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Game client anti-cheat known issues and fixes

Riot Perma·6/16/2018, 1:12:18 AM·54 votes·485,471 views

Hey everyone,

We've collected a list of known issues that we are tracking now that our anti-cheat solution has rolled out to North America. We've also compiled a list of common fixes that can remedy issues you may be encountering, based on the reports that we've reviewed so far. We'll continue to update this thread as we know more.

Known Issues

  • Players with an AMD FX/Opteron (Bulldozer family) processor experience very, very long load times followed by unplayable frame rates. This may manifest as black load screens seeming stuck for some players. Make sure that you have the most up-to-date firmware (update your BIOS to the latest version) from your machine's manufacturer, as we have confirmed that this fixes the issue.

  • The following software products are currently incompatible with the anti-cheat. Removing the software remedies the issue. We are currently working on identifying the exact problems.

    • Xunyou, a Chinese tunnel accelerator, is not compatible with the changes in League of Legends. You can remedy this by removing this software, following these steps:
      1. Uninstall Xunyou.
      2. Verify that it has been completely uninstalled by making sure that xunyount.dll has been deleted from C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWow64.
      3. Run an elevated Command Prompt as Administrator (except Windows XP, where a Command Prompt window will suffice). You can do this by right-clicking the Command Prompt icon and selecting Run As Administrator.
      4. Type this command: netsh winsock reset
      5. Press enter, then restart the computer.
    • Backup Now EZ, a backup solution bundled with Toshiba external hard drives, can cause the game to crash. The latest version of this software does not appear to cause this issue.
    • Spybot Search and Destroy, an anti-malware service.
    • Huorong Security, a Chinese security suite.
    • The FPS counter feature that is installed as part of the Razer SwitchBlade OEM software may cause the game to crash. This does not happen with the latest Cortex overlay software from Razer.
    • RivaTuner, display adapter mod software.

  • Some players unknowingly have kernel debugging enabled which will cause the game to freeze or crash, by design. To disable it, follow these steps:

    1. Run an elevated Command Prompt as Administrator. You can do this by right-clicking the Command Prompt icon and selecting Run As Administrator.
    2. Type this command: bcdedit /debug off
    3. Press enter, then restart the computer.

Common Fixes

  • Make sure that your anti-virus or security software is up to date. We have seen a number of reports with very old versions of anti-virus software that are no longer supported or that have newer, compatible versions.
  • If you run the game in a virtual machine, you must do so with GPU pass-through technology. The game will not run in any other virtual machine configuration. Please see this post for more information about our rationale behind this decision.
  • Do not run the game with a kernel debugger enabled. This will cause a game crash or reconnect loop.
  • If your game client refuses to patch after using one of the test executables that we provided, you may need to repair your installation before trying to patch.

Issues Fixed

  • Some anti-virus software (such as Comodo Internet Security, Avecto Privilege Guard, etc) would cause the game to crash on startup. This issue should be addressed by patch 8.13.
  • Players were experiencing lag spikes 5-15 minutes into the game. This should be addressed by a hotfix applied at 10:30 AM PST, Friday, June 15.
  • Stuttering or hitching was appearing for some players throughout the game. This should be addressed by a hotfix applied at 7:30 PM PST, Thursday, June 14.

How to Create a Dump File

As we work on diagnosing issues, we may ask you to provide a dump file which will give us a lot of insight into what's causing problems for you. We would really appreciate it if you could provide these dump files to us whenever possible. You can do it by following these steps:

  • If you receive a critical error message that offers to generate a dump file:

    1. Select Yes to generate a dump file.
    2. Select Yes again to generate a full memory dump. This is preferred. If you would like to generate a smaller dump, select No, but note that this may not contain the information we need to diagnose the problem.
    3. Zip the file.
    4. Upload the file that is generated to a file hosting service like Dropbox or Google Drive.
    5. Make sure access permissions for the hosted file are set to Public, so that we can view it.
    6. Link the dump file in this thread, providing a description of your problem with as many details as possible.

  • If you do not receive a message, but want to create a dump file:

    1. Open Task Manager.
    2. Right-click on the League of Legends.exe process (not the Ux processes) and select Create Dump File. This is the "League of Legends (TM) Client".
    3. Zip the file.
    4. Upload the file that is generated to a file hosting service like Dropbox or Google Drive.
    5. Make sure access permissions for the hosted file are set to Public, so that we can view it.
    6. Link the dump file in this thread, providing a description of your problem with as many details as possible.

