Thread: Unable to decrypt and de-serialize the data

I logged on, the Mirkwood update downloaded, and everything went smoothly until the game tried to launch. At the "Examine Game Data" step, I get the message "Unable to decrypt and de-serialize the data downloaded from the server." Launch fails. This repeats every 60 seconds.

All downloading went completely smoothly without interruption. Is there anything I can do?

Run through the steps here and if it keeps up definitely open a support ticket.

Thank you for the quick response. I tried everything per the "Common Patching Issues" post without success. From the description it seems to me that data somehow became corrupted and now it is not being able to be read. Can I simply delete the newly downloaded files and try again? What files should I delete?

This is very strange as I don't see any other players getting this message.

Actually happened to me right now. I was playing MW2 while trying to patch and after it tried to restart, Windows wanted my permission 15 times but I wasnt looking at the screen.

I am still getting the same error. I submitted a ticket but it advises that it may be 2 weeks until it is answered. It seems that I should download the game again. Should I delete all the current Turbine/lotro files and run the (highres) download again? Can I just delete the files dated 12/1/2009? Is there any way to simply get back to the pre update files and run the updater again?

Can someone at least point me to a thread to explain how to re-download lotro, i.e. what must be deleted and any other issues. I have to assume it is pretty common to have to re-install lotro, but I can't find any posts about it. Any help would be appreciated.

Wow 2 weeks? I think someone should look into this a little sooner than that. Why would the client not roll back in case of a problem? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

Turning off UAC and the firewall makes no difference here. The client = borked.

I'm having the exact same issue, and submitted a ticket too. If I figure anything out or hear back, I'll post here.

At the moment I'm downloading the whole Siege of Mirkwood game. That will take less than 2 weeks. I still would love any information on re-installing the game. I guess I will just delete everything I have now and re-install. I assume that all character information and (hopefully) UI adjustments are saved on Turbine's servers. Any links relating to re-installation would be welcome.

I did a reinstall/repair without uninstalling using the retail CD. So far, so good, I'm past the decrypting part and I am now downloading file 200-something of 33,459. I'm hoping that by not uninstalling that it left the post-launch books and Moria files mostly alone.

Hope this helps!

I also performed a reinstall/repair after downloading LOTRO-Highres, the entire game including the Mirkwood patch. It took all night. This morning I performed the reinstall/repair and exactly the same thing happened. At the "Examine Game Data" step, It again reports the error "Unable to decrypt...".

I'm not sure what my next step is. Good luck with your setup.

Originally Posted by Babagnush

I also performed a reinstall/repair after downloading LOTRO-Highres, the entire game including the Mirkwood patch. It took all night. This morning I performed the reinstall/repair and exactly the same thing happened. At the "Examine Game Data" step, It again reports the error "Unable to decrypt...".

I'm not sure what my next step is. Good luck with your setup.

I'm having the above problem I did a full wipe and reinstall from my Moria Discs to do an update. and I'm again getting this issue I disabled UAC and no change.

The good news is that is does not take Turbine 2 weeks to respond to a ticket. I have been exchanging emails with them as soon as I sent the ticket. They are very responsive.

The bad news is that the problem persists despite everything they have recommended and everything I have tried.
Here are some of what I have tried:
1. Checked for viruses
2. Empty IE cache/history
3. Turned off modem, router, computer and restarted.
4. Checked to ensure game related exe's were firewall exempt. Disabled firewall and launched the game.
5. Ran TurbineRegisterGDF.exe as Administrator
6. Disabled UAC and launched the game.
7. Performed copy and paste of items in Backup Folder after deleting Patches and Bindat folders.
8. Disconnect router and connected directly to modem. Verified valid internet connection and tried to launch.
9. Performed the copy and paste as before while directly connected to the modem.
10. Downloaded the entire game including the Mirkwood update and launched. I did not, however, trash my existing game, so while many files were updated, I'm not sure all were.

In all cases I still get the same error message "Unable to decrypt and de-serialize..." at the "Examine Game Data" step

Originally Posted by Babagnush

The good news is that is does not take Turbine 2 weeks to respond to a ticket. I have been exchanging emails with them as soon as I sent the ticket. They are very responsive.

The bad news is that the problem persists despite everything they have recommended and everything I have tried.
Here are some of what I have tried:
1. Checked for viruses
2. Empty IE cache/history
3. Turned off modem, router, computer and restarted.
4. Checked to ensure game related exe's were firewall exempt. Disabled firewall and launched the game.
5. Ran TurbineRegisterGDF.exe as Administrator
6. Disabled UAC and launched the game.
7. Performed copy and paste of items in Backup Folder after deleting Patches and Bindat folders.
8. Disconnect router and connected directly to modem. Verified valid internet connection and tried to launch.
9. Performed the copy and paste as before while directly connected to the modem.
10. Downloaded the entire game including the Mirkwood update and launched. I did not, however, trash my existing game, so while many files were updated, I'm not sure all were.

