I have read the many threads about Pol crashing right after selecting Select/Create Char, and the various threads about FFXI crashing every 5 mins or at unpredictable times. I was having the same problems when reading and was researching the problem. No luck with the threads, it seemed no one had any ideas.
You wont beleive what I tell you next, my wife comes home and I am talking to her about everything I have done to fix the problem. (She plays too) She notices a spysweeper (adware cleaner) on my desktop that I havent used in ages. She goes what about that. I figured since it was actively looking for them since I installed it I would find nothing. 220 traces.... Needless to say I cleaned it and thanked her immensely. Game is running sweet for a week now.
My theory is that ever so often one of the adwares would try to access information about FFXI and it would crash due to the third party voilation. *Knocking on Wood* Hope its the fix.
****Spysweeper.exe is the name of the progam.
http://www.download.com/Webroot-Spy-Sweeper/3000-8022-10301356.html
Boyd