many crashes and corrupted dialog.tlk

[berelinde]

I seem to have a problem.

 

I know Amber is a WeiDU mod, and should be able to instal properly if installed last, but I've had some trouble.

 

Previously, my dialog.tlk file was working fine. Everyone was saying their lines properly, and everyone had their names, not other dialog lines. Now, after instal (with absolutely nothing else running, open or otherwise in any kind of active status), names are replaced by flirt lines.

 

And one of the PCs in IPX multiplayer mode crashes to desktop repeatedly in the Council of 6 building and the prison (but works fine everywhere else).

 

I'm not finding fault. But it's probably something to be aware of.

 

So, now it's off to do the full uninstall, full reinstall, patch, and reinstall everything all over again. Last time, this took 3 hours, so I'm not looking forward to it.

 

I'm also going to try downloading the corrected file which was posted earlier. I originally dowloaded from the G3 mirror, so I thought everything was safe, but apparently not.

[berelinde]

Well, at least this time it only took 2 hours and 1 beer per computer. And I installed a couple new mods that looked cool (Ashes from Embers, among them).

 

I did all fresh downloads, so everything is nice and current.

 

But I still can't get Amber to run at all. I've sent the debug file to the address listed and am hoping someone can illuminate me.

 

And I was really looking forward to playing this one. It would give my Player 2 something to do between dungeons in boyfriend's game.

[Darios]

I seem to have a problem.

 

I know Amber is a WeiDU mod, and should be able to instal properly if installed last, but I've had some trouble.

 

Previously, my dialog.tlk file was working fine. Everyone was saying their lines properly, and everyone had their names, not other dialog lines. Now, after instal (with absolutely nothing else running, open or otherwise in any kind of active status), names are replaced by flirt lines.

 

And one of the PCs in IPX multiplayer mode crashes to desktop repeatedly in the Council of 6 building and the prison (but works fine everywhere else).

 

I'm not finding fault. But it's probably something to be aware of.

 

So, now it's off to do the full uninstall, full reinstall, patch, and reinstall everything all over again. Last time, this took 3 hours, so I'm not looking forward to it.

 

I'm also going to try downloading the corrected file which was posted earlier. I originally dowloaded from the G3 mirror, so I thought everything was safe, but apparently not.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

The version you downloaded from G3 should be just fine. The problem you described is something that happens in a multiplayer game (at least we found this during our testing) if the installations on the different machines participating in the game are not identical (i.e. the same mods installed in exactly the same order). This is actually something that is not Amber-specific but can cause problems with any mods that add dialog. Just to clarify, are these problems you describe occurring on the host machine, the "slave" machine (the one joining the game) or on both? If the problem is just on the slave machine, the simplest way to solve it should be to keep the mod installed on both machines and simply copying the dialog.tlk and the Override folder of the host to the other machine. This will make sure that the string references are OK and identical on both machines.

 

The best way to ensure that everything works fine in a multiplayer game is to install the mods to be used on one of the machines (preferably the host) and then to copy both the dialog.tlk and the override folder (and in Amber's case, also the Music folder) over to the other computers. If you want to be able to uninstall the mods from the second machine in the future (instead of just copying over a fresh dialog.tlk and override), you'll of course have to copy also the install files of the mods along with the WeiDU log file.

 

This may not be practicable over the internet, but in LAN games, as I understand yours is, it shouldn't be much slower than installing the mods independently. But even if you install the mods independently, everything should be OK if you make sure to install all the same mods in exactly the same order without uninstalling (and then reinstalling) any of them in the process. But yes, we have found that using mods in multiplayer games can be a bit more complicated than in single-player games, but at least we have found it more than worth the extra trouble, and hope that you will as well.

 

The crash to desktop in Council of Six building and prison in multiplayer is something we have not heard of before (although it was less than a week ago when we last tested Amber in multiplayer and went through those areas). We will have to investigate.

 

EDIT: Thinking about it, this might also be a symptom of mismatched overrides/dialog.tlk's, if the other machine is trying to refer to stringrefs which are valid on the host but not so on the slave machine. It is unfortunate that no-one seems to quite know what information and how is passed from the host machine to the other machines in multiplayer games.

 

We are sorry that you are having all these problems; multiplayer modding is still such a new territory and apparently there may be some pitfalls that can cause problems in some systems but work fine in others... I am currently at work and cannot get to Amber's e-mail, so I will take a look at the debugging info you sent once I get home.

 

But I would definitely recommend installing the game using the cloning method described above. It seems from experience that multiplayer games can sometimes be finicky about differences in the dialog.tlk even if they theoretically shouldn't. The problem is of course exacerbated by the fact that multiplayer gamers seem to be a rare breed, and I don't think we had anyone besides ourselves testing Amber in a true multiplayer game. This of course means that whatever undiscovered bugs are left, are more likely to appear in multiplayer. Due to this we do greatly appreciate your patience and persistence in trying out Amber in multiplayer, and will work with you to try and solve any issues you may have.

 

P.S. One good tip that we've learned from more experienced modders is to keep a clean copy of the dialog.tlk and the override (with all official game patches installed) somewhere safe, so that if mods start acting all weird, one can simply delete the current dialog.tlk and override folders, copy the clean ones to the game and reinstall the mods, not needing to reinstall the game every time. Often saved us a lot of time when experimenting with new mods.

[berelinde]

I unintentionally followed your advice about reinstallation using the exact same sequence on both machines. I'm a chemist by profession, and the first thing you learn about troubleshooting a process that isn't working is that one should only change one thing at a time. So I installed everything that I was going to install on my machine, in the appropriate order. If everything is WeiDU, it shouldn't matter, but the Kelsey mod looks for Solaufein content, so you should install Sola first. Then I printed out the Weidu log and installed everything in exactly the same order on my significant others machine.

 

Ane the very first thing I did before installing *any* mods was backup the files recommended in "Creating a Clean Install." Thanks for including that information on Amber's home page.

 

And I feel priviledged to be one of your guinea pigs. This mod is a great service to those who play in true multi-player mode, and I'm happy to help get the bugs out.

[Darios]

I unintentionally followed your advice about reinstallation using the exact same sequence on both machines. I'm a chemist by profession, and the first thing you learn about troubleshooting a process that isn't working is that one should only change one thing at a time. So I installed everything that I was going to install on my machine, in the appropriate order. If everything is WeiDU, it shouldn't matter, but the Kelsey mod looks for Solaufein content, so you should install Sola first. Then I printed out the Weidu log and installed everything in exactly the same order on my significant others machine.

 

Ane the very first thing I did before installing *any* mods was backup the files recommended in "Creating a Clean Install." Thanks for including that information on Amber's home page.

 

And I feel priviledged to be one of your guinea pigs. This mod is a great service to those who play in true multi-player mode, and I'm happy to help get the bugs out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Was this before or after you experienced the problems with the dialog.tlk and crashing?

 

And are you using Weimer's Item Upgrade in your game?

[berelinde]

I am using Weimer Item Upgrade, and I believe this is the problem. I am about to download and give it a test run myself in a few minutes.