Hi all,
I understand that this is a long post but please consider reading (or at least skimming) it in case you have problems with your your mouse wheel zooming function - or, and I am equally exited about this one, if you are interested in testing whether a strong and coordinated community effort in the forum can actually lead to getting a bug fixed! Every player can contribute!
Okay, let's get started:
Motivated by being frequently affected by the 'mouse wheel scroll bug' (see below), I decided to spend some time researching ALL the relevant postings in the different forums here. As of now (March 25, 2013), I am done collecting information and would like to start this summary/review thread in the good hope that with the community's help, we can tackle this long existing and rather annoying bug well enough to allow Turbine to come up with a fix.
To ease reading, this post is organized into sections. This first post will be edited regularly.
0. Sources
=======
I'd like to start with sources first, allowing interested readers to update their knowledge and learn what other users have reported and tried so far. This is not a complete list of threads I studied, but the main observations and the most relevant discussion of the bug are provided here:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...working!/page3
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...el-Camera-Zoom
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-wheel-problem
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...intermittently
1. Bug description / Symptoms
====================
In normal game play the mouse wheel is controlling the camera's zoom, i.e. the distance from which the camera is looking down at your character is changed within a certain range. The same functionality is provided by the +/- keys on the numeric pad. Under certain conditions, the mouse wheel stops to affect the camera zoom factor while the +/- keys still work. Also the mouse wheel still works when scrolling within User Interface (UI) windows. The bug persists until the LOTRO client gets completely restarted, just logging the same character out and back in won't help it. Even logging on with another character in between won't help the first character's stuck zoom until you really completely exit the game.
2. How to reproduce it
==============
While this still needs further confirmation (see section 5, How can the community help?) these steps represent the best way known to trigger the bug:
2.1 Arrange or wait for a situation in which you've got enough messages in your in-game mailbox that listing them will force the corresponding UI window to draw a scroll bar. Important: The sender of the message has to be the action house (AH), messages from other characters are reported not to trigger the bug.
2.2 Use the mailbox to display the list of available messages. Now process them as fast as your clicking abilities allow. I usually start at the bottom of the list. Use a double click to open the mail, grab the item or money and delete the mail. At this point, the current UI window will auto-close and the remaining messages in your box are presented. Process them exactly the same way and continue to work through all your mail, always maintaining the utmost speed you can manage. Speed really is the factor here, do it slow and the bug will not appear.
3. Failed work arounds and fixing attempts
===========================
List of "fixes" that have been reported not to work, including replies from customer support:
- Walking to mailbox instead of riding.
- Within "My Documents" or "Documents" > "The Lord of the Rings Online": deleting file "lotro.keymap" to force the client to
regenerate it during next launch (and thus losing your custom key mappings until you redo them).
- Using other "unbugged" mailboxes.
- Reinstalling the game.
- Reinstalling the mouse driver(s).
4. Successful work arounds
=================
List of work arounds that successfully prevent the bug:
- Never have more than 4 messages in your mailbox, i.e. prevent the scroll bar from appearing. This is might be near impossible to achieve if you use the AH frequently.
- Work through your messages slowly, allowing the UI and auto-close mechanism to 'stay on top of things' thus preventing the mouse wheel getting stuck in 'UI mode'.
4. Confirmed platforms and LOTRO versions affected
============================== ===
This bug has been reported on Windows LOTRO clients all the way from Alpha (July 2007) to date (March 2013) suggesting that it is a bug in the LOTRO code and independent of the used Windows platforms and different mice models. There is confirmation for:
- Windows XP; 32bit & 64bit; DX9
- Windows Vista; 32bit & 64bit; DX9 & DX10
- Windows 7; 32bit & 64bit; DX9 & DX10
5. How can the community help?
=====================
If you think this bug is worth fixing, then please consider taking 15 minutes to help the case! This is best done by following the instructions below and NOT just by replying to this thread stating how much you hate this bug! The goals are to keep this thread well organized with the ultimate aim to have it reported many times (i) and being able to indicate how it is reproduced (ii).
5.1 Bookmark this thread if you plan to help at a later time or wish to keep up with it. If you can't find it, you can't help us.
5.2 Try to recreate the bug. If successful, please use the in-game /bug command to file a bug report. You can copy the text above for the instructions how to reproduce it, if you did it that way. Also, please reply to this thread stating your OS version, mouse model and whether you were able to reproduce the bug or not!
5.3 If you know other ways to reliably recreate this bug, report it here stating your platform and mouse model. Please report it in-game too (see 5.2). Seeing the bug one time is by far not enough. Report only if it worked for more than 5 times the same way, with no exceptions.
5.4 If you seem not affected by the bug after trying the instructions in section 3, please also report it here stating your platform mouse model, how many mails you processed, and how many seconds it took you.
Thank you very much for your help!
I will tally up your replies by editing this posting and hope that with joined efforts we can get rid of the bug! Please send me a private message here in the forum if you have ideas how to improve this post with respect to structure, orthography, or other.
