MTA 0.5 Known Issues

This applies to MTA 0.5 (both GTA3:MTA and MTA:VC). The known issues for MTA:SA 1.x can be found here.

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

CRITICAL: There is a dedicated server exploit affecting MTA 0.5 Server Patch 1, see here for details and a fix!

Linux servers have a default MOTD set.

Change or remove the URL 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. This may be fixed in a future release. In the meantime, server admins can disable the MOTD by changing your mtaserver.conf 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. You can try Talidan's invalid executable patcher.

The in-game help marker says the game is MTA 0.4, when it clearly is MTA 0.5.

Addressed in Towncivilian's SCM update. If another release of MTA 0.x rolls around this update will be included.

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 MTA:VC DM is loading.

We're not sure what causes this, but we know that about 60% of these crashes can be fixed by upgrading to Vice City 1.1. Here's the 1.1 patch download. If you're already using 1.1, try the next issue's solution.

Crash when either GTA3 or Vice City are loading.

Make sure you run GTA3 or Vice City 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 occurrence 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 the Multi Theft Auto directory.

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

 
[Game-VC]
Version=0
Location=C:\Program Files\Rockstar Games\Grand Theft Auto Vice City\gta-vc.exe

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

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

Game times out.

We're not sure exactly what causes this, but we've seen that lots of people timeout when they try to connect. Generally, just attempting again, or trying another server fixes this. Another thing to look into. EDIT: See issue below

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 is likely caused by the client failing to download the welcome message, since it is no longer being hosted. Fix this by adding "DontGetLatest=1" on the second line of your "mta.ini" in your Multi Theft Auto 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. May be fixed in the future. In the meantime, 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 support for MTA, but they haven't responded. If you wish to use XFire in MTA, contact XFire. In the meantime, disable XFire before you play.

MTA claims "Suspected Trainer Usage."

Try closing every other open window first. If that doesn't work, try reinstalling MTA 0.5. It has also been reported that changing game version from 1.0 to 1.1 (for Vice City) can fix this, though we're not sure why.

Further update: All the error reports that have come in about this are using Vice City 1.0. Try updating to 1.1.

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.

If you try to spawn as a Crusader twice, you get disconnected for trainer usage.

Addressed in Towncivilian's SCM update. If another release of MTA 0.x rolls around this update will be included.

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

The cause of this is unknown. You may be banned by a over-general ban in the server's ban list.

In MTA:VC Stunt, RC vehicles can appear locked when you try to enter them.

This should be fixable by exiting Vice City, and starting the game again.

GTA3:MTA 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 may try to fix it if a cause can be found.

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 enabled Admin+. Remember to change the password for Admin+ and admin from their defaults.

MTA:VC (either map) crashes when you try to get on a bike as passenger when it has no driver.

Addressed in Towncivilian's SCM update. If another release of MTA 0.x rolls around this update will be included.

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

Fixed in Server Patch 1. This is 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.
NOTE: The All-Seeing Eye server browser is no longer operational. You may still use Game-Monitor as an alternative, but currently there is no functional client server browser.

You receive 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 affects Server Patch 1
Ensure that your server name is 49 characters or less. This is a misleading error. This may be fixed in a future release.

Client crashes when you join a server.

May be 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. This may be fixed in the next client release.

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 properly tested. Consequently, this problem has occurred. 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... this may be fixed or disabled in the next client version. In the meantime, feel free to delete any files you don't want.

You receive 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 folder.

Upon hitting "Start Game" the client informs you your client is modified.

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 /data directory in your Grand Theft Auto folder 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 occurred, 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 receive an "Invalid Executable" 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, make sure you have the USA/UK EXE. If not, try to obtain one.

Your virus scanner informs you that the Multi Theft Auto 0.5 executable 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 Norton and McAfee 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.

You get a crash at the address 652f30 when starting the game.

This is caused by having the incorrect GXT file. To fix this, copy all the gxt files from the Grand Theft Auto Vice City\TEXT folder except the "american.gxt" into the Grand Theft Auto Vice City\MTA folder. You should also ensure you game language is set to English.

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 MTAServer 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.