Using Lua with non-standard Windows directories

[MikeRM2]

Well I am perplexed. Group policy forces redirection of my Documents directory from C:\Users\Michael\Documents to \\NAS\Michael\Documents. So all subdirectories are also sent there like the Lord of the Rings Online and plugins folders. Now when I load into Lord of the Rings Online and go to the plugin manager from the character selection screen, I am able to see all the plugins and I select All Characters for each of the ones I want loaded that way. I then select a character, and no plugins load. I go back to the character selection and go to plugin manager and the plugins are not selected. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this work?

[Valamar]

Well I am perplexed. Group policy forces redirection of my Documents directory from C:\Users\Michael\Documents to \\NAS\Michael\Documents. So all subdirectories are also sent there like the Lord of the Rings Online and plugins folders. Now when I load into Lord of the Rings Online and go to the plugin manager from the character selection screen, I am able to see all the plugins and I select All Characters for each of the ones I want loaded that way. I then select a character, and no plugins load. I go back to the character selection and go to plugin manager and the plugins are not selected. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this work?

What happens when you issue the /plugins load command for a single plugin? You will likely get an error message in chat.

I'm suspecting that the NAS is not mounted when the game runs. OR that while other operations allow for for the fact that response of the NAS is less quick than a direct disk, the plugin load process has a shorter timeout.... (NAS = Network attached storage) I doubt that it is a path problem as you can see the plugins via the Plugin Manager, so that basically leaves some kind of "read error" (I'm suspecting a timeout) when the login process goes to load them.

However, using the individual /plugins load command should tell you what is happening... alternately look for log files that will give a clue.

[MikeRM2]

Well I was able to get two of them to load with the /plugins load. The others gave me a Unable to load. Not sure if it was because I was using the wrong thing to load it or not. The simple ones like LIP were easy to load. So if it is a timeout issue upon loading then it is probably because of the firewall, or something else. Any clue as to where to find good logs files for this?

[MikeRM2]

Well as I delved further into this issue. I used /plugins manager to load the plugins. Now for plugins that refer to all other characters and hold data like craft companion and hytbold assistant they are not holding the data for the characters. Plus I have load them through /plugins manager everytime. Does not seem like a simple connection loss to me. So that leads me to wonder is there any way to configure Lotro to not use the Documents\The Lord of The Rings Online folder?

[Valamar]

Well I was able to get two of them to load with the /plugins load. The others gave me a Unable to load. Not sure if it was because I was using the wrong thing to load it or not. The simple ones like LIP were easy to load. So if it is a timeout issue upon loading then it is probably because of the firewall, or something else. Any clue as to where to find good logs files for this?

/plugins list -- should tell you the names of all of your visible plugins. That will make it easy to tell if your plugins are not being seen at all or if you are simply using the "wrong name."

The Lua interface does not log anything anywhere. The only logging is done by individual plugins, and usually to the chat logs.
You can Capture Chat or Log Chat itself if you need a record, but there won't be anything "special" that you didn't see before.

[MikeRM2]

Well as I said I began using /plugins manager to get the plugins to load. If I do a /plugins list after loading them, it shows which are loaded and which aren't. Also as I stated, the data is not being held in the plugins. For instance I have completed Hytbold, and I set all the Hytbold information to complete. I logged out of my character and logged back in, reloaded the plugin and all the data was not there.

[Garan]

Did you have to manually create the Plugins folder on the network share or had the client already created it? Does a PluginData folder exist at the same level on the network share as the Plugins folder?

The reason for those questions is that it sounds as though the client does not have permissions to write to the PluginData folder for some reason (it may not have even been able to create the PluginData folder). When you change the plugins that are assigned to load automatically, the client writes those settings in the PluginsOptions.xml file in the PluginData\AccountName\ServerName folder (so each server gets it's own xml file). You could verify this by creating the xml file manually and see if the plugins load. A sample xml file that loads the Wallet plugin for all characters:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
<PluginOptions>
  <AutoloadOptions>
    <Plugin AllCharacters="true" Name="Wallet"/>
  </AutoloadOptions>
</PluginOptions>

Just change the plugin name to the name of a plugin you use. It isn't much harder to specify separate plugins for separate characters, but just try getting one plugin to automatically load first to keep things simple. Let us know whether manaully creating/modifying the file lets plugins load. If it does, then you probablye have a permissions issue preventing the client from saving the file. If it does not, then there may be a bug preventing the client from resolving the PluginData folder location correctly (although PluginData exists in the same location as Plugins so that seems unlikely since your client is able to manually load plugins). The fact that .plugindata files are not being written also seems to indicate a permission issue.

[MikeRM2]

Well the game created the plugins folder and the pluginsdata folder exists in the same level with all the plugins inside the pluginsdata. When I get the chance within the next few days I will look into the .xml file. I do have full permissions to the folder and all child folders, so if the permissions are not getting written it might be a SYSTEM permission or Administrator permission that could be causing problems.

[MikeRM2]

Well I tried a symbolic link to a folder on the C drive. Didn't work. So I tried to symbolic link to the \\NAS, which didn't work either. The data does not safe when exiting a character. Though if I take print screens they save to the folder. This is confusing me as to why it will not work.