  • If the game closes immediately without giving an error message, and you're unable to generate a dump before the League of Legends.exe process closes, follow these instructions:

    1. Download the procdump.zip file.
    2. Extract the contents of the zip file to your desktop or folder of your choice.
    3. Right-click on setup.bat and select Run As Administrator. (Alternatively, you can start a new instance of the Command Prompt by right-clicking on it and selecting Run As Administrator, then navigating to the folder containing setup.bat and executing the command setup.bat.)
    4. The prompt should say that procdump.exe has been set as the just-in-time debugger.
    5. Join a custom game or practice tool to launch the game again.
    6. If the game crashes, one or more new .dmp files will appear in the folder where you extracted setup.bat and procdump.exe.
    7. Upload the dump file(s) to a file hosting service like Dropbox or Google Drive.
    8. Make sure access permissions for the hosted file are set to Public, so that we can view them.
    9. Link the dump file(s) in this thread, providing a description of your problem with as many details as possible. Be sure to include the names of any security or third-party software you're using.

708 Comments

Arvelique6/16/2018, 1:54:50 AM100 votes

Nothing about working with the Virtual Environment software companies to make it compatible with your new anti-cheat?

Everyone that was playing on WINE/VMware etc will now have to quit the game (including me)

Seems fair after how much all of us Linux users have spent on your game. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Xaeros6/16/2018, 4:33:11 PM62 votes

Do not run the game in a virtual machine. We are not currently compatible with virtualization or Windows emulation software, including Wine. This will cause a game crash or reconnect loop.

So... League is no longer capable of being played on Windows running on Hyper-V. League is no longer capable of being played via cloud gaming (Nvidia GRID, Gaming VPS, etc). League is no longer capable of being played on Linux.

...and the "common fix" for these environments is, "do not run the game". Perfect.

Pittsburgh6/16/2018, 9:35:42 PM52 votes

This is BEYOND PATHETIC Riot. Instead of half your fricken gamers having to go mess with their crap, WHY DON'T YOU FIX YOUR OWN. WHY RELEASE A PATCH UPDATE THAT HAS A KNOWN ERROR. Apparently you want your fan base gone. Fix your shit or I'm done. I'm sure a lot of other people agree. P.S. I've done everything your little guide had to offer. Nothing.

Itirpon6/16/2018, 5:53:33 AM40 votes

What kind of arcane wizardry have you added that causes League of Legends to interact with our BIOS?

Common Fixes We are not currently compatible with virtualization or Windows emulation software, including Wine.

That's not a common fix; that's a statement admitting that your most recent patch is being problematic. A common (noting that the word "common" means "applies to most everybody") fix is "We're Reverting to the version that was available Tuesday and not deploying an invasive/defective 'cheat detection' mechanism that isn't compatible with a non-trivial number of our players' machines." So why not apply the common fix, Riot? Or more specifically tailored to this most recent report, why wasn't this figured out through PBE such that everybody would know about the BIOS issue before this all went live?

(Requisite: Wine Is Not an Emulator)

Hairy Sausage6/16/2018, 10:11:19 PM33 votes

After 6 seasons of only playing league and hundreds of dollars spent in game they drop Linux support.

I'm currently downloading DOTA2 and will take my money elsewhere.

Good job Riot!

summoner 6

cackulator6/17/2018, 12:04:13 AM26 votes

I'm not even a Linux user but the idea that you would suddenly make your game not compatible for Linux is somewhere between mind-blowing and pathetic.

JoeAnarchy6/16/2018, 7:14:56 PM23 votes

now if only Riot would remove all our leaverbusters (that we only received because of this bug) as compensation for the trouble :P

TheHaiGround6/17/2018, 2:38:54 AM21 votes

As a Linux user, I am incredibly disappointed with RIOT's decision to break compatibility with virtualization. I never expected RIOT to support Linux, but with virtualization it was still possible for me to play my favorite game while still running the operating system of my choice. I have been playing league consistently for the last 7 years and spent hundreds on this game and now it looks like I will have to find another.

