Unable to start the game without running it as administrator

[jermin]

When the multithread beta first came out, the game needed to be run as an administrator, otherwise I would get an "initialization error 1" alert. After the launcher came out, I couldn't launch the game anymore because the launcher would not run DCS.exe as an administrator, and there wasn't an option that allowed it to do so.

Since the game starts in the mt mode by default, is it normal for me to run it as an administrator to start it? I've heard from other players that they can start the game without running it as administrator. If the answer is yes, how should I fix the issue?

I've tried repairing the game but to no avail.

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, jermin said:

Since the game starts in the mt mode by default, is it normal for me to run it as an administrator to start it?

no, it is not normal … where have you installed dcs? The only possible cause I can think about, is that dcs was installed on a path were the folder permissions are too restrictive for a normal user. Can you attach your dcs.log file to take a look?

[jermin]

2 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

no, it is not normal … where have you installed dcs? The only possible cause I can think about, is that dcs was installed on a path were the folder permissions are too restrictive for a normal user. Can you attach your dcs.log file to take a look?

I used to install it in a folder named "Program Files" in D:\. I've moved it to D:\ but the error remains. But I haven't restarted the computer yet.

dcs.log

[jermin]

21 minutes ago, TKhaos said:

If that's the new log file most of the references are still pointing to D:/Program Files/Eagle Dynamics/DCS World/ so that could be part of the problem. The log appears to show all the files loaded successfully from the old location but then you got errors further into the log with files not loading from that location.

Restart the system and see what happens, shouldn't make that much difference. Personally I wouldn't have two sets of Program Files folders, it's not generally an issue but I have seen problems in the past.

I always install games to a dedicated directory called 'Games' although with DCS I have a dedicated drive with nothing other than DCS on so not really an issue.

Did you move the directories through DCS or just drag them across?

I was not able to generate any new logs even though an alert popped up every time I started it. I cut and pasted the Eagle Dynamics folder to the new location. I restored a backup My Games/DCS folder when I installed the game fresh. The backup was from several patches before. Will this be the cause? I restarted the computer and it didn’t help.

Edited July 27, 2024 by jermin

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, jermin said:

I used to install it in a folder named "Program Files" in D:\. I've moved it to D:\ but the error remains.

 

Ok, my guess would be that at some point you copied the DCS program folder from C:\Program Files\ to drive D and it worked fine, until at some point you reinstalled windows and then the special file permissions that the folder had became outdated, as they were meant for users and groups of the prior windows.

 

On the log file I don't see the "initialization error 1", were you running DCs as admin?

 

[jermin]

6 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Ok, my guess would be that at some point you copied the DCS program folder from C:\Program Files\ to drive D and it worked fine, until at some point you reinstalled windows and then the special file permissions that the folder had became outdated, as they were meant for users and groups of the prior windows.

 

On the log file I don't see the "initialization error 1", were you running DCs as admin?

 

No. I installed the game fresh in D:\Program Files and didn’t move it until just now. The backup Saved Games\DCS folder was kept in my NAS running Linux before it was moved to my computer.

 

I don’t know why the log file didn’t get written when I ran the game normally. It gets written when I run it as administrator. I’m doing a deep repairing right now. It it doesn’t work I’ll have to reinstall the game.

[Ramstein]

there is a move procedure for programs, I have done with DCS, IL-2 etc... and it is easy, not copy and paste. easy to google it, probably in these forums too.

[Rudel_chw]

4 minutes ago, jermin said:

I don’t know why the log file didn’t get written when I ran the game normally.

 

That's strange, as the log is written at /Saved Games/ not at the DCS program path.

[jermin]

I just finished the reinstallation and it didn't work either. I even deleted the Saved Games\DCS folder. But the problem remains.

[silverdevil]

1 hour ago, jermin said:

I just finished the reinstallation and it didn't work either. I even deleted the Saved Games\DCS folder. But the problem remains.

your log indicates Saved Games at location c:/users/jermi/saved games/dcs/ is there anything located there? i am leaning to your Saved Games location being the issue.

follow this link and see what it is set to now.

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/move-or-restore-default-location-of-saved-games-folder-in-windows-11.8717/

[jermin]

1 hour ago, silverdevil said:

your log indicates Saved Games at location c:/users/jermi/saved games/dcs/ is there anything located there? i am leaning to your Saved Games location being the issue.

follow this link and see what it is set to now.

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/move-or-restore-default-location-of-saved-games-folder-in-windows-11.8717/

Yes. It's there. I started the game as administrator and the log file was successfully written.

