GTA3:MTA 0.5 Known Issues

This applies to GTA:MTA 0.5, the known issues for MTA:SA 1.x can be found here.

Newest Known Issues are at the bottom of this page

Server Admins: Ensure you have downloaded and installed Patch 1 available here.

Linux servers have a default MOTD set

Change the url or remove it when you first run the server

Linux servers have a default admin password set

Change the password before you first run the server

In-game MOTDs appear as nonsense

We noticed this during testing but it wasn't fixed. We'll fix it in the future. In the meantime, disable the MOTD by changing your mtaserver.conf (server admins) and use the rich motd instead.

Australian and German EXEs (and possibly others) may produce an "invalid executable" error when you try to start a game

As Australian and German EXEs don't work reliably with MTA, this shouldn't be a huge problem. Try to obtain a standard EXE.

Sometimes the url of the Rich MOTD is appended to the server name when it appears in the client

Fixed in server patch 1

This is caused by server names that are greater than 49 characters in length. Please try to keep them less than this to avoid this happening.

Server's memory usage increases very quickly

Fixed in server patch 1

We've fixed the memory leak that was causing this, and we'll be releasing a fix for it shortly. We've also fixed some other minor leaks that have existed since 0.4 (and earlier) so it should be better in general on that front.

Crash when GTA3 is loading

Make sure you run GTA3 at least once in Single Player without MTA before actually running it with MTA.

Freeze when client tries to display dialog asking for game path

There have been a couple of occurence of this, and we'd be interested to see why this is. You can avoid it by manually setting the path in the mta.ini in your game folder (not windows folder anymore). If you have this problem, can you please create a system info profile (Start -> Run -> "systeminfo > c:\sysinfo.txt") (no quotes) then email me the file sysinfo.txt on your c: drive (email is eAi[at]opencoding[dot]net).

For GTA3, your mta.ini should contain (replace the path if necessary):

[Game-GTA3]
Version=1
Location=C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\GTAIII\gta3.exe

Your client times out as soon as you connect to a server. Players all time out when they connect to your server

This has been an unknown problem for quite some time now, but it seems it is caused not by MTA or the MTA Server but by MTAMA, or more specifically scripts running on it. If the scripts send multiple messages to the player when they join it is highly likely to time them out. This results in nobody being able to play.

For now a fix is available for MTAMA HERE (hopefully GRS will also be updated soon)

Please follow Aeron's instructions regarding its use.

A big thank you to Mike for discovering the cause of this problem and Aeron for getting a fix out so quickly.

Server Name Length

Fixed in server patch 1

It seems that if a Server Name is set too high then Clients and Admins cannot connect to the Server (even though it starts correctly).

Crash on client startup

This might be causes by being unable to download the welcome message. This should only happen if the MTA site is down, or you aren't connected to the internet. If this is the case, it should try to download it for about 15 seconds - before it gives the crash. It might be possible to fix this by adding "DontGetLatest=1" on the second line of your "mta.ini" in your MTA folder (under "[Main]"). Alternatively, try creating a blank file called "mtaclientwelcome.dat" in your MTA folder - this is probably only relevant if this is the first time you've run the MTA 0.5 client. Update: We've managed to replicate, confirm and fix this bug. Whenever we release a general patch, this will be fixed. In the meantime, ensure mtaclient.exe can access the internet through your firewall, or for on a LAN you can change the following value in mta.ini .

DontGetLatest=1

XFire crashes game during loading

Both XFire and MTA use similar methods for integrating themselves into the game. We've contacted XFire to offer our support for them in implementing it, so that it works, but they don't respond. If you wish to use XFire in MTA, contact XFire. In the meantime, disable Xfire before you play.

MTA says you have a trainer but you don't

Try closing every other open window first. If that doesn't work, try uninstalling, then reinstalling MTA 0.5 again.

Update: It has been reported that "Kaspersky Anti Hacker" can set off this error. We advise that you close "Kaspersky Anti Hacker" if you wish to play MTA 0.5.

You join a server and are told you are banned, even though you aren't in the ban list

We're not sure what causes this, if anyone has any idea, please contact me (or someone else on the team). Of course, you may be banned by a over-general ban in the server's ban list.

GTA3 Shoreside Vale: Two players and two vehicles appear on the character select screen, followed shortly by a crash

We've only seen this occur a few times (once to me during beta) and we'll try to fix it. If someone who has this crash can tell me their crash ID (the error reporter should tell you), it'd help a lot.

Server: Attempting to connect to a server with Admin enabled and Admin + disabled, using admin+ causes the server to crash

Fixed in server patch 1

This has been fixed and will be in the server patch 1. In the meantime, either disable Admin entirely, or enable Admin+. Remember to change the password for admin+ and admin from their defaults.

MTAMA (mirc admin) times out when you try to connect to a server

Fixed in server patch 1 This ia a bug in mIRC. We've fixed the issue that was triggering the bug in mIRC and we'll be releasing the fix along with the next server update.

Your server doesn't appear in the server list, or appears as "unscanned"

This isn't an issue, but ensure that you have the correct port open for ASE to query through. This should be your server port plus 123. For example, with the default port of 2003, port 2126 should be open. This is UDP.

You recieve the error "ERROR: The ServerName, ServerPort, GameMap, GameHour, GameMins, Weather and BannedFile MUST be specified in the configuration file" when you run your server, and all fields are filled in Only under Server Patch 1

Ensure that your server name is 49 characters or less. This is a missleading error, we'll fix it in the server patch 1.

Client crashes when you join a server

Fixed in next client release

This crash may be caused by the client trying to download the rich text MOTD specified by the server and failing (e.g. the site its trying to get it from is down, or the URL is invalid). If this happens, the client will crash.

You have quite a few files on your computer called mtachat.txt

MTAchat.txt, as you probably guessed stores a chat log. This feature was added at the last moment and not propperly tested. Concequently, this problem has occured. This is probably due to how the client has been launched (the start path determines where it saves the chat, not the install path). Don't worry about it really.... We'll fix it in the next client version if we can. In the meantime, feel free to delete any files you don't want.

You recieve an error "System Error &H80070583 (-2147023485)" (or similar) when running the server config tool (or clicking "Setup Server" in the client)

This can be fixed by deleting the file called "MTAServerConfigTool.exe.manifest" in your Multi Theft Auto install folder.

Upon hitting Start Game the client informs you your CLIENT is modifed.

This is an error with the way we temporarily replace some of the games files. When you install take a back up of both weapon.dat and weapon.mta from the /gta?/data/ directory and put them somewhere safe. If you get this error close the client, REPLACE both files and retry.

An error appears that begins with "<font face="Arial" size=2>".

This means that an error has occured, but the error reporter system is overloaded and can't be sent the error report. Just click the button and ignore it.

When playing GTA3 you recieve an "Invalid Executeable" error

This is probably because you are using GTA3 version 1.0 instead of 1.1. You can get the GTA3 1.1 patch here. If this doesn't work, or you already have GTA3 1.1, check you have the USA/UK exe. If not, try to obtain one.

Your virus scanner informs you that the Multi Theft Auto 0.5 executeable is a virus or malware

MTA does not contain any viruses, malware, adware or spyware. If your virus scanner informs you that it is infected, either you have a virus on your computer that is infecting your files, or one of our mirrors has been infected with a virus or your virus scanner is making a mistake. McAfee has been known to make this mistake. We've informed NAI of this, but they've yet to fix it. In the meantime, disable your virus scanner while playing. Also, ensure you only download from this site. This link is hosted by our webhost. Use this if you doubt the validity of your copy of MTA.