Macromedia Projector Bug=Constant Crashes

[Lord Hammer]

Richard said:
Unfortunately this error did not show up during test. Couple of things:

Have you changed any drivers or installed any new hardware or Operating System patches since you tried the previous demo?

This will help us eliminate a problem with your PC versus a problem with code that has changed since the first demo.

Can you get us a screenshot or the exact text of the error?

Does it happen when certain things happen in the game (ie when a specific sound is being played, etc).

No changes other than possibly Nvidia drivers released 6/15/2005. It seemed to ctd when i used the arrow keys to change view the most but now it happens anywhere, anytime. The only thing that doesn't ctd in less than 5 minutes is the tutorial...the campaigns won't run. I am unfamiliar with "screenshots" and don't have any clue although i have been PC gaming some 13 years now and know how to get things to run...until now. Soon enough we'll know if it's just me...sorry to say i doubt it .

[Andrew Lonon]

Lord Hammer:

This did not show up in the testing, and I know (from your activity here and on other forums) you are not the type of user likely to be at fault. Add to that that other PC users do not seem to be having the same trouble, and I think it adds up to some sort of a incomparability between the Gold Salvo code and something in your system, or some combination of things in your system. Since the Demo worked on your system, we can find a solution, even if you get our own “Lord Hammer” build of Salvo. Suffice it to say, I will work with you to find the solution.

Please check the screen size that you are playing Salvo at. There may be a connection between the screen size and the error. Try running Salvo in the default “windowed” mode and see if that helps.

Another thing to try is a full uninstall and reinstall of Salvo. Uninstall the Demo if you have not, and then uninstall the final Salvo product, and reinstall. It is important that you not change anything after you reinstall, but that you go ahead and try to play the game. Then if the game works, you can try customizing the setup.

That’s it for now, but I would like to reiterate that I am committed to making Salvo work for you, so you can either continue to post notes here, or send Email to me at:

andrew2@spruegames.com

[Lord Hammer]

The demo was deleted before i reinstalled my OS along with a registry cleaner "CheckMyPC" etc. I have tried running Window, expanded & full with different settings. When i got up this morning i gave it another shot and actually made it through the first scenario of an English Campaign...I will try your suggestionof re-installing and then start without any changes to the options etc. Thanks for your help, i will take a methodical approach and report back and if it is truly a unique problem then there is hope in tracking it down . I apologize for my pessimism...it's just that i could almost taste the ocean air .

[McBan]

I have the same problem with the Macromedia Projector crashes. It seems to affect only certain campaigns. The Edward Teach campaign is completely unplayable because of the crash bug. I tried a different campaign (I can't remember which one) and there seemed to be no problem after about a dozen turns. I didn't have time to play any further. I won't have time to really experiment to track down the crash conditions for several days. I just wanted to pop in quickly and let you know that someone else is having your problem.

[Lord Hammer]

McBan said:
I have the same problem with the Macromedia Projector crashes. It seems to affect only certain campaigns. The Edward Teach campaign is completely unplayable because of the crash bug.I just wanted to pop in quickly and let you know that someone else is having your problem.

Thanks, ironic that Edward Teach was the campaign that wouldn't even run more than a minute, it was by far the worst ctd wise as well as my first choice .I uninstalled Salvo...i'll check back.
@Andrew: I tried all the "Pirate Campaigns", none of which would run, and a couple English of which i can move forward in at least one. So it does seem to hint at something in the game itself unless McBan has my same specs/hardware and we all know what the chances of that are .

[McBan]

I scraped up a little bit of time to experiment with Salvo! to reproducibly crash the game. Playing the Edward Teach campaign, the game runs fine until I use the arrow keys to move the viewpoint while a ship has been selected, but not moved yet. Then the Macromedia crash occurs after pressing an arrow key once or several times. Use of the arrow keys without a selected ship does not cause any crashes. I have not tried the other campaign where the game worked without any problems. It might be that for whatever reason I never used the arrow keys while a ship was selected. Anyway, this hopefully narrows the problem and provides a work-around for anyone having this problem.

[Andrew Lonon]

McBan: (& Lord Hammer)

Thanks for your excellent detective work- that will help us get to the solution faster, but we are not there yet. With something of a lump in my stomach, I tried the arrow keys on all the pirate missions, and I was not able to crash the program. That’s good for me & Salvo, but does not help you and Lord Hammer, nor get us anywhere closer to the solution.

