Macromedia Projector Bug=Constant Crashes

[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!

[Lord Hammer]

Wow! Some comments:I have tried Turbo Mode, my wireless has been disconnected since school let out(kids ), the demo that i tried(1st one) didn't have the arrow keys implemented.
I too had thought the keys were the "key" until it started happening randomly(perhaps a delayed reaction to arrow press) in the Pirate campaigns but with McBan's input i know it's only a matter of time...hopefully [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img].
I too considered trying a game without using the key but frankly it is just too frustrating using my mouse to constantly change perspective.

[Lord Hammer]

Re-installed Salvo, left default settings with same results. Certain Campaigns are just un-playable...period. McBan is onto something, Sultan's Honor has worked without crashing, so i'm up to 2 playable.

[Andrew Lonon]

Lord Hammer & McBan

I got your notes, and I expect to have a new build for you on Monday. It may be late Monday, but I’ll try…

[Andrew Lonon]

Lord Hammer & McBan

I still can not recreate the error on my development system , so this may be a shot in the dark, but here is a link to a file that may (or may not) help. All I have done is changed the sequence of a few elements and tweaked some things.

It is important to note that there are no improvements or new features in this code. It is just an alternate for the standard Salvo PC excitable. If it turns out that this file helps some users, it will be added to the Salvo downloads page.

Salvo_July11.exe is just under 30 MB and should be placed in the main Salvo directory where salvo.exe is. You can create a shortcut if you desire.

www.spruegames.com/Salvo/download/Salvo_July11.exe

[McBan]

Sorry; the new Salvo exe crashes the same way. For me at least, the game is quite playable as long as I set the fog override at 5 and avoid clicking on the two options while a ship is selected. It would be nice to not override the fog, however. I also haven't had any crashes in non-fog battles. I played the first two battles of Huzza! without trouble and have started the third battle.

I don't understand the fog override. When the fog override is off, then what range of fog does that correspond to in the 1 to 5 setting? For the Edward Teach battle, it seems like 3. Is it the same for each battle with fog?

[McBan]

Some follow up tests. With the fog override set at 5 and playing a foggy battle, I can use the arrow keys to shift my view around OK except that once I have done so for about 6 or more times (all in one turn or even pressing an arrow key only once per turn), the game crashes if I select the ship list icon and click to return to the main screen, and the game crashes sometimes immediately after I click the options icon from the main screen. For this crash, it doesn't matter whether a ship is selected or not, unlike the crash that occurs with fog override at 0 and simply using the arrow keys. The other options and screens seem to work OK so far. This makes playing a foggy battle somewhat crippled since the ship list screen cannot be used.

I just updated Windows (though I am still using WinXP SP1) and I have a current driver for my Nvidia 6800 GT. The Macromedia Projector crash details indicate that the crash occurs with iml32.dll and it leaves a log that I can email you if you want or I could go through Shrapnelgames Customer Support if you prefer.