Edit: I got into the game as administrator and found some changes. FC2 modules were not listed in the module list but now they are.

dcs.log.old

Edited July 28, 2024 by jermin

[silverdevil]

7 hours ago, jermin said:

Yes. It's there. I started the game as administrator and the log file was successfully written.

Edit: I got into the game as administrator and found some changes. FC2 modules were not listed in the module list but now they are.

have you searched your computer for any other instances of Saved Games? sometimes running programs as administrator will put important folders / files in another location. if you do have another, rename the one you had before and copy the other to replace Saved Games. do not run as admin.

[jermin]

5 hours ago, silverdevil said:

have you searched your computer for any other instances of Saved Games? sometimes running programs as administrator will put important folders / files in another location. if you do have another, rename the one you had before and copy the other to replace Saved Games. do not run as admin.

I found another Saved Games in C:\Users\Default. But it's empty. I found another post on this forum talking about the same error. It looks like it's an issue with the protection system: 

 

[jermin]

I think I might have found the cause. I enabled an optimization for Arma 3 called large page memory allocation. It improved Arma 3’s performance dramatically. But it required the game to be run as administrator for it to work. Is that the possible cause? What’s weird is that other games like X-plane 12 were not affected.

[Rudel_chw]

3 hours ago, jermin said:

Is that the possible cause?

maybe, but couldnt really say as I have never tweaked my windows to such a degree.

[silverdevil]

4 hours ago, jermin said:

I think I might have found the cause. I enabled an optimization for Arma 3 called large page memory allocation. It improved Arma 3’s performance dramatically. But it required the game to be run as administrator for it to work. Is that the possible cause? What’s weird is that other games like X-plane 12 were not affected.

 

33 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

maybe, but couldnt really say as I have never tweaked my windows to such a degree.

interesting. i too have not configured this way. but not really an answer, but, DCS is testy sometimes. perhaps you found a new limitation.

[jermin]

36 minutes ago, TKhaos said:

That's a Windows template so any new users will start with that template profile. It's supposed to be there and supposed to be empty.

There's been a bit of a glitch on some systems recently and Windows has been changing the Virtual Memory to 'No Page File'

If you go into 'System Settings', under the 'Advanced System Settings' tab you will find 'Performance' (you can type Advanced System Settings into search on the PC)

Open the 'Performance' tab and select 'Advanced' and see what your Virtual Memory is set at.

If it's off or you want to check it select 'Change' and as much as I don't like Microsoft manging stuff in this case selecting 'System Managed Size' is your best option as then it will dynamically change to what is required at that point in time. DCS generally uses between 6GB and 8GB depending on system setup.

Once the Page File is set just click 'OK' and that's it.

In the old days of HDD's setting the min/max sizes the same kept everything in a nice neat block for the read/write processes. The trouble with that is if you set say 20GB/20GB then regardless of use it's restricted access to a 20GB block, so if you are only using say 2GB page files that's 18GB of wasted space.

 

The large page tweak has nothing to do with page files. It is a memory tweak. And I also checked the Virtual Memory settings, which was normal.

One step of the tweak is to enable Lock pages in memory in the windows group policy editor.

1)   On the Start menu, select Run. In the Open box (or any Explorer adress bar), type gpedit.msc and press Enter.

2)   On the Local Group Group Policy console, expand Computer Configuration.

3)   Expand Windows Settings.

4)   Expand Security Settings.

5)   Expand Local Policies.

6)   Select the User Rights Assignment folder. The policies will be displayed in the details pane.

7)   In the pane, scroll to and double-click the Lock pages in memory policy.

  In the Local Security Policy Setting dialog box, select *Add User or Group...*. Add your windows account.

9) Restart the PC

This tweak should benefit memory heavy games like DCS. It improved my Arma 3 performance by at least 20%.

[silverdevil]

1 hour ago, jermin said:

This tweak should benefit memory heavy games like DCS. It improved my Arma 3 performance by at least 20%.

thanks for explaining. i honestly had never heard of this before. i did a little reading and it is indeed an interesting tip. i have been a sys admin since 1989 and always am happy to learn something new.

important thing. did it fix your issue?

[jermin]

33 minutes ago, silverdevil said:

thanks for explaining. i honestly had never heard of this before. i did a little reading and it is indeed an interesting tip. i have been a sys admin since 1989 and always am happy to learn something new.

important thing. did it fix your issue?

It is the cause. I hadn’t touched my PC for a long time when the launcher update came out and have forgotten that I had gotten the exact error right after enabling the tweak.

But since it’s quite beneficial and other games are not affected by i, I hope ED will take a look at this. At least we should get a launcher option to to launch the game as administrator.