Macromedia Crash:
I should clarify that when you get the system message that the “Macromedia Projector” has crashed, then there has been a crash that Salvo could not recover from. Errors that are directly the fault of my mistakes in programming will show up as “Script Errors” and should be recoverable, unless they loop. The system crash might still be caused by one of my errors, or it ~could~ be due to the development package that I used to make Salvo.

Turbo Mode?
Just a thought: What if it is not the keypress that causes the error, but the redraw that happens as you rotate around a selected ship? It would look like the kepress, but it may be something else. To test this, you may want to turn on Turbo mode in the Settings panel. Turbo mode will reduce the depth of the display, as well as removing some of the visual frills, thus reducing the work needed to redraw the screen and maybe helping this situation.

Wireless Network:
I just remembered something that happened fairly early on in Salvo’s development. I was using my brother’s notebook while visiting him in Ithaca. It turned out that when the system did not have a good connection to his wireless network, Salvo was very unstable, and I got the same sort of projector crash. Right next to the Hub, or with the Wireless turned Off, Salvo was rock solid. So – You may want to try running Salvo without any network, and even try running with no external connections at all.

Still…
I keep returning to the idea that the Demo worked. That suggests that something is different in the Gold code. The nature of the error suggests that it is something that the software can not deal with, something fatal. <Sorry – thinking out loud.>

Action:
I will check my system to make sure that I have the latest components of the development system. I was up to date when I finished Salvo, so I don’t expect there to be any updates, but it can not hurt. Also, I’ll proof the arrow keys and anything else that I can think of and create a new build of SALVO.EXE for you to try.

[Andrew Lonon]

Lord Hammer

Thanks for bringing this up in the first place. I am dismayed that there is another case of this problem (McBan) but I am also determined to find a solution.

Please take a look at my reply to McBan, and see if any of the items there help.

I will have an alternate SALVO.EXE file for you soon.

[McBan]

I should be at work, but I had to check Salvo! out some more. I just played The Sultan's Honor to completion with no crashes, even when using the arrow keys while a ship is selected. Great game so far. I can't judge the AI fairly yet, but so far, so good.

Anyway, back to the crash problem. I tried the Turbo mode suggestion, but it had no effect. Being a scientist, I created a hypothesis that the problem had to do with the fog effect, since the crashing always occurred with the Edward Teach battle which has fog and not The Sultan's Honor which lacks fog. So, I changed one of the settings that seemed relevant, the smoke opacity setting, under the belief that it affects fog too. I increased it to 3 (from the default 2) and had no crashes after briefly testing it under the conditions that cause the crash. I decreased it to 1 and again it had no crashes. I increased it back to 2 and interestingly it still doesn't crash. I saved the settings, exited the game, restarted the game, and tested it. Still no crashes. Very curious. Anyway, the problem seems solved on my system after those manipulations. I suppose there could have been some bad number associated with the default smoke opacity setting that gets cleared out when the setting is changed, even when back to 2. I really need to get to work and I won't have time to test Salvo! again until Monday late afternoon/evening. Happy bug hunting!

[McBan]

Last minute final checks on the crash problem indicated that I was hasty in thinking that the crash problem is solved by what I did above. The problem re-occurred at all smoke opacity settings, so disregard my earlier tests. It seems that I previously did not test with enough arrow presses because the crash is inconsistent in that sometimes it takes pressing the arrow key once when a ship is selected when fog is present to cause the crash, sometimes it takes more, maybe up to 5 or 6 or so.

So, I tried the other setting that I should have tried first, the fog of war override setting. Setting it to 5 seems to mostly solve the crash problem, after some testing of arrow pressing of about a dozen or more. A setting of 4 also seems to work, but I tested that less. However, even with a setting of 5, I am able to get the same type of crash under slightly different, more elaborate circumstances, by doing the following, again under fog conditions.

1. Select a ship, and use the arrow keys to rotate the view around the ship multiple times, going the whole way around the ship to be certain.

2. Immediately, while the ship is still selected after doing number 1 above, clicking either the ship list (and then clicking the screen to return to the main view causes the crash), or click the settings button immediately causes the crash.

This crash doesn't always occur, but usually does. I have not been consistent with the number of arrow presses beyond doing about 10 or more, so that may be a factor, or some other variable I haven't thought of could be causing the inconsistency. I didn't check any further because clearly the problem is somewhat complicated. However, the problem is clearly fog-based, so maybe that will help you. Again, good luck bug hunting!