I came to Esperanto because of sheer frustration with English.
Trying to help people learn English I realised just how arbitrary and illogical the English language is.

Then I heard of Esperanto, an easy to learn language, much like lego, you just click the pieces together and they are understood by everyone.
Awesome I thought.
But discovered that Esperanto is not quite as advertised.
It is good as far as it goes, but for me it does not go far enough.
It still has exceptions and non standard meanings:
-Word building; bovaro (group of cattle); sxafaro (group of sheep); but arbaro (forest), not any group of trees but a subset of group of trees.
-Gender, some words have male roots, some have neutral roots, and some can be either male or neutral depending on the interpretation of the person using them. For example, amiko, at the same time as a course on Lernu was teaching that amiko means male friend an experienced member of this forum was posting that for them amiko meant friend either male or female.
-The n-ding, used to show direct object, except in some sentence formations it is not used, and it is also used to show direction.

Then I read of Ido, "Improved Esperanto". Well it got rid of the special characters, made word formation 100% regular, made all roots gender neutral (with 2 gendered pairs), and introduced a prefix to show direction, but then came up with a table of not quite correlatives, and introduced "qu" which destroyed the 1 to 1 relationship between sound and letter. Not so much an improvement as a random wandering off in a different direction.

Then there are all the other Esperantidos and Esperantididos. It seems every man and his dog has invented their own language and sometimes the dog did a better job.

So to the point of this ramble.
Does anyone know of a language that is 100% regular with NO exceptions?
I don't care if it only has 5 speakers, if I am going to spend time learning a language purely as a hobby I would prefer one that doesn't leave me with a nagging dissatisfaction of the way it is structured.

Does anyone know of a language that is 100% regular with NO exceptions?

Depends on what you consider an "exception". I have studied many constructed languages, and all of them have some kind of quirk or other - something that seems off, something that you can't quite generalise from observed patterns ... You may be after something unattainable.

You could always try Lojban. It's intended to be totally unambiguous, such that it could be used for communication with computers.

Volapük is also a damn good try at an auxlang - I find its word-building to be in places more precise than Esperanto's, it's essentially sex-neutral, there is a marvellous economy of words ... In my mind this is the #2 Auxlang. But be prepared for lots of inflection.

I think you will find, after a few weeks or even days, that both of these languages require considerably longer to learn than Esperanto, despite the latter's few apparent hiccups. You may also perceive some irregularities even with them - different kinds from the ones you see in Esperanto.

Human language is notoriously complex and can't be perfectly pigeonholed into neat, sterile little templates and boxes. Many of the issues that you have raised - say, the gender of amiko - arise from the fact that Esperanto is a living language and its direction, lexical usage, etc. are thus propelled to a large degree by its speakers (just as in any other language). The speakers, being human, are not themselves 100% mathematically consistent and there will be some variation between their usages.

It still has exceptions and non standard meanings:
-Word building; bovaro (group of cattle); sxafaro (group of sheep); but arbaro (forest), not any group of trees but a subset of group of trees.

bovaro = herd of cattle
ŝafaro= flock of sheep
arbaro = forest/wood

Just as 3 trees is not a wood, so 3 cows is not a herd, and 3 sheep is not a flock.

Where is the exception?

Bemused:
-Word building; bovaro (group of cattle); sxafaro (group of sheep); but arbaro (forest), not any group of trees but a subset of group of trees.
-Gender, some words have male roots, some have neutral roots, and some can be either male or neutral depending on the interpretation of the person using them. For example, amiko, at the same time as a course on Lernu was teaching that amiko means male friend an experienced member of this forum was posting that for them amiko meant friend either male or female.
-The n-ding, used to show direct object, except in some sentence formations it is not used, and it is also used to show direction.

- A forest is essentially a group of trees, the only reason you might would classify a forest differently from a group of trees is because your language does so.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
]Linguistic Relativity[/url]

- Amiko did in the beggining indeed mean male friend, but has now changed to be applicable to both male and female friends, while amikino is used to emphasize that the friend is female. This is also the case in my native language, and is a (positive) result of gender equality. The only remaining male/female words are specific words like: frato (brother), fratino (sister), patro (father) and patrino (mother)

- The n-ending is always used to show direct object in all sentences where it might be ambiguous due to free word order, while when used with a preposition there will no longer be any ambiguity and it is thus not needed nor to be used. And it is indeed used to show direction where this is needed, to differ between if the person walked on the road or on to the road, this is also the case in many languages where ex. the dative case or other cases may be used.

vikungen:

Bemused:
-Word building; bovaro (group of cattle); sxafaro (group of sheep); but arbaro (forest), not any group of trees but a subset of group of trees.
-Gender, some words have male roots, some have neutral roots, and some can be either male or neutral depending on the interpretation of the person using them. For example, amiko, at the same time as a course on Lernu was teaching that amiko means male friend an experienced member of this forum was posting that for them amiko meant friend either male or female.
-The n-ding, used to show direct object, except in some sentence formations it is not used, and it is also used to show direction.

