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IGC - The Technical Bugs Thread

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Hartmann

Hartmann

Kaiser v.G.G. (abdicated)
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Oct 20, 2000
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  • Europa Universalis IV
If You experience anything weird with the IGC (unmovable armies, crashes etc.) this is the place to report.

Note: Please do NOT post anything gameplay related here (like 'country x is always loosing' etc.) and NOT any bugs related to EU as a whole.

Hartmann
 
Possible Microsoft Graph 97 compatibility problem

Note: There´s a microsoft application 'Microsoft Graph 97' (or newer) which uses the extension *.gra. This is now also in use by us for the Ryazan files (I interchanged Granada with Ryazan, because of the unit graphics, which were European style for Granada). If one has that application, the *.gra files become automatically attached to it (graph icon). I´m not sure, but I was under the impression, that this could be leading to random crashes. At least they were gone, when I removed the linking of monarchs.gra to said application.
One has to go into 'display>folder options>data types' (actual entry labels may vary - I have the German version of W98) and remove the automatical *.gra type attachment for Microsoft Graph there.

Hartmann
 
Crash when playing Russia

First thing first: thanks a lot for all this great work!

Unfortunately I'm having crashes every time I try to play Russia, either in IGC1 or IGC2. That's the picture:
After some months, once the frozen wastes disappear, I declare war upon Kazan. I'm demoted to 'weakling', and soon after the first battles start, the program exits to the desktop.

I have to try to play with other powers.

I have edited 2 times the text.csv file, using Wordpad. I have checked to not have left any unwanted spaces or anything else. Furthermore, I have some experience installing mods and edited game files for other games (I mean, I'm not a newbie, although I can have messed something! ;))

I'm playing with the english version uptaded to 1.07c.

The only 'rare' thing I did was to create a second 'Europa Universalis IGC' folder, which is an exact copy of the original install folder. Even then, the program still recognize the game CD and play the music (maybe any audio CD would be recognized?)

I'm sad (and somewhat scared :D) to be the first to report a crash bug.

Thank you anyway for all this great effort
 
Huh, thank You, too! (*blushes*) Good to hear, that You enjoy the IGC - despite the techn - probs. :)

I can give the following report: There seems to be a crash problem, which occurs in the beginning when playing Russia and immediately declaring war to Kazan and actually marching in besieging cities. I could enforce a crash this way 3 times out of 5 trials.
I then thought 'this should be easy to narrow down' and pored over the files for hours. I checked everything even remotely in possible relation to that bug. But I couldn´t find it! :(
Then I was frustrated and (after having a whiskey) changed some minor bits and pieces, which had nothing to do with the bug. Then I tried to reproduce the bug again and didnt´t succeed in five trials. It seems, that when the bug doesn´t happen in the first year, then it will never happen in the rest of the game. Anybody any idea out there? I´m through with my latin for the moment...

Hartmann
 
Truth be said I never had anymore crashes after russia annexed kazan...
maybe it´s related to action in ryazan??

well got another thingy under my thumb anyway...
Have you ever succeded in bankrupting a country from a 'hacked' scenario, in other words an non-major power of your game version?
I haven´t and I tried again and again...and the country never goes under :(
 
Crashes...

Hartmann:

> I can give the following report: There seems to be a
>crash problem, which occurs in the beginning when
>playing ... I then thought 'this should be easy to
>narrow down' and pored over the files for hours. I
>checked everything even remotely in possible relation to
>that bug. But I couldn´t find it!

One thing that I've noticed- using just a text editor does not always parse properly or correctly, though visually it may appear okay. One really has to use a hex editor on the data files, 'after' one has inputed everything through 'Notepad', etc. Most common thing that I've found is that Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery values will not have a 'space' after the value.

Using a hex editor, you will see that after a given value, there is a 20 0d 0a. Sometimes Notepad will not enter the 20 properly, and the 20 is a 'space'; there are about a dozen or so instances of this within the IGC (though some I suspect are from the original files- but error trapping only goes so far). I fear that sometimes, as the player or the AI is increasing a given units numbers, there is not enough space within the array that has been set up within the save game file. Basically the space before and after a value sets up the space within the array for future values, but if that space is truncated, and you are going from a single digit to double digits, crashes will then occur.

