This is just a suggestion but sometimes to get things up and running again you have to uninstall and then reinstall, wheather that be Freelancer, the Mod Manager, MOD's and anything else you use to play Freelancer with.

You don't have to do a new install every time you use a different MOD but if Freelancer crashes then you know it's time to follow the steps listed here...

Saved games will probably not be compatible after activating a MOD...you have to start a new game.

Instructions:

Some MOD's need a clean install of Freelancer...
Especially if you have used any MOD's before you need to do a clean install of Freelancer.
By clean I mean make sure you get a nice shinny new set of files.

1st... Delete your Freelancer folder.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Freelancer
Delete your Freelancer folder instead of uninstalling Freelancer to make sure there are no files that sometimes can get left behind after an uninstall, unless you check to make sure there are no files left in any of the Freelancer folder after you do a uninstall...
It is very important to make sure there are no files left before you do a reinstall of Freelancer because some files cause a crash... dll files are notorious for getting left behind if you only uninstall Freelancer.

2nd... Delete or move any previous saved games.
You have to start a new game.
C:\Documents and Settings\your name\My Documents\My Games\Freelancer\Accts
Singleplayer and Multiplayer folders.
Either move or delete any files you find in the folders.
If you don't move or delete your previous saved games and start a new game they can cause a conflict and will make Freelancer crash, guaranteed!

3rd... Install Freelancer from the CD.

4th... Install the Freelancer SDK v1.3
Some of the MOD's need the SDK files to be installed but it don't hurt to do it anyway...
The Freelancer SDK is set of files (over 1200) from the original game of Freelancer, it contains fixes for all the major errors in the original source. And since modders use it to make mods with it also fixes the errors caused from decompression using bini (the program that is use to convert the files to into text format).
The SDK is an exe file...just browse to your Freelancer folder and install the SDK in that folder.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Freelancer
You can download the SDK v1.3 exe here.

If you don't follow all the steps above you will probably experience a crash or other problems.

5th... Then activate the MOD in the Mod Manager

6th... Have a blast.

For installing and activating/deactivating Mods use the Freelancer Mod Manager v1.31 - to download the Mod Manager click here.

To install a MOD into the Mod Manager double left click on the MOD file name that you want to install.
The Mod Manager interface will automatically unzip the MOD into the mods folder and the Mod Manager screen will pop up, click on the MOD that you want to use and then click on Activate. The Mod Manager will add/change the necessary files in Freelancer and then you're ready to play.

Tried, didnt work, still cant buy ships, still stuck in a starflier. ANYONE else got an idea.........

Look, you HAD other mods installed. So you do not have a so-called Vanilla-FL installation. A fresh installation means that you have to delete ANY save-games from your C:\...\accts\singleplayer and C:\...\accts\multiplayer (make copy of them first in another folder like fl-backup).
Most probably you have some changed dll's (or similar) in your FL-files.

If you do not want to start all over again in MP write e-mail to host. If you get confirmation, delete everything and install again.
Start a new game (new player) on that server. Then the server-operator will edit your player and give back your credits.

Oh, I see where theres confusion here. Let me fix some things up.

1: I play on the RAW server, which doesnt use Mods.

2: I have NO mods active, I have other mods, but they are not activated.

3: To make sure, I even made another copy of FLMM and my mods on a disk. I then deleted ALL mods and unistalled the Mod manager. I then re-installed freelancer, and loaded it up. I STILL CANT BUY SHIPS

The Raw server uses the Boston server-side mod, but that wouldnt affect me as players dont activate it.

Please help, doing missions against Corairs in a starflier is HARD WORK! (one I've got the hang of )

Did you install SDK ?
I have seen problems with buying ships when I tried to use Ioncross Character Editor if the database of ICE was not exactly the same as in the mod (i.e. there was no set of special ICE-Files. Then even after a fresh install the ships did not correspond exactly. I had to install SDK 1.5 instead.

Yes, this sounds silly in a way. But I think if you can play FL without CTD but have problems only with buying ships something must be wrong with your ship-database/-file.

I have the exact same problem too. I click 'buy ship' and it takes cash, but doesnt dilever. Thts is also true of anything I try to buy. Are you running 56k? I am, this may be the problem, low bandwidth.

I'm A Forum Bowser!

Yeah, I have 56K. But I have noticed that quite often my com ejects me from servers due to connection problems, is it posssible its the fact that I use dial-up that cuases the problem? Cause I do get the little red and yellow connection symbols appearing often.

And I chekced my CD, no signs of scratches, dirt or any other marks (I take good care of my CD's)

I went through IONCROSS FREELANCER CHARACTER EDITOR as well, to see if there were any probs with my ships, there were none.

In singleplayer all the ships are the right price, right place and I can buy them. And on the server, they're in the right place with the right price, its just the buying bit I have problems with.......

From this thread and from another one here on TLR it is clrear now that you have problems with the RAW-Server and not with your FL-installation. So please go there to solve the problem

It's 90%of servers for me (see top)

I just use Raw the most.

okies, new prob, now I cant buy ANYTHING!

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The only time I could buy a ship properly was when I played on Topfreelancers, cause the Mod for it got intergrated in my game (so I couldnt play without it)

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cause the Mod for it got intergrated in my game (so I couldnt play without it)

something's rotten in denmark i think

Yeah.........but Raw doesnt use Mods...........and I had to re-install freelancer when I stopped playing on Topfreelancers, is it possible its a mod manager problem

Sun dive. Someone tried it and it worked. Reason: Corrupted starflier.

Yeah, fixed it, in som games ther sytarflier is corrupted, so I just kill myself.

If only there was a self-destruct button..........