- A forest is essentially a group of trees, the only reason you might would classify a forest differently from a group of trees is because your language does so.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity
]Linguistic Relativity[/url]

No, a forest is not JUST a group of trees. There is a group of about 15 trees on my uncle's farm here in Iowa but it is by no means a forest. A forest is a biome, an integrated whole (complete with underbrush, etc) that is most characterized (in the lay person's mind) as a whole bunch of trees. THAT's why and thus forest=arbaro, mainly because "-ar" isn't just "a group of something". it's "a groupING of something, taken as a whole"

The only "male" words in the language are family words, and offices ("king" etc). There are a few "female" words ("amazono" comes to mind) but the vast majority of words in the langauge are neuter/gender free. I do agree that Z. would probably have done better giving "mother", "sister", "aunt" and the other feminine family words a different root without overburdening the vocabulary, but he didn't and we are living rather well with his decision. However, with the "office' words, even Latin didn't have a separate root for the female counterpart (rex/regs : reg-ina)
As for the n ending, thee says "except in some sentence formations it is not used"....I'm assuming thee means those formations which have a direct object (e.g. a foreign name not ending in -o, or one of the correlative words) that doesn't end in -o? One can always add an -o to a foreign name, and as for the correlatives, the fact that not both of the nouns have the -o ending is a clear indication that you need to look at the OTHER one and if it doesn't have an -n, then the correlative is the object.
Direction? well, the -n ending has 2 uses: 1. direct object of a transitive verb, and 2. to replace a preposition. In sentences where direction is indicated, one can always use a preposition to indicate movement (mi iras al en la vendejo) if you wish, but why bother when all you have to do is replace the "movement" preposition with the -n on the end of the place word?? Methinks the poster doth protest too much.

orthohawk:
THAT's why and thus forest=arbaro, mainly because "-ar" isn't just "a group of something". it's "a groupING of something, taken as a whole"

Oh, so it's a grouping and not a group, nu pardonu mian nedenaskan anglan.

orthohawk:
As for the n ending, thee says "except in some sentence formations it is not used"....I'm assuming thee means those formations which have a direct object (e.g. a foreign name not ending in -o, or one of the correlative words) that doesn't end in -o?

If this is the case then it is near impossible to come around except ending every name with an o. But OP should know that as Ortohawk said there is no problem writing an o after a name or foreign word. And this (not exactly the same, but similar) is also the case in my native language:

Mercedes = Mercedes
Mercedesen = the Mercedes

Iphone = Iphone
Iphonen = the Iphone

Just as you in Esperanto can write: Mi aĉetis la Mercedeson

Bemused:Does anyone know of a language that is 100% regular with NO exceptions?
I don't care if it only has 5 speakers, if I am going to spend time learning a language purely as a hobby I would prefer one that doesn't leave me with a nagging dissatisfaction of the way it is structured.

You might consider Kenneth Searight's Sona. I have links to materials (about half way down) on my auxiliary language pages: here. There is also a sona_language group at Yahoo Groups, but it has almost no activity. But I cannot guarantee that even Sona has nothing you (or somebody else) might consider an exception.

However, I agree with Tempodivalse: there may be almost no constructed language which has nothing that somebody will not agree with. That is just the nature of the beast.

Sometimes people say that mathematics is a language. Since I am not a mathematician, I really can't tell. But as a linguist, I can tell you that language is not mathematics - that is not the pattern of the human mind. When speaking fluently, people strive to communicate according to the hypothesis of "economy", even if this/these "savings", so to speak, is/are a breach of grammar. Language is not and never will be symmetric. And even if someone were to create a mathematically symmetric language, once it was spoken, it would soon become asymmetric.
Humans are fond of poetry, alliteration, rhythm, and musicality. In fact, that is one facet of human memory. Linguists have found that rappers use "almost-rhymes" that when rapped sound rhymed. At some point, these almost-rhymes will be spoken - whether in jest or as a form of speech to garner attention or as a quote.
Think of the evolution of the work 'like' in English. Think about what it used to mean and now think of the expression: "That dude's like yeah! Let's do it!" Or the now verbal position of the word 'better' in "You better watch out!"
An attempt at creating a totally mathematical language AND maintaining it is a vain proposition. It would not be language.

I told in another thread awhile back about an area rug we had, that if you smoothed a wrinkle in one spot, another would appear somewhere else. Language is just like that. I rather doubt that it is possible to make a language with all the kinks worked out, or even to agree on what the kinks are.

My primary reason for learning Esperanto was also frustration with English. And while Esperanto isn't quite as regular as I'd hoped, and there are some points here and there that annoy me, I still think it's MUCH better than English.

BTW, while "amiko" is now used for both male and female, as far as I know "koramiko" is still male-specific.

I don't know the answer to your question but I would presume that Klingon, Elvish, or Navi might be better because they are simpler. Or just stick to Ido.

I am staying with Esperanto because it is more popular.

Just for your own interest, check out Globish.

I know what you mean when you say that English is arbitrary. For several months, I tried teaching English to advance English speakers. Just showing a somewhat random 5 minute video from Youtube will take about 2 hours to explain because it is full of idioms and strange ways of speaking. Not to mention slang and cultural references.

Even after two hours of looking at the sentences from the video, the students still don't fully get it because it doesn't make any logical sense.

Everything in English is an exception. Nobody can fully learn it. Even native speakers have trouble keeping up with the slang. English has a 1000 times more exceptions than it has rules.