Glitch/Environment


 * This page pertains to Environment glitches, a specific type of glitch. For glitches in general, see Glitch.

An Environment Glitch is a fault in the game programming that changes the normal actions of the environment in which the player is located. Many environment glitches are listed below.

'''NOTE: All glitches listed on this page have been fixed by Jagex. Please do not list any glitches that haven't been fixed yet.'''

Second Floor Walk on Air Glitch
In mid-2004 a glitch developed on RuneScape Classic. Players could ascend to the second floor outside of Falador castle by standing in certain spots outside the castle and clicking on a ladder inside the castle. The player would then be standing on the empty blackness outside the walls of the second floor of the castle, and could not come down. Players could walk to outside most of the areas of the free world from this point, although there were all kinds of invisible obstructions to movement in the empty space. Eventually a ladder was placed in the empty space above Varrock which allowed a player to choose to climb down to the normal play area. It is unknown if there were other areas to affect the glitch allowing to go to the "second floor" in the member's area. Many players lost accounts by moving their character to the "second floor" without knowledge of how to get down.

The glitch to access the "upper area" was fixed after about a week, and all characters were teleported to Lumbridge on the release of RuneScape 2.

Varrock Bank Glitch
The evening before the Grand Exchange was released, a player casting alchemy on items in Varrock's west bank received the mime random event. Rather than complete it, the player logged out. Between the time he logged out and the time he next logged in, the Grand Exchange was added. Along with this change, Varrock's western bank underwent a major upgrade, where it was expanded, given bank booths on both sides and having its parameters shifted considerably. When the player next logged and finished the random event and was returned to the exact same spot he was before, behind the bank counter.

Rabbit Hole Glitch
When a player was playing Clan Wars, he went to the north-western part of the arena and stood in a certain area that made the player appear invisible. While standing in this spot other players would not be able to see the player, but the "invisible" player would still appear as a white dot on the mini map.

Fist of Guthix Minigame Glitch
This glitch occurred on the day of release for the Fist of Guthix minigame. There were many people in the same location which caused the engine to lag and players to appear outside the entry hall's walls.

Falador West Bank Glitch
This glitch occurred from approximately 10 April to 15 April 2008. Players could see three gaps in the roof line and the floor inside the bank was significantly lowered.

Full Screen Glitch
On occasion when a player entered full screen in RuneScape High Detail, RuneScape would distort colours and shapes. This glitch could happen anywhere, and could also include models being spread everywhere in the game play window. The glitch could usually be resolved simply by clearing the cookies, temporary internet files, and browsing history, then re-opening the internet browser and going back to RuneScape.

Tower of Life Glitch
Upon the release of Tower of Life it was possible to attack other players with spells in the basement of the Tower of Life. Few people died, and the glitch was promptly fixed. Jagex commented, saying that it was caused due to the Tower of Life's basement being located directly below the Wilderness.

Spellbook Gap Glitch
This glitch appeared to be a graphical glitch in all graphic types. The glitch could not be triggered; it was a graphical glitch in the normal spellbook that causes it to appear to have an empty spell slot in between the spells Earth strike and Weaken. It is unknown as to if this was an unintended side effect of the 15 October updates or if this may have been a hint of a future add-on to the modern spellbook. This glitch was fixed on 16 October 2008.

Following an update to Spell icons, an new image of the normal Spell Book was uploaded to the Knowledge Base. Though not visible in game, the spell-book was formatted as it was in the spell-book gap glitch, except that the gap was filled in with an unknown teleport spell (which resembled a Castle, or a rook chess piece). Many players have assumed this to be related to the Mini-Game Mobilising Armies, which has had its release date repeatedly pushed back since an original release date of December 2008. This theory has been confirmed on 8 July 2009 with the release of Mobilising Armies teleport.

Stealing Creation Glitch


If a player happened to be climbing over the stile into the waiting pen just as a game began, the player would appear in the game floating off the map to the side of the base. Players could not move if they were glitched off the map, and had to log out, or if there was another player, they could click to follow them. They would be teleported back to the arena.

Weapon Change Glitch
There was a way to change other weapon's damage or style into another weapon by first pressing F1 to show attack styles, then right clicking a attack style, pressing F4 and clicking the style text and any weapon twice quickly in the inventory. This was further tested by people with full Void Knight Ranged gear, which boosted Ranged damage to the already high melee damage. When changed from Rune Crossbow with the best bolt equipped (enchanted onyx bolt) and void Ranged on player, and then doing the weapon change (for example, to Dragon Dagger(p++) the Ranged damage boost added to the weapon. The maximum hit for the Dragon Dagger(p++) was 430-430 in the Duel Arena, but 530-530 was hit with this glitch. The difference between both hits is 100 life points, which is what full range void added to the enchanted onyx bolt hit with 99 Ranged, ranging potion and the Eagle Eye prayer. Several players used this for a few hours in Bounty Hunter on the fourth day of its discovery. This Glitch resurfaced again in October 2009 when it was re-discovered by a few players who have abused it in the new Bounty Hunter Worlds.