In all cases I still get the same error message "Unable to decrypt and de-serialize..." at the "Examine Game Data" step

I just tried everything you listed here including deleting everything and doing a full re-install and no change. Same error at the same place

Just to keep up to date per Turbine Customer Service recommendations, I performed a clean boot of Windows without Microsoft services and tried to launch the game. Again, no luck, same error at the same place.

I have also sent Turbine a msinfo.nfo file about my system. Perhaps they will learn something. I am at a loss to come up a reason my system or lotro installation would be different than anyone else's. I am a very conservative computer user without ever having viruses or problems. I do use a Macintosh running Vista via Boot Camp, which I told them about, but shouldn't be a problem.

Fixed it. I have windows 7 64 Bit.

I noticed every time I started the client and or the TDM it would hang in the Services as a process.

I uninstalled the TDM
Uninstalled Lotro. Deleted the folders where these two programs where physically located.

removed the reigstry entries I could find. for both Lotro and TDM
Reboot
did a full re-install of Lotro, onto my D: Drive.
and it just passed through the Examine Game Data and is now updating it.

I am not planning on re-installing TDM at this time. But I noticed every time I launched Lotro, TDM also launched. At one time I had the turbine services.exe (forget the actual name of the executable at the moment.) running like 6 times in my process list.

so something got massively corrupted when SoM First started it's install of the launcher and it's associated services.

I hope this works for someone else.

It also seems that it also corrupted my DDO install. I just tried to log into that out of sheer boredom and it's behaving the EXACT same way as the Lotro client was.

Thank you!!! Deleting the entire Turbine folder as well as TDM (Panda folder) worked for me also. I didn't do anything with the registry. I should have done that first. Thanks again for your posts. I will tell Turbine Technical Support, also.

You're very welcome, I'm so glad that it worked for you as well.

My Current theory is that it's TDM that is propagating the issue.

Also I noted that when I started up Lotro it asked me if I wanted to run in DX10 mode. I said No, and it wouldn't load up, it gave me a black screen.
so I rebooted, and did the responded again to no, and again it gave me a black screen - so I killed the process rebooted a third time and answered yes and it loaded. Now that just might be an issue with Win 7, but I found it odd that it behaved that way.

Bizarre behavior I Tell you.

I am new to lotro and windows. Just installed Windows 7 on a Boot Camp partition I made on my iMac. It has been a long road of work arounds and tests, but I thought I had made it. I was nearly through the TDM download when it failed with the error message referred to in this thread, "Unable to decrypt and de-serialize the data." Then the TDM started the "Update Game Data" stage again from the beginning, probably a 9 hour process. I have been researching the forums while this second attempt has been proceeding and have tried many of the general procedures mentioned in the post above (exluding the app from the firewall, opening up the UAC). I really hope that when the download finishes it will be able to process the files and will work. I know so little about Windows that I have dreaded some super trickly problem like this coming up. Sorry to make this post without having tangible results of this current download attempt, but I'll keep you posted.

I have just come back to play this game after a few weeks and have got this error, exactly as described. However i'm pretty much a learner when it comes to all this stuff. Can anyone talk me really simply through the solution? I don't want to lose my characters etc!

You won't lose your Characters, they are stored on Turbines Servers.

Do the steps outlined above and you should not have any issues.

****Thank you!!! Deleting the entire Turbine folder as well as TDM (Panda folder) worked for me also. I didn't do anything with the registry. I should have done that first. Thanks again for your posts. I will tell Turbine Technical Support, also.****


Ok, seems I am having the same issue as others in this thread however I cannot find the TDM folder. Where is it located? I searched my comp for TDM and all I find are some TDM files under a musicmatch program. The thought of deleting the Turbine folder causes me to wince, I just spent the entire night downloading the 10,756 files I needed only to have this error hit around file number 10,426. As I am on a satellite modem it takes forever to download the files again.

so the only way to fix this problem is by uninstalling lotro and tbl?

I have this problem too. First emerged for me like 2 months ago, gave up. Back again and still trying.

I am having the same problem as well, as of today..

Should I try deleting the Turbine Folder, and where is this TDM thing that you speak of??

TDM is outdated, it was removed a while back.

I'm having this same issue. I've actually been having it for a while now, but I've (previously) been able to work around it by updating the install on my wife's computer and copying the files over to mine. That seems to no longer work for me. I've shut off my firewall and disabled my anti-virus, no luck. The router and cable modem wouldn't seem to be a problem since the other computer updated just fine. Everytime I get to 'Examine Game Data', the launcher shoots back the error 'Unable to decrypt and de-serialize the data downloaded from the server.'

I'm running on WinXP 64-bit OS; I can post my dxdiag if necessary.