Riot, are these updates to your anti-cheat system worth losing a portion of your player base? Can you accomplish the same thing without breaking compatibility with virtualization?

koshkyra6/17/2018, 1:46:50 PM21 votes
  • Disabled kernel debugging and still cannot play the game
  • I do not have Xunyou
  • My antivirus is up to date
  • I dont use those processors
  • I dont use any virtual machines

?????

ModIts Yuu and Mi6/18/2018, 3:22:29 AM16 votes

Like. I have to figure out how to disable one part of my OS, to figure out how to disable another part of my OS, so that... I can play the game without it randomly crashing. Which never happened before this.

... Why is this being mandated again?

I can see why this thread is so heavily downvoted. Making players jump through all sorts of hoops with their OS settings just to play the game is insane.

God forbid someone actually doesnt even own their computer (parent's, for instance). Or you know, people might be afraid with messing with settings as well.

Evil Piano6/17/2018, 1:00:43 PM14 votes

Dear riot, what kind of game you are making that need bios update and disable antivirus? [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Scarlet Myrmidon6/17/2018, 2:26:53 AM13 votes

As someone who does not use a computer for anything other than recreation, why can you not take this patch away? I work hard all week to come play this game since 2010 and this is how you treat your players? This is truly awful. Please fix this so next week after I get back from working all week AGAIN I can sit back and play a freakin game.

Joel Money6/17/2018, 4:56:50 AM13 votes

So if you got rid of VMs for the anti-cheat fix, were cheaters creating rootkits that took over the client code? I didn't realize that cheaters were such a problem that you have to alienate an entire population of users...sounds like a terrible business plan. Are you doing Intrespection on what is running to determine whether the game is allowed to run? If BIOS fixes and VMs don't work then yall must be messing with some low level shananigans. If you are that worried about your game and cheaters, why not sandbox or do your own virtualization so that you isolate your memory from the cheaters introspection and modification? Or is the problem that you did that and now nested virt causes the issues.

I work with VMs for a living on xen. Maybe instead of doing this kind of patch you should look into micro xen...basically would give you same effect in my opinion.

-Joel Money

cosarara976/16/2018, 11:20:44 PM12 votes

Do not run the game in a virtual machine. We are not currently compatible with virtualization or Windows emulation software, including Wine. This will cause a game crash or reconnect loop.

I hope you checked how many people were running the game on wine before you did all this. You will lose many customers, I hope you reconsider.

Lewd Neptune6/18/2018, 8:09:32 PM12 votes

Congratulations Riot Games, in the span of 2 weeks, you successfully managed to:

1.Completely break the meta of your own game by releasing a patch the ruined the support and ADC roles.

2.Willingly release a patch removing the ability of a significant number of you player base to play, with no intention of rolling it back.

3.Lose the respect of most of your player base, while basically running away with all those Linux player's money thinking you were slick and releasing a useless "help" board giving useless "fixes".

GGWP, Riot, keep giving people horrible, no good, very bad days and driving away your player base.

[slayer-jinx-wink]

P.S. To those reading, if you haven't before, DO NOT give these people any of your money. The closest metaphor I can think of at the time of this post is that Riot is just EA with a slightly less scam-ish lootbox system and bad, bad business practices( I mean, seriously. They just patched out 80K (thousand) or more of their player base. If you give them money now, you're just institutionalized and are enabling them to continue this dirty work.)

[zombie-nunu-bummed]

LoungeRat6/17/2018, 4:05:48 AM11 votes

Game no longer works in Linux. I haven't owned windows in 10 years. I hope at some point it becomes supported or at least not targeted.

shinazueli6/17/2018, 10:40:36 PM11 votes

You ship a Mac client. That literally has to work on Linux, by definition.

It was barely acceptable that we had to go out to Wine to run the game. Barely.

You were told many, many times about this on the PBE, and it hit the front page of Reddit that you've totally screwed your entire Linux playerbase, and there's been exactly zero response. None.

I'm only forced to conclude that you, Riot Games, gives exactly zero shits about us. They're saying "fuck Linux, we can't be arsed to ship an RPM that we already have to package for Mac. The one in a million players that run scripts are more important to us than 1% of our entire playerbase."

That's the only available interpretation of Riot Games' actions.

