Omaha Beach - Scen #9

[Second-Maître Laurent]

Hi there!
I'm playing this scenario.
I'm on turn 5, yet.
I play my turn and at he end of the turn, I quit my order phase.
So begin the German turn. At the end of the resolution, the game crash down.
I've saved this game under a new name : idem.
I've changed some preferences : animation level=0; message=0; animation=off : idem

I've tested another scenario : no problem encountered.

Is anyone have an idea?
Having regard to the length of a turn, I don't want to do the scenario again!!!

Regards

[Mobhack]

Try replaying the turn from a previously saved game point and see if it crashes on you again (or not).

If it does crash again, try attaching a save game from immediately prior to the crash event and then we can have a look at it and see if we can spot the problem.

Otherwise a message saying "it crashes!" is not particularly helpful in and of itself.

(One thing you may want to do is to do a disk check with Windows disk maintenance utilities and see if there are any lost clusters that need recovering, those can lead to a file error (and hence crashes) - and if it is your save game, that could be why...). If there were any lost clusters - then probably best to redo the turn from the last save again in case of that.

[Second-Maître Laurent]

Originally Posted by Mobhack

Try replaying the turn from a previously saved game point and see if it crashes on you again (or not).

Thank you Mobhacl for your help.
I do that yet! No change.
Here you are the attached file of the saved game at the end of my turn, just befor to launch the Germann turn.

[Mobhack]

Windows defender gave me an antivirus report when I downloaded that - wacatac.b1ml or something similar. Then removed it.

You probably should run an antivirus scan and then try posting that again perhaps?

[DRG]

I will continue testing this but it has not changed since it was played and reviewed from both sides in 2021 and no issues were reported

HOWEVER.

I let it play out AI vs AI and it got to the point of putting replacement on the map ( I think....) the start of turn 6 when it shut the game down and I saw a graphics symbol on the map that should not be there



HOWEVER Pt 2

I restarted the game from the Autosave and it started right up and it is now playing out in the middle of turn 6

There will be a further investigation but it appears this "issue" does not appear for everyone and it can be overcome using the Autosave

[DRG]

Here's the problem



When the green shows up so does that symbol that should not and if it does there is a possibility of the game shutting down. So far restarting using the autosave gets around that but it needs to be and will be investigated further

This will be a legacy issue relating to the conversion to Windows and the changes to the game terrain and it is an on again off again issue

[Second-Maître Laurent]

Thanks guys! You're awesome.

I'm stupid! I didn't thought to launch a game AI VS AI to test the isue. I should remember that next time.

DRG, probably you've found the isue.
Have you a solution?

[Ts4EVER]

Shameless self plug:
What you COULD do, if the scenario is bugged for now, is going into the Campaigns and Scenarios forum and download my Redux 29th Infantry Campaign.
The first scenario is about the Omaha Landings, but you can deploy your own force and the map is more accurate (made with the satellite data conversion tool that was not available back when scenario 9 was created).
Also, I still need testers because the campaign is WIP.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Second-Maître Laurent

DRG, probably you've found the issue.
Have you a solution?

Not yet. That symbol it's showing indicates that for whatever reason that scenario is trying to load a terrain tile that it should not be which tells me there is info locked in the DAT file that should not be there and it's probably connected to the conversion to Windows from DOS. All it takes is one number

That example shows three ways that map edge can be seen. There should ONLY be two. If green tiles are showing there the problem is revealed

The "good news" from my POV is in my one experience with this reloading the game from the Auto save after the game shuts down SEEMS TO solve the problem..........that and the fact that Tom never reported an issue with it when he played it from both sides for his review

If anyone else has the time play it out and let me know if it shuts down either at the end of turn 5 or the beginning of turn 6 and if it does then does restarting the auto-save let you continue playing.

From what I can see the scenario is 99.9% intact. I need to test more but if you see green on the west map edge avoid scrolling the map so that the upper left corner is displayed and if it does shut down simply restart using the autosave

EDIT


I started a new version of this AI vs AI then changed it to Human vs Human on a restart and turned off all of the Computer-controlled units I could and I am now on turn 10.. the west map edge only shows grey and the game has not shut down

Thinking now it's one sequence of events that triggers this and sometimes it happens and sometimes it does not which is why it didn't happen to Tom turning his testing review. The "trick" is finding the trigger but FOR SURE the "tell" that the issue is in play is if you see some green tiles on the west map edge

EDIT 2


It's back........ turn 12



but the red and yellow symbol is not so it did not crash

Once the green edge shows up EDIT clearing smoke ( U ) will remove the green but so far I have found the green edge itself is not the cause of the crash but it's likely whatever sequence of code that puts that symbol on the map that does

BUT

It does seem that if it happens just start the game again with the autosave and you can continue on

[Mobhack]

I noticed that the buggy terrain appears on the map edge only after smoke has first appeared on the map. Everything is just fine till smoke/flame is added.

If you press "U" to clear smoke, then the grass hexes that overwrite grey map edge ones go away again, until you press U again or new smoke arrives - triggering the global "show smoke" flag.

Now - if you clear smoke and then hit end turn, and no new smoke arrives - you might be able to make it through the turn end. However Don's solution of saving, exiting the game and restarting again is a much better solution here. Especially if you see some garbage map hexes that aren't green grass at the LHS of the map - like that red blob!.

So the problem seems to be related to the smoke, likely an index or a pointer out of bounds (?) - and the very large map with loads of toys on it - I'll need to debug that when I find the time. If it is (hopefully) in some small part then hopefully I can put some guard code into whatever is doing this and pointing off into the map array(s) which likely are declared just after the smoke one in memory. (If the game had been programmed in say Pascal, rather than C++, then that language would have thrown an array out of bounds error "hissy fit", C++ simply assumes that the programmer fully intended to do whatever daft thing it's told to..)