Let's say, hypothetically, that there's a TC.
Let's further say that a person testing this TC using WinNova always has this TC crash at the stage where the TC loads the buttons for the main menu (hypothetically, the debuglog would cut off at the Initializing Buttons stage), but someone using EVN for Mac does not have this problem.
Hypothetically speaking, what could be causing this behaviour for the WinNova user?

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 12 April 2008 - 01:43 PM

@shlimazel, on Apr 12 2008, 01:42 PM, said in A hypothetical question:

Let's say, hypothetically, that there's a TC.
Let's further say that a person testing this TC using WinNova always has this TC crash at the stage where the TC loads the buttons for the main menu (hypothetically, the debuglog would cut off at the Initializing Buttons stage), but someone using EVN for Mac does not have this problem.
Hypothetically speaking, what could be causing this behaviour for the WinNova user?

Maybe the may the hypothetical files weren't converted properly?

My first thought was with the data fork... but that would make the mac choke. not the PC...

Hypothetically, if the TC is in multiple files, try only loading a few files at a time... to see what file could be causing the problems?

I have no reasonable basis for this, but my hunch is it could be an image.

Well, hypothetically speaking, it wouldn't be possible to load the files individually. Unfortunately. You're right, that could have been a way to find the problem.

I don't think they were converted improperly, though it's a possibility.

I'm beginning to suspect that the culprit could, in theory, be the alternate main menu buttons. I don't have a way to test this hypothesis, though.

(edit)

Well, the hypothetical person testing this theoretical TC has reported to me that he used Stuffit to expand the .zip file and then used an application called Plug-In Converter to convert it to a .rez file. Could Stuffit be causing some form of problem?

This post has been edited by Shlimazel : 12 April 2008 - 03:11 PM

Let's see what I know about menus.
- The main screen logo (spin 606) must be present with at least 2 frames else it may crash Nova
- The main screen logo (spin 606) frame size must be at least 1x1 else it may crash WinNova under certain circumstances
- The third main screen button animation (spin 610) must be present else it may crash Nova

Of course if you haven't modified the main screen then none of this is applicable. It probably isn't caused by the pilot but you could still try trashing the last pilot shortcut.

Corruption or improper conversion of plug-ins is never very likely, even with StuffIt in the equation.

This post has been edited by Guy : 12 April 2008 - 03:22 PM

Hypothetically speaking, your problem sounds the same as the one I was having with Crusader Alpha's Acheron plugin. The debuglog would report "initializing buttons" as the last line, before the program crashed, which I had at first thought referred to the main screen menu buttons. On closer inspection, though, I realised that the problem was in one or more of the 7500-series PICT resources, which are the dialogue box buttons. The 7600-series resources (the button masks) were just fine. Crusader tried a couple of things to fix it, but I don't think we've managed to find a solution yet... and I haven't heard from Crusader in a while.

That's interesting. Shouldn't be too hard to solve if we can take a look at a plug with all the relevant resources.

You'll find Crusader's latest fix attempt attached. I assume he'll forgive me for posting this without his permission. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

On a side note, why are we being hypothetical?

Attached File(s)

• AcheronButtonFixAttempt.rez.zip (2.14K)
  Number of downloads: 9

Well, my hypothetical WinNova tester has carried out my advice and deleted all of the buttons and mainmenu screens from the project folder, and as near as I can tell it is working OK for him now. Although I shudder when I look at the debuglog he showed me. Thanks for your help, guys.

Quote

That's interesting. Shouldn't be too hard to solve if we can take a look at a plug with all the relevant resources.

I'll send you two the hypothetical project files and you can take a look at them.

Quote

You'll find Crusader's latest fix attempt attached. I assume he'll forgive me for posting this without his permission. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

I'm not sure what to look at in this file. What is the fix?

Quote

On a side note, why are we being hypothetical?

Well, see, I'm not ready for a public reveal of the project. Hence, hypotheticality. It's all hypothetical

@shlimazel, on Apr 14 2008, 02:26 AM, said in A hypothetical question:

I'm not sure what to look at in this file. What is the fix?

One or more of the resources in that plugin file cause my Nova to crash. The "fix" part of it was that Crusader attempted to change something about the pictures to make them work, but it didn't. Not entirely sure about what he did - maybe changed the image format, but I don't really know. It's not intended to be a fix for your plugin.

Oh, ok. I was confused.

Yep, your problem is the same - it's one of the 7500-series PICT resources that's making the program crash. Hypothetically speaking.

From my inspection it hypothetically appears to problems with the main menu (I've sent him the full details). What made you decide it was to do with the dialogue buttons? I suspect your problem may be to do with the main menu too, as I can't see any reason why the PICTs in that plug you posted should cause problems.

This post has been edited by Guy : 13 April 2008 - 06:10 PM

Because deleting the dialogue buttons from the plugin file makes the game stop crashing. And the main menu loads fine. Just a bit of putting two and two together.

Edit: Send me the details too?

This post has been edited by Belthazar : 13 April 2008 - 07:05 PM

No, we haven't fixed this yet. No, Belthazar I don't mind you posting it. I apologize for dropping out of touch, I've actually been working on the button issue as best I can, but haven't run into anything that I can actually change to make the resource any different than the Nova resources. The only thing I can think of is that I am using 16-bit PICTs but that Nova only supports 24-bit PICTs for the dialogue buttons, as a leftover bug from 1.0.9. I can't find a way to make 24-bit picts, since everything I have can only do 16-bit and 32-bit. Yes, it is an issue with the dialogue buttons; we tried fixing the main-menu buttons for a good week (if I remember correctly) and nothing worked, so we tested the dialogue buttons and that's where the issue was.

Weird. The dialogue buttons are interesting because their masks are normal 8-bit masks, not inverted like the masks for sprites. I guess it's possible it doesn't like 16-bit PICTs - did you try 32-bit?

Hm, if you want the details about the main menu you should probably ask Shlimazel to forward them to you as my sent PMs don't get saved.

I gave Belthazar access to the info. He can examine it at his leisure.

Thanks for helping me out with this, guys. I didn't realize how many screwey things I'd done.

Okay, I found the problem with the buttons: The middle sections must be 16-bit (sides don't matter). The images in the AcheronButtonFixAttempt posted are all 32-bit (24/32, no real difference).

Dang, I really thought I had encoded them as 16-bit. I'm making sure to right now.

Which means the last Mac-PC compatibility issue with Acheron is done with. Once it's tested, of course, to make sure that it really is done with.

This post has been edited by Crusader Alpha : 30 April 2008 - 12:54 PM

I think any image pasted into MC will end up 24-bit, so to keep it 16-bit you'll need to use Rezilla or something.

Once I fix that, I can release Acheron. I'm not sure how to use Rezilla. I know this is a dumb request, but I've been wanting to release this for a while, so if anyone can take those middle-button graphics, put them in 16-bit for me and send me a plug with those in it that I can include in the download, that would be great. I'll even give a reward for it, like a përs resource and a place in the about and acknowledgments texts.