As a software engineer, I'm incredibly disappointed in this, since I am very well aware of the truly miniscule amount of work it would take for Riot to clean up whatever they release for Mac into something we could easily take and run with on Linux. Like, seriously, we'd literally just need a tarball and we could package it for them. But they're going out of their way to fuck us over. This work has been sitting on someone's Agile/JIRA/Kanban board over in Riot Games for months, every day the engineers came in, and actively wrote code that they had to know would disenfranchise Linux users, and they didn't care.

I'm done with Riot Games and League of Legends. Uninstalled the Game. Let's see how well Dota2 works.

Shifted Society6/16/2018, 9:40:39 PM10 votes

Perma disconnects on MAC client every game or so (two times+ a game) [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Ever since 2013 BTW [slayer-jinx-unamused] [zombie-brand-facepalm] [sg-shisa] [sg-zephyr]

Galacius6/27/2018, 4:03:00 PM10 votes

I actually find this quite funny. A major game developer making changes that cut off their player base. I also find that telling an average user (who doesn’t know the inner workings of a computer) to “update their bios” is moronic. By the way, here’s some articles telling you some of dangers of updating your bios:

https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General/Are-there-any-dangers-in-updating-my-BIOS/td-p/4216890

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/321728-31-updating-bios-safe

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pcworld.com/article/258308/should_i_update_my_bios_.amp.html

Here’s a quote from that last one “But the BIOS is different. It's not even on the hard drive. And you should only update it with good reason.

Unlike other programs, the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) sits on a chip on the motherboard, and is the first code to run when you boot your PC. It tells the processor where to look for the operating system. It continues working after the bootup, facilitating communication between the OS and the hardware.

Although you can update today's BIOSes, doing so is more dangerous than updating drive-based software. If something goes wrong, it could render the PC completely unbootable; you won't even be able to boot a live Linux flash drive or reinstall Windows.“

So, you’re trusting average user of your game (some assume the average age of the player base is 18-24) to know how to flash their bios CORRECTLY without screwing it up and bricking their computers. I get you guys want to stop scammers, hackers, and unauthorized third party programs, but I fail to understand why you don’t provide a guide that tells people how to CORRECTLY flash a bios. Who’s responsible if they brick it? You? Nah you’ll default to “user error” but you told these people to do it to play your game.

I left the volunteers for this reason. I lost faith in a company that lacks common sense and the decency to listen to their playerbase. I knew some great people who resigned from riot and the volunteers who busted their butt for the community. Frankly, I know this won’t get anywhere because it’s the boards and you guys would rather use reddit, but I hope I can educate the people here to be careful and not blindly do something to play a game you like.

Jiminy Crick3t6/16/2018, 1:27:55 AM9 votes

So after all that, it just straight up doesnt work with my processor.[zombie-brand-mindblown]

whatever ill spread this around cause there were quite a few people who had the exact same problem as me (the one listed under amd processor)

edit: I actually fixed the problem, by updating the bios, it just took a while to find the most updated version. they need to update the bios, which is either tied to whoever manufactured their computer or their motherboard manufacturer. I updated the bios from my motherboards manufacturing page (custom build). And that just now seems to have fixed the issue.

Spiffy Neko6/16/2018, 11:26:09 PM9 votes

I'd like to add that none of these things pertain to me at all and I'm still having trouble with the game. I try to load a game, or even practice tool, and nothing works at all. Like, when it tries to load a game, it just stops and goes back to the client. No error messages or anything.

I made a ticket about it, and all the Rioteer did was link me to this forum thread, which doesn't help me at all.

I've tried everything I can possibly think of to fix this problem, including:

  • uninstalling and reinstalling
  • running hextech repair tool
  • running diagnostic tool from the client
  • running the game as a legacy client from the folder
  • restarting my computer and trying to run league in a hard reset mode ( with only essential devices running )
  • disabling my firewall completely

And nothing works, I just can't get it to load into a game no matter what I do.

Honestly, I just want to know how they could screw up this bad and just try to sweep it under the rug. Didn't they test this stuff out first before unleashing it on the mass population of League users???

Moozus6/17/2018, 2:16:09 AM8 votes

I've followed all of your steps, and tried everything I could to get into the summoner's rift.

Still doesn't work.

All hope is lost.