I understand that this is a long post but please consider reading (or at least skimming) it in case you have problems with your your mouse wheel zooming function - or, and I am equally exited about this one, if you are interested in testing whether a strong and coordinated community effort in the forum can actually lead to getting a bug fixed! Every player can contribute!
Okay, let's get started:
Motivated by being frequently affected by the 'mouse wheel scroll bug' (see below), I decided to spend some time researching ALL the relevant postings in the different forums here. As of now (March 25, 2013), I am done collecting information and would like to start this summary/review thread in the good hope that with the community's help, we can tackle this long existing and rather annoying bug well enough to allow Turbine to come up with a fix.
To ease reading, this post is organized into sections. This first post will be edited regularly.
0. Sources
=======
I'd like to start with sources first, allowing interested readers to update their knowledge and learn what other users have reported and tried so far. This is not a complete list of threads I studied, but the main observations and the most relevant discussion of the bug are provided here:
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...working!/page3
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...el-Camera-Zoom
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-wheel-problem
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...intermittently
1. Bug description / Symptoms
====================
In normal game play the mouse wheel is controlling the camera's zoom, i.e. the distance from which the camera is looking down at your character is changed within a certain range. The same functionality is provided by the +/- keys on the numeric pad. Under certain conditions, the mouse wheel stops to affect the camera zoom factor while the +/- keys still work. Also the mouse wheel still works when scrolling within User Interface (UI) windows. The bug persists until the LOTRO client gets completely restarted, just logging the same character out and back in won't help it. Even logging on with another character in between won't help the first character's stuck zoom until you really completely exit the game.
2. How to reproduce it
==============
While this still needs further confirmation (see section 5, How can the community help?) these steps represent the best way known to trigger the bug:
2.1 Arrange or wait for a situation in which you've got enough messages in your in-game mailbox that listing them will force the corresponding UI window to draw a scroll bar. Important: The sender of the message has to be the action house (AH), messages from other characters are reported not to trigger the bug.
2.2 Use the mailbox to display the list of available messages. Now process them as fast as your clicking abilities allow. I usually start at the bottom of the list. Use a double click to open the mail, grab the item or money and delete the mail. At this point, the current UI window will auto-close and the remaining messages in your box are presented. Process them exactly the same way and continue to work through all your mail, always maintaining the utmost speed you can manage. Speed really is the factor here, do it slow and the bug will not appear.
3. Failed work arounds and fixing attempts
===========================
List of "fixes" that have been reported not to work, including replies from customer support:
- Walking to mailbox instead of riding.
- Within "My Documents" or "Documents" > "The Lord of the Rings Online": deleting file "lotro.keymap" to force the client to
regenerate it during next launch (and thus losing your custom key mappings until you redo them).
- Using other "unbugged" mailboxes.
- Reinstalling the game.
- Reinstalling the mouse driver(s).
4. Successful work arounds
=================
List of work arounds that successfully prevent the bug:
- Never have more than 4 messages in your mailbox, i.e. prevent the scroll bar from appearing. This is might be near impossible to achieve if you use the AH frequently.
- Work through your messages slowly, allowing the UI and auto-close mechanism to 'stay on top of things' thus preventing the mouse wheel getting stuck in 'UI mode'.
4. Confirmed platforms and LOTRO versions affected
============================== ===
This bug has been reported on Windows LOTRO clients all the way from Alpha (July 2007) to date (March 2013) suggesting that it is a bug in the LOTRO code and independent of the used Windows platforms and different mice models. There is confirmation for:
- Windows XP; 32bit & 64bit; DX9
- Windows Vista; 32bit & 64bit; DX9 & DX10
- Windows 7; 32bit & 64bit; DX9 & DX10
5. How can the community help?
=====================
If you think this bug is worth fixing, then please consider taking 15 minutes to help the case! This is best done by following the instructions below and NOT just by replying to this thread stating how much you hate this bug! The goals are to keep this thread well organized with the ultimate aim to have it reported many times (i) and being able to indicate how it is reproduced (ii).
5.1 Bookmark this thread if you plan to help at a later time or wish to keep up with it. If you can't find it, you can't help us.
5.2 Try to recreate the bug. If successful, please use the in-game /bug command to file a bug report. You can copy the text above for the instructions how to reproduce it, if you did it that way. Also, please reply to this thread stating your OS version, mouse model and whether you were able to reproduce the bug or not!
5.3 If you know other ways to reliably recreate this bug, report it here stating your platform and mouse model. Please report it in-game too (see 5.2). Seeing the bug one time is by far not enough. Report only if it worked for more than 5 times the same way, with no exceptions.
5.4 If you seem not affected by the bug after trying the instructions in section 3, please also report it here stating your platform mouse model, how many mails you processed, and how many seconds it took you.
Thank you very much for your help!
I will tally up your replies by editing this posting and hope that with joined efforts we can get rid of the bug! Please send me a private message here in the forum if you have ideas how to improve this post with respect to structure, orthography, or other.