Loading email battle crashes game (1.04 Vista Patch)

[Loeffe]

I recently purchased the 1.04 Vista patch, and am happy to report CMBB is now running on both my home PC (32bit Vista) and office PC (64bit Vista).

However, on my home PC the game instantly crashes (without any error dialog boxes) when I try to load a PBEM file.

It crashes every time, as soon as I click the "Join Multiplayer -> Load Email" button - before even displaying any prompts to load a file. This makes it impossible to play by email with the 1.04 patch.

As mentioned, I have no problems with loading emails using my work PC which is also pathced to 1.04.

Here are my home PC specs;

Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Inter Core 2 CPU / 6420 @ 2.13ghz

2046 Mb RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS

Any help appreciated!

[costard]

I'm just back from the pub, Loeffe, so take this as you will:

I'd try re-installing, then re-patching, the game. I can't see that any other way of finding the fix (if there is one) is going to be easier.

As always, comments from the peanut gallery welcome

[Schrullenhaft]

Does this exact PBEM file load up with the CMBB copy at work ? To test this you may want to actually copy the file to a USB memory stick or some other media rather than emailing to a work account (in case something gets accidentally changed). Typically in the past you would get the 'ding' sound to indicate an error with loading a PBEM rather than a crash. If you create a PBEM file with your home copy of CMBB, can that same file be opened with the home copy or does the game crash then too ?

As suggested by costard, unlicensing, uninstalling, reinstalling and re-licensing may be the best bet here. Also be sure to install ALL of the appropriate CMBB patches (1.01 to 1.03) before installing the 1.04 patch since the CMBB patches are not cumulative.

[Loeffe]

As mentioned, it wont even let me select any file. It crashes AS SOON as I touch the "load email" button (before any file prompts) - But yes, the PBEM loads fine at work.

I will try complete uninstall, and see if it helps.

[dieseltaylor]

I understood that Vista is funny about how it separates program files and simple files. I just wonder if the drive name is the same for both set-ups , - not that I have Vista I downgraded it to XP to avoid problems : )

[Loeffe]

Just tried clean install, and applying all patches up to 1.04, same problem - Instant crash when pressing the "load email" button...

On both home and work the game is on C: drive, but work being 64-bit the program files folder has another name, like "program files (x86)" or something

[costard]

Crud, I thought that'd work. Do you have the same anti-virus on both machines? Could be that the call to loading a file is triggering an alarm in the a-v program. Then I'm completely out of ideas and I'll leave it to the professionals.

[Schrullenhaft]

Loeffe - if you unlicense and uninstall the 1.04 patch and then re-patch with the 1.03 patch, do you still crash on clicking on the "Join Multiplayer -> Load Email" button ? Obviously 1.03 will be unplayable, but we want to figure out if your system is having an issue solely with the 1.04 patch or just CMBB in general.

[Loeffe]

Ok, I fixed this problem.

You guys WON'T believe how:

After re-installing so many times to try and fix this, I noticed something odd. My Program Files/CombatMission2 folder contained only one .exe file before patching ("CombatMission2.exe") but two after patching to 1.04 ("CombatMission2.exe" and "Barbarossa to Berlin.exe" - the latter came from the 1.04 Vista Patch Zip file)

So I would run "Barbarossa To Berlin.exe" to play 1.04, which fixed the VISTA graphics and perfomance issues for me, however that exe would crash hen loading PBEM's.

I could still load PBEM's with my old 1.03 exe ("CombatMission2.exe"), but it would not perform well, and have the graphics bugs etc. adressed in the new exe.

I actually fixed the problem by renaming the NEW "Barbarossa to berlin.exe" to "combatMission2.exe", after making a backup of the existing one.

So it seems loading PBEM's is somehow hard-coded to work only with the "CombatMission2.exe" filename, as I can now, after renaming it, load PBEM's in 1.04 without any problems.

Crazy, eh?

[egamarl]

Crazy: yes. My Vista 64bit system runs BB perfectly without the patch and AK (nearly) perfectly WITH it. The difference I note is with my dual-monitor setup: with BB (1.03) I can simply move the mouse from monitor 1 to monitor 2 to check emails or deal with PBEMs or whatever; with AK (1.04) I have to alt-tab (the mouse is 'locked' in the AK screen boundary - i.e. Monitor 1).

I prefer the BB (1.03) behaviour so I plan to downgrade AK to 1.03 to see what happens then but I fear I'll get in a tangle with the eLicence thing so I'll need to make sure I try it during BF working hours!

The ONLY problem I've had (patch or no patch) is with the apparently well-known Radeon white text on white background issue: why oh why isn't this prominently referenced on the BF website and included in the readme for all new downloads of 1.03 or - especially - the Vista patch? Some folks read readme files ... most every program I use has a readme file with "known issues" somewhere prominent: if this Radeon problem isn't a "known issue" I don't know what is!

[egamarl]

So it seems loading PBEM's is somehow hard-coded to work only with the "CombatMission2.exe"

Unlikely: my BB .exe file is called "Barbarossa to Berlin.exe" (it is 1.03 - unpatched) running perfectly happily on Vista 64bit . My AK .exe is called "CM Afrika Corps.exe" fwiw.