a disc drive anyways? Furthermore how can you have a problem file on a removable storage disc that isn't currently there? Also on the FFXI installation CD, there is no "D:ROM". I checked. So now I'm getting an error to a nonexistent file on a non-existent disc which is being diagnosed as an "HDD Error".

Is there any possible cause to this that just comes to anyone's head? I can't even just replace the .DAT 'cuz the damn thing doesn't exist. Is this totally new? I haven't found a damn thing on any sites.

[Cephius]

Remove everything again, and make sure there are no files left over in your C:\Program Files\Playonline folder. Delete it completely if it still exists. Then run CC cleaner, which should clear out your registry of unused POL entries. Once you're sure everything is gone, try installing again. It sounds like after removing POL and FFXI, there was some part of the program left behind that was corrupting your subsequent installations.

[Hapernack]

The bug did not dissappear in all the times I tried to reinstall. I ended up completely erasing everything. I defragged my whole HDD and proceeded to reinstall my OS and everything I had from total scratch.

I reinstalled ffxi and everything worked just fine until I went to go update it. The bug is still there. It tried running an installer-type program which was attempting to "Configure Final Fantasy XI..." and I cancelled it. WTF could this be? Am I really the ONLY case in the whole world that has ever had this happen? I can't find anything even remotely close to this happening on any forum or site.

Edit** It still proceeded to update the fresh copies of FFXI. I refuse to believe that I could've had a re-corrupted version on a 100% fresh system in less than a few minutes after it was installed brand-new. Update is still gonna take a good 5 hours+ so I'll see once its done if FFXI is now at least operable... I'll take the inconvenience of having to click cancel on the dumbass installers as long as FFXI will still work after I cancel them.