I am having the same error. It occured after only having 600 files left to download. I closed the launcher before it was complete, came back five minutes later and received this error. I have followed all of the steps here: http://support.turbine.com/ics/suppo...+8+6&docID=441

Didn't work, so I surfed the web, found some things that worked for other people, tried them all...nothing. At this point I am not sure what to think. 14 months ago (and five posts above this one) I had this exact same issue. It was blamed on everything routers, anti-virus, firewalls, etc. I had to do a complete wipe and reinstall. The experience left me seriously frustrated and I moved on to other games. Now I have been back for a couple of weeks playing with no problems and actually having fun. However, after half the day trying to fix this issue...

After this amount of time I am surprised that there isn't a more comprehensive solution from Turbine on how to solve this problem. Uninstalling, reloading, and completly repatching the game to fix the issue doesn't seem like a feasible solution (I have tried everything else). Nothing on my system changed from the time I closed the launcher to the time I opened it and got the error. There is no repair feature that actually can scan the files, delete bad ones and let you continue downloading? Quickly losing faith...

Anyway hopefully the above link will help someone else out. Good luck.

There is another thread started today avbout this probem, might have better luck than in a year old thread.

Most of us got it working by renaming a couple files, mainly the .datx file in the lotro directory.

Yes, I posted in here before I found the other thread.

I resolved the issue by removing the two .datx files I found in my LOTRO directory. I believe the launcher is sometimes encountering a race condition between removing the old files after patching and restarting.

Sorry to resurrect this old topic but i believe i have a much simpler solution to this problem than uninstalling/downloading/installing the client again.

Just now, while updating to Update 2, i closed the launcher while it was updating and got the same error. Here is my solution to the problem:
1. Open the game folder
2. Use the search option to find all files in the game folder created in the same day the problem appeared. (my search returned 4 files)
3. Put those files in an archive to store them as a back-up, so you can restore them in case something goes wrong.
4. Delete the files.
5. Restart the launcher

It should start downloading and patching again.
Worked for me

I've been running just fine since update 2, then I ran the datdefrag utility today...I am now receiving the "unable to decrypt..." message. So I came to this thread and followed the tip to rename the datx files (added .org to end of name). Launcher works fine now, so the datdefrag must have borked me.

I hope this helps.

Please check out the post here for details on the High Resolution Client Repair Tool we recently released.

Deleted the two datx files, worked great. Thanks

Had this problem. Did a complete wipe and reinstall and suprise! it didnt help. (i should have read this thread first...) So I changed the extension on my .datx file to .org (instead of just deleting it). It worked! Just wanted to add my 2 cents.

Had the same problem on my computer and my husband's computer. I tried Unlawful's solution (changed the extension on my .datx file to .org), and it worked.

Ok I've been having this problem for 2 days now and I've found out what the bug is. The root problem is the Turbine Installer doesn't like it if the computer goes into sleep mode half way through an install. With standard Windows 7 power settings it does this after half an hour. A large update to LOTRO will take much longer than half an hour. The solution is simple. Change your computer's power settings to 'always on' before installing/updating LOTRO. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with AVG for me - I have it on my machine and it worked fine with it on.

I then deleted everything again and uninstalled and changed my power settings to always on. I left it installing again and everything worked fine.

The software company need to fix this, this really is an amateurish bug and it's been hacking folk off for far too long. It's not like you aren't making enough money from this game!

The fact that this post has over 10,000 views should be making them take action!

Im finally getting fed up with this issue.

I have reinstalled the european Lotro and european Mirkwood patch after it on 2 clean machines and then ran Lotro, and I get the same issue.

Obviously if the european version has these issue when installing Lotro and then Mirkwood and running Lotro after on a clean Windows 7 64-bit machine, there is clearly somehting wrong with the installer/patcher?

I have even tried downloading High Res updater, but it seems to only work with US versions of Lotro.

Please let me know how to proceed further with this.

yes i can confirm that just going to the main lotro directory and searching for .datx and deleting all found, fixes the update issue


win7 x64

This happened to me also after the EU Migration June 13, 2011. So here's what I did to get it to work; 1) I closed all my browsers (was watching hulu before) and 1a) even signed out of my IM and closed those applications, and 2) Closed out LOTRO then waited a short period of time. 3) Opened up my browser because I like to listen to net radio, and 5) then opened up LOTRO and signed in and it worked.

Not sure if this will work for everyone. But less painstaking then other ways.

Originally Posted by Babagnush

I logged on, the Mirkwood update downloaded, and everything went smoothly until the game tried to launch. At the "Examine Game Data" step, I get the message "Unable to decrypt and de-serialize the data downloaded from the server." Launch fails. This repeats every 60 seconds.

All downloading went completely smoothly without interruption. Is there anything I can do?

Changed my .datx file in C:/Program Files (x86)/Turbine/LOTRO to .org as suggested and it worked like a charm. Thanks a lot.