Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2015 5:01 am Post subject:
Peculiar crash vs no crash effect with my mod...
So yesterday I took a copy of my mod to my cousin's place who wasn't able to get my mod working since sometime earlier this year, namely it always froze 2/3 of the way on the loading bar...
Anyway, I tried the XWIS downloadable copy figuring maybe something was wrong with his old copy, and it too crashed.
Last night mulling over possible reasons, I concluded if it's not the mod, or his RA2, then it is likely something in his registry, and I emailed him what I located in my registry by email ahead of my arrival.
Today I went there again, but this time I took a known good retail copy with update and no-cd patch, with my mod already installed in it, the whole thing to be sure it wasn't the files... and it crashed again.
Having sent the westwood key branches under software and the wow64 node sections, we did some comparing, nothing unusual, but for simplicity I relocated my RA2 copy to the same dir I use c:\cc-ra2... still crash.
Then going through the registry again, deleted all the Windows "ra2" related entries, including the mui and compatibility tables, then doing the right-click compatibility menu, I set the ra2.exe to win98 and administrator... voila! game worked!
.....
Now the curious bit is that the vanilla game worked fine in each case where my mod would crash... as far as I can tell you, this only started happening earlier this year (around april would be my guess), prior to that my mod didn't apparently need to be forced into win98 compatible mod.
Anyone have any ideas what could be in my mod that would fundamentally alter the compatibility of RA2 ??? QUICK_EDIT
RA2 is really picky. I always set it to Win98/ME compatibility before I even start the game. Usually solves any nonsense the game throws at you. _________________ KGR | AT
AZUR
Discord: theastronomer1836
Steam QUICK_EDIT
The funny thing about this is the crash is your typical access violation, unable to read a resource, usually the result of a corrupted mix... so I have to assume the wrong compatibility mode interferes with loading the expansion files, but how/why it would is beyond me? _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Since RA2 doesn't uses DemandLoad anymore, it might be some other key which you've used wrong.
Like you have set some ini keys wrong, saying the game to load SHPs from mix files, which don't have them.
Win98 compat mode makes the game load from mix files differently, thus allowing it to find the files anyway. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Try renaming all your ecache to expand, that should solve the w98 compat issue. At first glance, you
don't seem to have any file that needs ecache in your beta2 mod. Remember ecache is also accessible
to YR. QUICK_EDIT
Interesting, but I was having problems with files not loading in priority when using expandXX.mix... I don't remember the exact issue but anytime I needed to override an existing object it would crash or not show up or something.
Ever since I started using ecacheXX.mix I didn't have those problems, and I've further divided my assets into even more mixes to avoid corruption at least while I keep updating them so often...
LKO: I think you're right, the compatible mode would have to be loading files differently, but I'm not specifying the mixes anywhere, it would have to detect them itself in either case ? _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
As far as I remember, the mix file loading order for RA2 is higher for ecache than that of YR. Also files
like trees need to be in ecache for RA2. There is also the problem that if you have duplicated such files
in expand, it would not load such files.
What you can do is, to rename all ecache to expand and whichever files is not loaded in-game, move
only those files to ecache, only single copy, no duplicates.
A corrupted file in lower loading order might escape the crash too.
Also the OS might supply a different set of filenames than expected for loading in ecache cases. QUICK_EDIT
I don't see why the OS would pass filenames in the wrong order, if the game globs expand*.mix first it will get that first, if it gets both ecache and expand filenames at the same time, it's still the game that chooses which to open first...
But I do agree there seems to be some contention between expands and ecaches, though I've always used ecaches, originally I only had ecache05 (units) and ecache06 (buildings), and all the other "loose" files (load screens, inis, etc) I only belatedly added to expand10. This arrangement worked fine for everyone for years, until I started breaking out the files into more mixes as the frequency of mix corruption increased. When I started adding terrain fixes, I used to keep them with the buildings.
For the 3rd time - it took me only a few seconds to rename your ecache files to expand and see
the loading go through without the Win98 compat setting. Re-organize your content, use expand
and avoid ecache as much as possible.
To avoid mix corruption, use new empty mix files. Drag and drop using XCC Mixer.
As for overrides, expand should be higher than ecache in loading order wherever applicable. And
ecache should be higher than ra2.mix for RA2. For YR 1.001, ecache is lower than ra2.mix. In case
of expandXX, higher number is higher in loading order, e.g. expand90 > expand02. There is no
certainty when it comes to ecache*, so duplicate content should be avoided. And care should be
taken as ecache* is accessible to both RA2 and YR. QUICK_EDIT
Sorry I didn't know what you meant by "higher", but it still doesn't explain why it didn't previously have this problem with ecache06-08, and only now manifests after dividing... by your assertion it should never have worked. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
I didn't say that it would never work with ecache. It is even necessary to use ecache for files like trees
in RA2. I too use ecache in a limited fashion to share unique content between RA2 and YR like music.
Corrupted content or mix files, compounded by duplicate files etc. could have gone wrong. Only
gave reasons why to prefer expand over ecache and a solution for your Win98 compat problem. QUICK_EDIT
Try using elocal* instead ecache*; same contents, read after ecache. But most likely it's a corrupted mix. _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
E1: I've slowly expanded the number of ecache's I've used from 5 to now 8, somewhere along the line I started having this crashing on copies not set to 98 compat. That's why I called in peculiar, because while I use more ecacheXX.mix files, the files inside are the same ones...
But yes I understand terrain things have to be in ecache, I think that's what I discovered earlier when terrain bits weren't overriding the game, as I recall I first put them into expand10.
4th: I've gone through countless cycles of fixing corrupted mixes, unfortunately it happens with all the tools: ccmix, XCC Mixer, XCC Mix Editor...
My RA2 (with 98 compat.) crashed on bad mixes too, so those errors behave consistently at least. I have also discovered the game will crash with a corrupted item in a mix, yet will load fine if the mix is deleted entirely.
I will experiement with elocal/expand (and reducing the number of mixes) when I've got a 1.0 grade release, until then I'm satisfied that it can be fixed in Windows... _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Civil building SHPs being in ecache is causing the Win98 non-compat setting crash in your mod.
Re-organize the content like the following for RA2:
ecache: terrain stuff (sno/tem/urb/shp etc.), side specific buildings (g*/n*.shp), infantry/unit shp,
cameo, anims etc.
expand: civil buildings shp (c*.shp), vxl/hva, ini, vpl, palette etc. QUICK_EDIT
I always had civilian structures in ecache, even before the win98 compat. issue cropped up, but that's very interesting.
So ecache06-07 in my case could be renamed expandXX, and it would solve that? Because I actually suspect it's the fact that I'm using ecache01-03 for the voxels, they used to be ecache07 at one point, and I recall it worked then. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
So I moved all my civilian structures to ecache07 and left player structures in 06, but when I did this I made quick copies of the two just in case they got corrupted... and I noticed a weird side effect, it was loading one of my old assets. So I deleted them and played again, this time it was fine.
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Peculiar crash vs no crash effect with my mod...
