Troubleshooting

Ordered roughly by how often each one happens.

Installation and the patcher#

The patcher will not start, or cannot write files#

Check where the client is installed. If it sits in C:\Program Files, that is your problem. Windows restricts write access there, the patcher cannot update anything, and settings cannot be saved.

Move the whole folder somewhere ordinary. Desktop, Documents, a games drive, anywhere without special permissions.

Running as administrator should never be necessary in a normal folder. If it suddenly is, something else is interfering, and it is usually antivirus software.

Antivirus deleted or blocked a file#

Restore it from quarantine and add an exception for the entire SecondWind RO folder.

Ragnarok clients and patchers get flagged constantly because they are unsigned software that modifies its own files, which is what a virus scanner is built to be suspicious of. Our client is built from a clean kRO base.

Patches download but nothing changes#

Close the game and the patcher completely, then start secondwind_patcher.exe again.

Patches cannot be applied to files the client is holding open. If the game is running, or a previous session did not shut down cleanly, the patcher reports success and changes nothing.

Crashes and display problems#

The game flashes a white screen and closes immediately#

You launch secondwind.exe, a white window appears for a second, and then everything shuts. No error message. This usually means the game is trying to run on Intel integrated graphics through DirectX 7, which those drivers handle badly. Common on laptops, where the screen is wired to the Intel chip and your dedicated card is invisible to the game.

Try this first: open opensetup.exe and set the graphics API to DirectX 9. The client supports it since the 2026 update, and it avoids the old code path completely.

If that does not help, two more fixes depending on your machine:

Desktop with a dedicated graphics card: your monitor cable is probably plugged into the motherboard instead of the graphics card. Move it to the card's own ports (usually lower down, and vertical) and restart. In opensetup.exe your NVIDIA or AMD card should now appear under Graphics Device. Pick it.

Laptop, or if that does not help: you need a small compatibility file called DDrawCompat. It replaces the old graphics layer so the crashing code never runs.

1. Close the game completely.
2. Download DDrawCompat from its official releases page, the .zip of the newest version.
3. Take the ddraw.dll out of it and put it in your SecondWind RO folder, right next to secondwind.exe.
4. Start the game.

To undo it, delete that one ddraw.dll again. If you play in windowed mode, the game window will now have a title bar, which is normal. Fullscreen is unaffected.

If none of this works, we can pinpoint the cause from a crash report. Ask at the Support Terminal or in Discord and we will walk you through it.

The game crashes when entering one specific map#

Run the patcher first to rule out being out of date.

If it still crashes, report the map name. These are usually map format mismatches and they get fixed by a patch within hours once somebody says which map. The Rachel's Temple crash was found and fixed this way.

Report it at the Support Terminal or in Discord.

"Resource File Loading fail" in chat#

That message means a texture is missing. Nothing is about to crash, keep playing.

If you see one that has not been reported, the message contains the file name. Passing that on is enough for us to fix it.

Graphics or resolution look wrong#

Run opensetup.exe in the client folder again and adjust the settings there.

Characters or items display strangely#

Type @refresh to resync your character with the server.

If item names or icons are wrong, the patcher probably has not run. New item data arrives through patches.

Connecting and logging in#

Cannot reach the server, or instant disconnect#

Try a different regional entry on the server select screen. See Connecting & Regions.

Check whether the server is up at all. The status bar on secondwindro.com shows it live.

Firewalls and VPNs interfere more often than people expect. Try once without the VPN to find out whether that is the cause.

Wrong password, but you are certain it is right#

The game uses your website account credentials. If you registered recently, make sure you clicked the email verification link, because an unverified account will not log in.

Otherwise reset it at forgot password.

The verification email never arrived#

Accounts work right away, there is nothing to confirm.

In the game#

Stuck inside a wall or rock#

The Support Terminal at /navi prt_in 44/113 has an I'm Stuck option that warps you out immediately. No GM needed.

If you cannot get to it, @home works from anywhere and returns you to your save point.

An NPC seems broken, or an item vanished#

File a ticket at the Support Terminal with what happened, where, and roughly when. Server logs go back far enough to check, and the answer arrives in your ticket list.

My pet stopped doing anything#

It is hungry. Feed it.

Bonuses and behaviour both scale with intimacy, and a neglected pet eventually runs away. See Pet System.

Character deletion will not accept my input#

Confirm with your account's email address.

If that is refused, the server is still using the older check. In that case enter your birth date with dashes in YY-MM-DD format, so 11 May 1993 is 93-05-11.

Two other things block deletion regardless of what you type. The character must have left any party and guild first, and deletion only completes after a 24 hour delay.

Still stuck#

Discord is the fastest route, because other players answer too and somebody has usually hit the same thing.

For anything that needs staff, the Support Terminal files a ticket that will not get lost in a chat scroll.