Fix to get on BETA - Sunday 11.18.2018

[Khat]

(Disregard this now as they'll hopefully have the login issue fixed in the morning)

If you try to get into Beta today and receive the 1017 error then that means the client and server have a mismatched patch applied to both but it's easy to get around.*

It involves 2 steps:
1. Download and overwrite your eqgame.exe in your beta folder with this one OR a zipped version. (This is straight from my Beta directory after running Friday's patch**)
2. REQUIRED: Start EQ by bypassing the launchpad (which invokes the patcher process that would overwrite the file, which you don't want it to do). In order to do this:

Go into the root directory of your Beta install, left-click the eqgame.exe to highlight it, then right click Send to > Desktop (create shortcut).


Go back to your desktop and you'll find an icon similar to the following has been added:


Left-click that new icon to highlight it then right-click and choose Properties. You should now see a window similar to the one below. In the "Target:" line after eqgame.exe append a single space and then the single word patchme. Afterwhich you can simply click the [OK] button to apply the changes. Now just double click that new icon on your desktop and you'll be able to get into Beta.

IF YOUR EQ BETA INSTALL HAS SPACES IN THE NAME THEN THE FORMAT IS A LITTLE DIFFERENT:
In my example pic above (no spaces in any directory names) I simply had to have C:\Khat-Beta\eqgame.exe patchme
IF my EQ directory was something like C:\Khat Beta then Windows would introduce quotes to delimit the drive path so your Target line would be similar to "C:\Khat Beta\eqgame.exe" patchme
(Note the drive, path, and directory are enclosed in quotes, followed by a space and again followed by the word patchme)

* Unless this is corrected before raids today (unlikely since it's the weekend) then these steps will be necessary but for today only as I'm sure they'll have it fixed at some point tomorrow.
** Apparently some time between Friday and today there was a client patch to eqgame.exe that is messing with its ability to communicate correctly server-side.

ADD: If you would like to compare the validity of this particular eqgame.exe from DBG on Friday with someone else somewhere that also has the same file patched on that day then:

Size: 9523200 bytes (9300 KiB)
SHA256: A7043085782569FA91DA02AAB3248CE919DE9E3F4A69EC7938D0ECA2B4E8F399

(You can get this info from the file by going into File Explorer, choosing eqgame.exe, right-click and choose CRC SHA > SHA-256.

[Nuakor]

khat-- most people shouldn't have browsers or firewalls that allow a .exe direct download. Perhaps you should 7-zip it or such so as not to trigger antivirus alarms.

[Khat]

khat-- most people shouldn't have browsers or firewalls that allow a .exe direct download. Perhaps you should 7-zip it or such so as not to trigger antivirus alarms.

Done.

[Hissteria]

I had to create a shortcut to the replacement eqgame.exe within the eq beta folder itself...added 'patchme' in the properties...then run the shortcut from the folder and was able to get into beta server.

[Tenstone]

Neither of these methods is working for me. When I add patchme to the target pathway in the properties window, it tells me target name not valid. Same if I do it in my beta folder as well. If I try to run eqgame.exe from my beta folder it tells me to run the patcher.

[Khat]

Remember there's a space between eqgame.exe and patchme

[Tenstone]

Ok I got it to work. The target path and starts in field both had quotations around the file paths. I was trying to put patchme inside the quotes or remove the quotes completely, which was not working. When I put patchme outside the quotes it worked fine.

[Oogagogg]

Yea, don't mess with whats inside the quotes, that's where the shortcut is pointing. The patchme goes outside since you are adding that command to be executed.

[Metanis]

Locks me up when I try to enter world. Had to reboot the machine.