Is there a planned fix for the Anti-Cheat (anti-game) unit's disaster, or am I never going to be able to play again?

antjr246/17/2018, 5:02:08 AM8 votes

oh man, I thought it was just me that couldn't get on.Thought my wine config had messed up but i guess it was every linux user, well hope they don't expect us to go install windows to play lol. Wont happen but if anyone finds a fix for linux users please post it.

PureShenanigans6/18/2018, 12:12:34 PM6 votes

can we just go back to patch 8.11 so we can all play again , i tried every option to fix this issue and no luck its been nearly a week i cant play or even spectate a friends game.

C9Z6/16/2018, 4:53:19 PM6 votes

Finally got the client back to work. My problem was that can't load into game after champ selection, and now I know it's caused by 'Huorong Security', a HIPS/Anti-virus software.

I can load the game without any issue if I turn off Huorong, otherwise will see reconnect loop. On the system task manager view, I can see the game process started normally with huorong off, but when huorong is on, the game process will end once it gets executed. Still not clear is the game process terminated by huorong, or closed by the anti-cheat function due to the detection of huorong. But I guess the anti-cheat function must need some deep system control action, like kernel, driver or hooks, so there may be conflicts with some HIPS/Anti-virus software like huorong.

So far, I haven't found a real solution yet, what I have to do is just to turn off huorong during game time. For players who also have this issue, if all otehr fixes don't work, try to disable all HIPS/Security/Anti-virus software first and then load the game, this may help.

I also found a post talking about this issue on huorong official support forum, if you want to read it, it's in Chinese: http://bbs.huorong.cn/thread-47326-1-1.html

Rioters, if you need more information, please let me know. Hopefully the issue can be fixed ASAP.

Update 20180602:

  1. The latest game client files solved the problem! I downloaded the latest client file (deploy_39ab702.zip) and replaced those on my computer, now I can load the game successfully without turning off Huorong!

  2. Huorong Support Team also identified the issue and they said next update (very soon) will solve the conflicts: http://bbs.huorong.cn/forum.php?mod=redirect&goto=findpost&pid=245299&ptid=47476

xJewlz6/17/2018, 12:49:53 AM5 votes

i just lost 20 lp for no reason.. FIX THIS [zombie-brand-facepalm]

PS. ive been a member playing this game for over 5 years, IM ADDICTED FIX IT PLEASE

Number1bossONE6/16/2018, 8:17:00 PM5 votes

Okay becuase of u guys i tooked afk and got 20lp down could u please be an good company and an helpful team by removing it because its because of u Thank you.

Executor Zym6/18/2018, 9:34:02 PM5 votes

I agree with another comment, you should at least make it a red warning instead of a blue one. Knowing the intensity and hostility of a huge chunk of the player base, deciding to play a game without knowing of this issue is like walking over a spiked pit.

Players who don't connect are likely to be reported or lose LP for something that didn't attract their attention as well, like a red exclamation point.

It's an easy way to keep players who want to play avoid issues like leaverbuster or losing LP and frustrating their teams who need them to connect and separate them from trolls and inters. A good chunk of your playerbase is affected by this and we all deserve a proper warning to avoid getting mired in things we have no control over that might result in some of us getting reported or banned.

sheIIer6/17/2018, 12:27:01 AM4 votes

day: 1 fixes don't work day: 2 morale is low day: 3 there is talk of mutiny please fix your shit rito -.-

Crusignis6/18/2018, 10:10:48 PM4 votes

Can everyone calm down about the virtual machine and linux crap? They said that their not compatible yet, this just came out is it really gonna kill you if you stop playing league for a couple weeks cough or months cough, and if its such a big deal then use a different os.[slayer-jinx-unamused]

BTW its an anti-cheat fix not a game fix so yeah of course it has some problems with some of these programs because its ANTI CHEAT.

LinuxNinja6/20/2018, 1:29:40 AM4 votes

Please engage with the WINE community to get a fix in place. Being a dev who's worked in the WINE code base, I doubt it will take a single dev more than a week or two to get it worked out. While the Linux community of players might be small, the investment required to keep them loyal is even smaller. No doubt the WINE community will do much of the heavy lifting. Please elevate your loyal Linux fans to first class citizens.

Su1c1de6/17/2018, 6:23:39 AM4 votes

Im in a reconnect loop and I dont fall under any of these categories...

sublimebaby6/16/2018, 6:59:55 AM1 votes

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