zone.exe crash on server startup can be easily fixed
 

I saw many people complaining about ZONE.EXE crash during server startup (i had same problem). I looked up into sources and discovered that this problem may occur because most people use latest version of MySQL (i use 3.23.54) which probably behaves differently from older versions.
Current version of MySQL returns 1 row of data (with NULL value) for "select max" query even if table is empty, this causes code in loottables.cpp to crash.
Here:

line 42:
max_loottable = atoi(row[0]);
i've changed to
if (row[0] != 0) max_loottable = atoi(row[0]);

same at line 60:
max_lootdrop = atoi(row[0]);
changed to
if (row[0] != 0) max_lootdrop = atoi(row[0]);

Maybe this problem is already fixed, but i'm letting you know just in case....

NOTE: Still, i could not make the game itself to work, zone.exe crashes when i finish character creation and enter the area itself. This is, probably, because i have latest EQ patch...
Is it possible to get an EQEMU compatible game version somewhere? because i dont have a game itself... i downloaded eqfull from SONY, but it seems unplayable without patching and if i patch, it still wont work because of incompatibility with EQEMU.
I used EQEMUPatcher, but, still, no results...

Phew!
At last i managed to enter a game itself....
The problem was in lsaccount_id field, since it didnt have default value (0 for example) it was NULL, which caused zone.exe to crash.... So, everything below "NOTE:" in previous message can be discarded :)

how exactly did you put the fix in place to stop zone.exe from crashing after hitting enter on char select?

Wooo.. that worked. thank you thank you! been banging head against wall for a while now trying to get past that zone.exe crashing when hitting enter on char select..

update account set lsaccount_id = 0;

Fix'd it all..

Thanks again :))))

Another note about ZONE.EXE!

Do NOT run server until you have a game database fully prepared!!!
This means you should have imported db.sql (which comes with distribution) AND world data MUST be installed too (you will not be able to play without it anyway)
Check this http://forums.eqemu.net/viewtopic.php?t=6176 link for world databases and how to install them.
Still it IS possible to run server without it, but you'll have to patch sources as was described above.