I am running PS:T with the usual mods in Wine 1.5.27 on Linux. When first being transferred to the Lower Ward after repairing the Alley of Lingering Sighs, the game froze in the most peculiar way. The party would appear one by one, then the loading screen reappeared for a split second and then all buttons were grey and nothing on the screen would react to any clicks. The characters were still animated but they wouldn't do anything of course.

Long story short, I found a workaround for this bug and I wanted to share it so that anybody stuck in a similar way did not have to throw this game in some corner like I did for a while. It's not pretty though and if anybody knows a better way I'd be thrilled to hear it.

What you'll have to do is to kill the whole party except for TNO. This raises obvious problems with the size of the inventory so you'll have to think carefully what to take with you and what to leave in a safe place (things left on the ground will disappear after 24h). Once everyone is dead, you can talk to the Alley, get transferred to the Lower Ward where you can use your Raise Dead ability to get your party back. Bring some healing.

BTW, this means Morte won't be in your party, therefore won't get captured by wererats and so won't get the extra special ability. Yeah, this sucks.

Hope this helps anyone because I couldn't google my way out of this mess.

Same here.

Very glad I found your post because I never found other working solution.
Left inventory things on the ground, killed whole party, got transfered without being stuck, used Raise Dead, got items back from the ground.

Not sure what you mean by Morte not being in your party though. He is still with me, it seems no one from the party was annoyed by me killing them :) But maybe you have something else in mind.

I hate to ask, because I hate spoilers myself - but did you take a peek at a guide or walkthrough for that area? I myself didn't have that issue, but the freeze and lockup you are describing makes me think that *something*is missing/hasn't been completed that should be when you are at that point. The reason I think this was because I had a similar glitch in Knights of the Old Republic: I would enter a cutscene that would start, then the characters would all pause, then NOTHING would happen. Couldn't skip, etc. I found out with the help of a FAQ that one of my characters had some type of stealth gear on...and because of THAT, the other characters couldn't interact properly so the cutscene would "stick". The fact that TNO can enter the area, and the others can be rezzed there just fine makes me think its something along those lines.

No, of course you will get Morte back. The thing is that as soon as you enter the Lower Ward, Morte is supposed to be kidnapped. This event is never triggered when Morte is dead at that point though. You don't really miss anything content-wise but Morte is supposed to get an ability out of being kidnapped and he never gets that ability when you use this workaround.

Just out of curiosity BTW, are you using Wine, too, or can this bug also appear on a "proper" Windows? I don't have PS:T installed ATM but I'll try that the next time I play the game. I doubt it though because as far as I remember the part before the transfer to the Lower Ward is pretty staightforward so it'd be hard to miss anything while still being able to complete the area.

Just playing this just now. I just killed Morte and that seemed to be sufficient to get me past the freeze. Now I just need to get him raised.

same here.

2 alternative ways:

- a) define a "Formation" keyboard key (let's say "F"). b) when entering Lower Ward, press this Formation key. c) you can now click on the interface and move the characters (but the interface is still grey (in a dialogue mode) and you can't save game). d) enter anywhere to make a auto-save. e) load the auto-save to have a normal mode.

- go to the doors at the top of the stairs and exclude Morte from party. then entering Lower Ward (without Morte). then come back to include Morte.

but, in any alternative way, Morte won't get captured by wererats and so won't get the extra special ability...

The FixPack is what is triggering this bug.
Don’t use it if you intend to enjoy Morte’s kidnapping quest.

I’ve reported it on SHS forums, but still no acknowledgement so far from the devs of the FixPack.

Here is the dedicated topic on SHS forums:
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/44702-games-hang-while-autosequence-after-talking-with-head-in-alley-of-ling/

Quoting for shameless attention-grabbing.
Please post the conditions that make this bug happen in the topic I linked in my previous post, we need to get some dev to acknowledge it before anything can be done about it.

Hi, I am a bit further in the game, right after Ravel's maze. it is my first playthrough. Fortunately I am patient person to this kind of issues. :)

I have to warn everybody using fixpack, the dialog at the end of Ravel's maze does freeze the game the same way. I am posting this info here to possibly help with Lower Ward freeze too as it seems identical issue (I myself have killed Morte to pass Lower Ward freeze).

Thread regarding Ravel's maze issue (small spoiler alert about who and what happens under link):
*I cannot post links* :)

In short and without spoilers in above thread people avoided freeze issue by Uninstalling component "Subtitled cutscenes" from PST-Fixpack or Weidu pack. Maybe it will also work in Lower Ward? Uninstalling this component does not brake save games (at least it didn't for me). I can't check if this fixes Lower Ward issue because I do not own save game from that part of the game.

under Linux to uninstall this component (for lazy people who don't remember commands) open terminal in game main folder (../drive_c/GOG Games/Planescape Torment). In Terminal type "weinstall pst-fix". If weinstall has been installed properly before then program should run with few options, leave without changes any other mod till you will be prompted to uninstall subtitled cutscenes.

Even if it won't help with Lower Ward freeze you should avoid further problems with Ravel's maze.
But hopefuly this post will help anybody, if not killing Morte is just easiest option.

I am also encountering this crash. I have tried all the suggestions in this thread (and elsewhere), including:

- Removing Morde from the party
- Unequipping Morde
- Removing all party members
- Killing Morde
- Disabling cutscene subtitles.

The only other thing I can think to try is to remove the widscreen mod, but I understand that this can corrupt save games (meaning I'd have to start over).

Please advise?

EDIT: I believe I have found the cause of the crash. I found that if I killed all party members, I was able to proceed through the cut scene and load into the Lower Ward. NOTE - I could only load the Lower Ward IF I killed all party members in the pregnant alley area. Killing them anywhere else (eg in Alley of Lingering Sighs) would still produce the crash.

This suggested to me that it was a problem with one of the party members, and by process of elimination I narrowed this down to Annah. Annah had 4 Rat Tail Charms in her inventory, in addition to some equipped rings, a necklace and some punch daggers. Once the Rat Tail Charms had been dumped on the ground, I was able to load into the Lower Ward with all party members alive and triggered Morde's kidnapping.

I have no idea how this is related to the crash, but there you go. Hope this is of some use to anyone else who experiences in the same issue. Just try killing party members one at a time until you can load in, and then identify what in their inventory is causing the crash.

Thanks for your reports!
Could you please repost them to the following topic on SHS forums?
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/44702-games-hang-while-autosequence-after-talking-with-head-in-alley-of-ling/

We need help from the FixPack devs to fix this issue, and I can think of no other way to grab their attention than posting on the official forums for this mod.

Using vv221's saves I was able to locate the exact fix in the fixpack that triggers the bug - it's the first one of pst-fix/tph/pfixpack.tph .

Remove the lines from « // Fixpack: "The Alley of Lingering Sighs was supposed to open up once you reached the Lower » (line 44) to line 80 (just before the next fix, « // Fixpack: "If you had any Magic Resistance while copying the Circles of Zerthimon to your spell » ) before applying the fixpack (if you already apply it, first unapply, then edit, then re-apply) and it'll work.

I'm looking how to do the proper fix for that (small) issue without disrupting the cutscene when entering the Lower Ward, but my WeiDU skills aren't very high so it might take some time.

Hey, it’s great that you found the faulty part in the code ;)
Thanks for sharing your workaround!

Can confirm that kilobug's solution works on Linux. Massive kudos.

Thanks so much!