Hairstyle Glitch
This glitch occurred when a female character would get the regular pigtails hairstyle, after the new hairstyles had been released on 9 December 2008. The player's head would then start moving back and forth when she was wearing a skillcape (if the player was NOT wearing an item in the helmet slot, otherwise the glitch would pause until that item was unequipped). This also happens with male characters with the side-part spike hairstyle and the tattered waistcoat torso while wearing skill capes, but any body armour, or helmets/hats, cannot be worn.

The hairstyle glitch also occurred when Item Lending got released, a player would lend another player a hat, or helmet, and if they were to put it on, they would go bald. This glitch was fixed by Jagex.

Open and Closed Door Glitch


Sometimes when the player opens or closes a door both will appear at the same time. The player will have both options and both doors there. Sometimes opening the door fixed it and on other times closing it would. This was easily achieved by closing the door, opening the world map and getting someone to open the doors.

Building mode, and Dragon Plate
This glitch happened when Construction was released. If you clicked "building mode" not in a house and clicked a space or a few away you would teleport to that clicked spot. A long time ago this also worked with a Dragon Plate. Click it, spin it, if it works you would teleport to where you clicked.

TzHaar massacre
The TzHaar massacre was an event that occurred on the 13 May 2008, and was the result of a glitch. It happened in the TzHaar Fight Pit, which is supposed to be a safe minigame. However, some players discovered that they could attack and kill other players who were in the waiting room. Anyone who died lost all their items.

Jagex fixed the problem the same day. They also issued lengthy bans to players who had killed other players by abusing the glitch, under rule 4 of the Rules of RuneScape, which states: "You must not use or attempt to use any cheats or errors which you find in our software."

Walk on water
It is not yet known exactly what conditions allowed a player to perform this glitch but while in the saltwater energy pool in Oo'glog the players character would suddenly be on top of the water, where they could move around normally. Players in this situation on 2009 April Fools would be unable to throw a cabbage at another player, instead receiving a message referring to the ground as being too muddy to allow the player to perform that action. Another version of this glitch was earlier performed soon after the quest As a First Resort was released. A player would light one of the plants used in the quest, such as lavender, equip it into the weapons slot, then get into one of the hot-springs. When the plant burnt out and was no longer equipped, the player was standing on top of the hot-spring rather than in it. This method of the glitch was fixed about a month after the release of the quest.

Fire cape glitches
In various parts of the game, the graphics for various flowing animations would be mixed up, allowing for trees, fountains, and the cape itself to look weird. This glitch has been fixed by Jagex.

Invisibility
Not too long ago, there was a glitch which enabled a player to become invisible. It occurred when a player was wearing a circus item and then became the opposite gender (male/female). Whilst the player was invisible; when they moved or did an emote their body parts would move away further than they should.

Standing On Logs
When the player was at the beacon (for the All Fired Up quest) over Goblin Village (over Falador) there were some logs that were behind the ditch. The player would then cross the ditch then cross the ditch back inside, but when the player jumped back he made sure the place that he was going to jump on had logs. So then he would be on the logs but he wouldn't be able to walk there. This glitch might not be fixed since the player did not try it long ago.

In the Unknown
When the Explorer emote was released, some people went to Varrock castle and went up the stairs and did the Explorers emote, then quickly went downstairs. They would then be inside the Monk's Cage. One could have also done it another way: go down, do the Explorers emote, go up. If one did it correctly, the player would find themselves in the Unknown. One could have also done it on other staircases, too.

Another case of standing in the Unknown is found in whilst running into the Whirlpool. If one were to lag during the time the screen goes black, after running in, they'd find themselves stuck between Layer 1 and Layer 2 of the Ancient Cavern. Although extremely rare, this issue has not been fixed.

Gliding
After the High Detail update was released, when standing in the crate at Catherby the player would teleport using the Games necklace. He would then glide instead of walk. This has since been fixed by Jagex.

Rat Pits Massacre
Shortly after Summoning was released, a player who had gone to Varrock or Port Sarim Rat Pits would challenge a player then disconnect or log out quickly after the cat would attack another player's cat or a rat. Then, they would quickly log back in and spawn outside that area's Rat Pits and then their cat would attack any other player's cat that was in its vicinity. It would also attack Summoning Familiars and whatever that familiar was carrying, the player could pick it up after it was killed. It went on from Port Sarim, to Falador, to Taverley, then the player teleported to Varrock, met his friends, and then finally ended in Canifis when a Jagex Mod disconnected the players and a system update followed. The players were not banned for this, they just got a rollback on their accounts. This was also dubbed the World 97 Massacre.

