Here's a glitch, which neither I nor my opponent can figure out.
His move 14 does not allow me to view battle replay. He resends the same file, and all seems ok. We get to my move 16 which he cannot view, and it causes him not to be able to move his own units, even if he chooses not to view replay.
He is on Vista with new computer, I am on XP. We have had similar problems twice in the past before Vista. This time it is Campaign Waterloo, then it was El Alamein.
FM WarB,
What scenario in which title are you playing? I assume you both checked that you are playing on the same and latest version. Some titles have been patched for known VISTA OS issues already.
It sounds like one or both of you have more than one scenario going in the same PzC title. If you do not fully exit the game, then restart the game when loading a new save game file, the replay files can get confused.
To solve the problem of not being able to move his units, have him check the little button in the bottom right hand corner. If that button is red, then he can not play the turn. To solve this, exit the game, restart, then reload the save game file. I have skipped the replay, then after canceling the turn status dialog, everything works. Sometimes the save game will need to be reloaded to the game directory before trying any of this routine to get the game going.
If your really stuck, one of you send send me the last turn and password and I'll try to fix the file. Naturally, you can try HPS support if you think it is purely a Direct X problem between the VISTA and XP OS. That is possible, though I have not heard of it.
Dog Soldier
Thanks for those hints. I have been known to have same scenario, different games open in two windows. I have just seen elsewhere the suggestion that the pbem.yyy file is at fault and requires periodic deletion.
FM WarB Wrote:Thanks for those hints. I have been known to have same scenario, different games open in two windows. I have just seen elsewhere the suggestion that the pbem.yyy file is at fault and requires periodic deletion.
> I have been known to have same scenario, different games open in two windows.
** you are playing with fire doing this - but it will only affect the replays your opponent sees.
Warren:
The ROOT cause of this issue is Windows memory and how the info is written to file. When the replay is being played by YOUR PC it is just playing back what happen on the other guys side. If there is any hickup - the replay aborts and jumps to the end of the file.
There is a few ways your opponent can prevent this things from happening. Of course the first is do a cold boot before playing and after playing any email turn, without stopiping doing a save as and then reopening the turn to a earlier place and moving foraward again. Yes - this sound drastic, but I can pretty much say for sure you would never see this problem if this is what was done.
Now it is not only doing Save or Save As and opening the fileat an earlier point in time. Hell we all know that WIndows can mess up memory from time to time. But if this is happening more freqently in files you get from your opponent then something is going on. And I am not suggesting that it is all questionable stuff.
Other things could be happening too. I would certainly recommend both players ALWAYS close the game and open the game fresh, load the BTE file - play the turn and close the game completely before moving to the NExt HPS Game, even if the next turn the guy is going to play is from the same game.
Don't open two copies of ONE tile at a time and play the game that way - otherwise both applications are writting to the same file and you can see where the computer would get messed up. Two applications with the same name writting info to memory and then transfering this to a single file in the game folder.
I think between many Saves, Save As and reopening earlier files, playing only one game, one turn at a time and then closing the game as well as rebooting your PC from time to time, will reduce occurance of this to almost zero.
Glenn
Thanks Glenn, Restarting computer with all HPS shut down while I hopefully await opponent's move.
FM WarB Wrote:Thanks Glenn, Restarting computer with all HPS shut down while I hopefully await opponent's move.
Well, if your going to open TWO copies of the game, save yourself the time and pass on my advice. I figure this is the mostly cause of the problem. The info from memory from two copies of the same application is being written to the same temp file. All the reboots in the world are not going to help you - your playing russian roulette with Windows Memory and we know how often that works perfectly.<G>
Glenn
Glenn