I get this ocassionally from my players and is similar to Joe Boomz' solution. The reason my players get this is because I mix "new" characters (the one's made on the later FL MP ID#) with the "old" character (ones made on the earlier FL MP ID#) or the character's themselves are flawed. If the characters are flawed well then you have to get an older character from your archives. Otherwise here's what I do with a logical move:

1. Use IFSO to find the old account. View an old account character and look for the directory name (NOT file name). Copy the directory name.
2. Bring up a search window for the Multiplayer directory, paste the directory name and search for that directory. Double-click on it to display contents of that directory.
3. Repeat step 1. with the new account. Understand you need the player to log on, create a unique name and communicate it to the sysadmin.
4. Repeat step 2. with the new account.
5. Delete (or save elsewhere) everything BUT the NAME file.
6. Move (NOT copy) everything BUT the name file in the old account directory to the new account directory. Why move? If you have IFSO set up like I do to delete all empty accounts then you must remove all files from the old account directory to get IFSO to delete the UNUSED and NEVER TO BE USED AGAIN old account directory. Logical, why waste the space?
7. Have the player log on to log into and fly every character just to check everything is transferred ok.

This also means you can mix one account's saved character files with another account's saved character files. Consider in the case above any new account characters to be lost. Good luck!

You can transfer over a saved character file but it is much more time consuming and takes both the sysadmin and player there at the same time or else it will take several emails back and forth plus time. When done this certain way all names are preserved and no names are locked out nor unable to be grouped. This is how any sysadmin can use ANY saved character file, even one from SP, to be used within MP. UNDERSTAND! Rarely will a sysadmin go to these lengths, I don't. I can still outline that procedure if people are interested.

EDIT: Sigh! Pinger is right and I didn't change this post right away. The NAME file is linked to that one account directory and should never be moved or used. The saved game (the characters themselves) file names must be linked ONLY to the FL server MP ID# so moving them from one account to another is fine.
_____________
Earendil
SysAdmin of Boston Freelancer server
Server community website & forum: EarendilsPlace.net (server rules)

Edited by - Earendil on 11/2/2004 6:48:27 AM

Thanks Earendil, the admins at GetOnIt solved it using your edited answer.
I sure am glad to be soaring through space again.

About the ammount of work it takes. We have some great admins at GetOnIt, who spend a lot of THEIR gametime into soving player problems, I think that is worthy of a big thumbs_up and cheers.

Everybody whom answered thank you alot for your help.


Edited by - Maranno on 10/21/2004 12:48:12 AM

the problem with the name file is cause admins do it with the old account folder still there. I have fixed numerous player accounts using my method.

1. Close FLserver
2. Move there Old account out to a safe place
3. Restart FLserver and get them to remake each character
4. Then copy each .FL file in to the new account folder Excluding the name file, windows during this should complain of overwritting files if not they didn't rename there characters exactly, so they have to remake them again.

The name file is the link to the folder account, so if you move it from one folder account to another it will just fail to work.