Stairs Glitch
If a player went in the house next to Jerico's in East Ardougne, the player could go upstairs and then downstairs, and then while he/she went downstairs, they would click outside the house to go outside then inside. It is unknown if this has been fixed.

Tree Shadow Glitch
On High Detail near Catherby in the Yew Tree area, some trees that were cut down left their shadow behind, causing somewhat of a glitch. Another example of graphics failing to load, possibly due to overload on the server. This graphic failure is quite similar to the graphics load failure but consists of mainly object shadows, some of which fail to load or change. This feature may have been the cause of some undiscovered bugs left by the Runetek 5 engine.

The evergreen tree north of Falador also experienced this problem. When cut, its shadow will not disappear - It will look like the stub of the tree has a very large shadow.

Graphics Glitch
On a rare occasion, if you quickly switch between windows and/or close your laptop lid and open it back up, the graphics will stretch out or objects will turn different colours. This glitch corrects itself when you move into a new area of the game.

Varrock fence glitch
The Varrock fence glitch was a bug that caused players to be stuck when walking behind a fence in Varrock in 2002. It was in the south-east corner next to the Dancing Donkey Inn. Players could escape by clicking the attack button on a NPC on the other side of the wall. The fence and bug were removed in early November 2002.

Jagex has stated that players trying to trick others into getting stuck would be punished for bug abuse.

Wilderness teleport glitch
The Wilderness teleport glitch was a bug in the early history of the game that allowed players to teleport from the wilderness dungeon. It was fixed in July 2002. When Jagex had originally scripted this area, it was far east of Lumbridge co-ordinate wise, thus the teleport exclusion (which was done by co-ordinates back then) did not include the wilderness dungeon.

The Wilderness teleport glitch was seen again as a result of the Legends Quest. Players could cast Telekinetic Grab on the hat to add it to their inventory, then it could be dropped anywhere (most likely the Wilderness) and when picked up, it would instantly teleport the player to the dungeon in Legends Quest. This was fixed shortly after its discovery.

Wilderness ditch glitch
The Wilderness Ditch Glitch is a graphical glitch that simply allows you to 'walk' over the ditch. To perform this glitch, you must jump over the ditch first, then as soon as you land, click the same ditch you jumped over quickly and it will appear that you are 'walking' across the ditch. Note that you may have to click on the same ditch several times before you 'walk' over the ditch. This glitch can also be executed by activating Lumbridge home teleport near the ditch and, while the spell is running, click at the part of the ditch directly in front of you. This glitch cannot be used to take advantage against other players. However, it has been noticed that if you were attacked by an NPC, and you click on the ditch before it attacks you, you will not take any damage, nor will you receive a damage splat. Jagex has said that they cannot fix this glitch, but because it does no harm, they refer to it as a "feature" rather than a bug. However, the glitch appears to have been fixed as of 10 December 2007, though some players have reported it happening.

Crumblywall2 glitch
Shortly after RuneScape 2 was released, Many pieces of wall were examinable as crumblywall2. This may be the name differentiating normal walls from crumbling walls, but that have the same right click info.

Catherby Fishing Shop Glitch
This glitch was caused by a graphical update in which smoothing textures were introduced to Standard Definition. It is not known why it caused this glitch in High Definition. The glitch lasted from 9 September 2009 to 7 October 2009. The glitch made it appear so that there was a deep ditch the player could walk down into. It moved both fish tanks downwards with it, and the sink in the corner leans over the edge of the ditch, as well as a few misplaced walls, creating gaps that a player could see through. A swordfish on the wall was split in 2. This appears to be a height mapping fault.

Kneeling glitch
A rare glitch was when a character would kneel inside the crate at Catherby, and use a teleport. That player would then be in the same kneeling position outside the box, and if the person tried to move, they would be standing straight up and gliding across the ground. This glitch was fixed within a week of discovery.

Landscape Glitch
There was a short glitch, shortly after the RuneTek engine update, that caused most figures, excluding NPCs, players, and paths, to show in a strange fashion. They would be striped as if they were in the middle of construction, one line being the solid colour of the item, the next being nearly translucent, and so on. The glitch's cause is unknown, but is now fixed.

Disappearing Scenery Glitch
Sometimes while walking the camera may collide with another building or piece of scenery. This may cause some scenery to disappear, or in some instances all players to disappear.

Sometimes, the glitch can be reproduced without the camera colliding.

Time Travel Glitch
When time-traveling in the Quest, Meeting History, you can get stuck in objects that wasn't there in the previous time-period. To get out, simpily walk out of the scenery or time-travel back.

Falador Trapped
There used to be a glitch where you would be walking across some grass in falador and you would get stuck. To get out, you had to log out and log back in