Through the data files you will see variations of this 20 0d 0a, be they for cities, capitals, merchants, population, trading posts, units, etc. I.e. Merchants appear not to need the 20, and go directly to the 0d 0a. Sometimes you will find a 20 0d 0a 09 09 in some cases, but this usage tends to be inconsistent; haven't quite figured out what the author intended with this particular one.

Given that units have an ever changing value, while things such as cities are static- it appears crucial that properly sized place holders are set aside within the new db created from all the data files.

Error trapping can only go so far, with an improperly structured DB.

Hope this helps,

Jean-Claude*

*- Bleary eyed veteran of thousands of hours of poring over BTR's 7.5meg database
 
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Thousand thanks, Jean-Claude. :) I will try out this approach soon. Please tell me whenever You come up with any other ideas which could be helpful in pinning down that problem!

Regards, Hartmann
 
Plz, Paradox...

I've tried with every major power, and the game (english 1.07c + IGC 1.5b) sooner or later exit to the desktop.
I've used Wordpad to edit the text.csv file.

If Jean-Claude is right, the best solution would be to edit the file using an hexadecimal editor. And the best solution even more would be to provide a text.csv file that don't cause any random crashes.

I know that Paradox has denied authorization to include the edited text.csv file with the IGC package due to copyright issues...

But what if everybody asks nicely a second time? :)

Please, Paradox. A lot of people has put a great effort into this IGC project by pure love to your game. Can you think of any solution so other players can share with them their great work? I don't really think that any game designer/researcher can get offended because his game arises such great expectation...

Plz, Paradox... :)
 
Actually if Paradox would care to do that couldn't they instead include a little nice utility that edited the text.csv for you ? I little program where you said which language version you had (or even better it checked and acted accordingly), and then did those small edits. I haven't tried the ICG yet, but after what I've understood we are talking about editing somewhere around 10 entries right ? That way you would NOT include the text.csv but you wouldn't get the random crashes.... But of course this would be quite some more work for Paradox..

Cobos
 
Hmm, whereas being allowed to include text.csv would indeed be more convenient (many people inadvertently do something wrong in the editing e.g. miss to add the SPR tag), text.csv is not the main problem crashwise. But if You go to desktop in every game very often NO MATTER WHAT, there should be indeed something wrong other than the known probs. When a crash occured, can You restart with a savegame and pass the date of the crash? Or does it then always crash at the same point?
Before trying Russia as written above, I didn´t have crashes. Before release I played the IGC to the end several times. Else I wouldn´t have released the 1.5b yet, of course...

Please report anything, which could help finding any bugs in the IGC. Hope I get everything fixed in the end.

Hartmann
 
Any saves done just before the 'feared moment of crash' would also lead to the desktop, whithout finishing to load, as if the savegame file was corrupted.

Another strange detail (I noticed it even having edited text.csv for a second time): looking at the political map, Hungary appears covered with ottoman shields, as if it was controlled by Turkey (!). Looking each hungarian province one by one shows the normal info, and the hungary shield (the horizontal thin stripes).
Maybe this can lead to a clue


To Cobos: it would be great that Paradox provided an edited file to be used in a mod (this would be a great achievement in the world of the mod-makers/game designers relations). But what I was asking for was simply that Paradox allowed the IGC makers to provide a crash-proof full set of edited game files.

Thank you all you guys for all your attention.
 
Don´t worry about those shields. They just show which provinces Your country has a CB on (meaning e.g. no nationalism revolt risk when conquered later). I will send You a private message with my email address. Maybe You will want to send me a zipped savegame (two files including the cfg.) so that I can have a look at it. Should be a savegame which loads, but always leads to a crash.

Hartmann
 
Originally posted by Henrique Duarte
Just an empirical observation...while there is granada there are crashes...no granada no crashes...
Click to expand...

I was under this impression, too. But then I had a Russia crash when Granada was already gone. Nevertheless I will have again a look at this...

Hartmann
 
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