If you're in a patch loop, the go-to fix for that is just to run the game via online.exe once more and you should be able to connect however you like after that.

Unfortunately, as mentioned in a previous post, that doesn't help.

9 times out of 10, the program crashes before getting to the Sega logo.
When it does work, it downloads the unitxt_j.prs file again.

Perhaps if I could fix the constant crashing, it would resolve the other problem...

If you are using windows Vista/7 make sure that you run PSOBB as administrator and add PSOBB.exe to your trusted application list on your AV.

I have an admin level account with UAC off, so it runs everything as admin by default. AVs disabled.

The program still crashes more often than not.

The SCHTserv client never has this issue (don't know if this provides any more info).

Looks like the problem may have been on our end - last time I attempted to restart the patch server it must have failed and I didn't notice it. It was an update to the unitext file, so players that already had the old one didn't need it, but players that didn't have that one would get the new one and it would search for the old one.

Hopefully it's been fixed, if not I might need to talk to Raven when he gets on.

Thanks Karma, Japanaman2!

It took me a few goes to run the program without it crashing, but once it did I was able to update the new unitxt_j.prs (a different file size, not the 74066 that had been burned into my brain), and since then I've loaded and exited the game about 5 times in a row - and it's been fine each time. No more random crashes at startup.

I'd consider this bug fixed. :)

Not really a bug, gonna move to help section.