American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Knowledgeable Gentlemen!

Returning from 2-3weeks absence - I am endeavouring to re-start some HPS Games. I have received my Turns from my opponents and saved the zips to the relevant folders. I unzip and when the new Gameturn File is ready I open the Game and select the file to open. I am asked for my password - (These are all individual Scenarios - NOT Campaign files).

The Game accepts my password and asks if I wish to see the Union Replay. Fine! Dandy! All as it should be.

I click YES and the Game tells me that there is an error reading the Replay File. I click OK and the Game is now ready to send to my opponent.

AAArrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh! [}:)] [:(!] [:(]

What the *%^£&* has happened? I have downloaded some Windows security updates . . . have they fecked things up?

This Problem is not confined to just Shiloh . . . but to Ozark as well . . . I'm gonna try a Corinth file next . . but I suspect that I'll get similar results . . . . [xx(]

Anyone got any advice, suggestions or Fixes?

Purrrrrllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzz! [:p]

Many Thanks Chaps!

Pat.


Patrick G.M.Carroll,
Brigadier General.
Carroll's Corps,(II)
"Spartan Southrons"
Army of Georgia.
C.S.A.

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

General Carroll,

This problem was recently discovered. It has to do with an overabundance of Potassium on the disks. Somehow they leach Potassium from their owners [:D] !

Seriously, I'll have to defer to the more technically knowledgable. My only suggestion would be to try uninstalling and reinstalling the game.


Your humble servant,
Gen 'Dee Dubya' Mallory

David W. Mallory
ACW - General, Chief of the Armies, Confederate States of America & Cabinet Member
CCC - Sergeant, Georgia Volunteers, Southern Regional Deaprtment, Colonial American Army

Hi Pat,

I know nothing about computers but, just in case, have you installed the good patch ?

Lt. Col. Harold Lajoie 3/2/I/AoM, CSA.

Have you tried deleting the pbemail.xxx and pbemail.yyy files? I don't know if that will help but it can't hurt to try.

[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/acw/acw.htm"]General Antony Barlow[/url]
[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/aoc/XXAoC.htm"]Army of the Cumberland[/url]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Antony Barlow</i>
<br />Have you tried deleting the pbemail.xxx and pbemail.yyy files?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Helps to prevent such problems, but usually not to solve them once they occur. Delete them files once a day, saves you most of these troubles. Since I acquired the habit, I've never had a corrupted file.

This here could also be a version incompatibility problem. Make sure you're both using the same version.

Try going back to a good file, i.e. one saved 2-3 turns ago. If that works, the file was corrupted. If it doesn't, the problem lies elsewhere.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Antony Barlow</i>
<br />Have you tried deleting the pbemail.xxx and pbemail.yyy files?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Helps to prevent such problems, but usually not to solve them once they occur. Delete them files once a day, saves you most of these troubles. Since I acquired the habit, I've never had a corrupted file.


Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS



<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

So what is it with these files that cause the problems?

If they cause problems why are they there and what do they do?

Also does this apply to the campaign.xxx and campaign.yyy files?

Dan


Colonel D.H. Smith
3rd Cavalry Divison,III Corps,AoA

http://users.adelphia.net/~sapper99/index.htm

I use .bat files which kill all the .xxx and .yyy files. Here is the command:

cd c:\games\
del /s *.yyy
del /s *.xxx

Directing it to the folder where your games are located (as above)will stop it taking ages searching your whole HD. I have another even quicker one I run if I've only been playing the HPS games:

cd c:\games\HPS Simulations\
del /s *.yyy
del /s *.xxx

The only flaw in this plan is remembering to run the .bat files[:D]

[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/acw/acw.htm"]General Antony Barlow[/url]
[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/aoc/XXAoC.htm"]Army of the Cumberland[/url]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Antony Barlow</i>
The only flaw in this plan is remembering to run the .bat files[:D]
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I run mine before I close down the computer for the night.

But you could probably insert a line in your autoexec.bat that runs it on startup. Provided this new stuff still has an autoexec.bat ...



Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.H.Smith</i>
So what is it with these files that cause the problems?

If they cause problems why are they there and what do they do?

Also does this apply to the campaign.xxx and campaign.yyy files?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

For my understanding, these are temporary files created when a turn is played. The software should probably delete them upon closing down, but it doesn't, so we're stuck with manual.

It appears that if they are still present when a new turn is played, they have the potential of interfering with the creation of the newly saved .bte file and messing it up. Note that there is no hard proof to this effect, just the combined experience of hundreds of players who have noticed that regularly deleting these files seems to prevent most of the problems that can occur with file corruption.

And yes, it affects the campaign temporary files as well. Note that the bat file Antony and I use deletes them as well. A manual way of doing this is going into the game folder, sorting after last change date (which makes the temporary files show up on top), and then delete

pbemail.xxx
pbemail.yyy
campaign.xxx
campaign.yyy

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS

O.K. Men!

Shiloh was the 1st game I encountered this prob on. Corinth 1.01 and Ozark are similarly affected.

In Shiloh - I checked with my Opponent and we are using the same Version (1.01). I then uninstalled Shiloh (using the Windows 2000 uninstall program on the Control Panel) and cleared out any pbem and campaign files that I could find. I then re-installed, modded to 1.01 and downloaded the Gameturn.

<b>B*LLIX!</b> [}:)] [:(!][V] [xx(] [:(]

Same problem!

I think that p'raps 1 of 2 things is going wrong here . . .

1. When I uninstalled Shiloh . . . although it removed all the HPS files from the Shiloh Folder . . . p'raps there is another part of the HD or a file somewheres, that stores related HPS Info? If so - where do I look?

2. The recent Microsoft Security Updates have altered a critical function within the OS . . . . Direct X or something? Anyone any ideas?

I've just remembered that I also got a Java update from Yahoo, which I installed . . . could a change to the Java settings have fecked up my HPS settings? If so . . . HPS should be aware of the need for a patch to bring <i>THEIR</i> Specs up to this NEW "modernised" standard.

Finally, how do I create a .bat file as kindly described by Antony and Dirk? Where do I save it to? And could it be included in my Start-Up folder, to run when I switch my comp on?

AND FINALLY, Finally - in response to D.W. Mallory's comments - Yes Dave . . . It would appear that I have slipped on a Banana Skin! [:o)]

My sincerest appreciation of Your efforts to save Me here Gentlemen and My heartfelt Thanks,

Pat. [8D]

Patrick G.M.Carroll,
Brigadier General.
Carroll's Corps,(II)
"Spartan Southrons"
Army of Georgia.
C.S.A.

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

Gentlemen: I spoke to Pat today by phone and he is really ok--really. Dave

L Gen Dave Danner
Army XO, Adjutant, & XX Cops Commander AoC

Thanks Gen Walter. Already did the PBEM ones manually. Was waiting for this answer to do the campaign ones.

Colonel D.H. Smith
3rd Cavalry Divison,III Corps,AoA

http://users.adelphia.net/~sapper99/index.htm

Pat,
To creat a bat file simply type in the text in Notepad and then after saving change the file extension to .bat. I'm pretty sure that was what I did. And you can save/move it to wherever is convenient. I created short cuts to mine and placed these shortcuts in my start menu.

[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/acw/acw.htm"]General Antony Barlow[/url]
[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/aoc/XXAoC.htm"]Army of the Cumberland[/url]

Or send me an email and I'll send you the file I use. You can place it on your desktop for instance, then just double-clicking runs it. You will have to adjust the path though if your games aren't stored in C:\Games\

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
AoS