crash to desktop on debrief: another solution!

So I accidentaly used my 7-time winner of the CMoH in MP last night... and it simply was'nt my day. My pilot died.
Okay, lets revive him.
So I opend pilot05.dat in notepad and put his condition back to "2" (alive).
Every mission after that always crashed to desktop when loading the debrief-screen. LB2 has encountered problems bla bla bla...
I then created a new pilot in a different slot, copied all content for pilot00 into the new DAT-file and now everything is peachy again (except I left the old team in my roster behind).

@PositiveG: Can you add this to your troubleshooting FAQ?
Don't worry, I reproduced this several times before finally deleting the corrupt pilot-file.

Excellent.

Need a bit more info though.

How did you know pilot5.dat was your CMoH guy?
File dates? Is pilot0 created via the far left locker, etc? How did you copy all the content for pilot00 into the dat file?

Pilot00.dat is the left-most locker, the next locker is pilot01.dat, pilot05.dat is the right-most etc. You can easily tell which is which by looking up the nickname for pilot00 (the first pilot) in each dat-file. That pilot's name is what shows up on the locker (player).

Sounds like more than just one variable or constant needs to be set for the orig data to not corrupt when using the orig pilot data.

Why not use the old but very functional LB2PilotEditor utility to accomplish this without Notepad/hex editing the file?? I don't think this leaves any bad data, but since I don't run XP, it could still be a problem for XP users..

KC's Pilot Editor: http://www.simhq.com/_downloads/air/Janes_Longbow2/LB2PE12.ZIP


Recluse

I know about the pilot-editor, Recluse. But the pilot-files are just text files.
Anyway, the point here is that if there is something wrong with the pilot-file the game crash to desktop upon loading the debrief-screen.
I think its LB2's fault. Here's why:
I died in a MP-mission I choose 'YES' to permanently remove the pilot from the active roster. We flew another mission (I flew with the killed pilot). On every debrief screen after that it always said (null) at the end. For example: "Shadow was awarded the Bronze Star (null)".
All this (null)-stuff might have contributed to corrupting the pilot-file.

dunno if you do, but the read me for azer2000 says you are not to switch between versions for campaigns as it will corrupt the files.

For those that didn't followed my previous post (http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=134&t=000196&p=2#000054), this is how I finally fixed my debriefing problems.

First, this was how I got it working:
1. Fresh install of WIndows XP SP1.
2. Installed and patched LB2.
3. Added to the CA.ini
[Backdoors]
HEAP_PERCENT=0
4. Set LB2.exe properties to use Windows Compatibility (Windows 98).
5. Placed (and configured) the dgVoodoo on the LB2 folder.
6. Set LB2Config to 3DFX.
(that's it, no memory limits or any special config).

It worked fine for about 6 to 7 missions then I started getting the "LB2 Is Not Working" When game switched to debriefing screen.

This is how I fixed it:
1. Set Windows Compatibility to W2K.

It worked but I had chppy speech so I added the following to my shortcut:

Target: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /c start "runhigh" /high "F:\Games\FS\Longbow2\LB2.exe"

Working fine after that. Even fixed some minor graphic glitches I had before....

Regards:
KC.

OK...After my last post I've tried LB2 without any Compatibility mode. I was able to finish the last two missions of the Azure camp. and I'm on the 2nd mission of my second Azerbaijan camp without anymore Debriefing screen problems. So to make things short, this was my final solution:

1. Fresh install of WIndows XP SP1.
2. Installed and patched LB2.
3. Added to the CA.ini
[Backdoors]
HEAP_PERCENT=0
4. Placed (and configured) the dgVoodoo on the LB2 folder.
5. Set LB2Config to 3DFX.
6. Set shortcut to:

Target: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /c start "runhigh" /high "F:\Games\FS\Longbow2\LB2.exe"

That's it, no memory limits or any other special config. The main tricks are (for me) the CA.ini and the Shortcut. Without the CA.ini I can't even run it and without the shortcut trick it stops working on when switching to debriefing.

Hopes this helps....
KC "The Punisher" Perez

Punisher.

If you have ever used the Windows Application Compatibility Toolkit 3.0 Method (WAC), the change stays until you remove it.

So even if you uninstall LB2 and then reinstall, WAC is still there and will impact your game.

You may think it's not active, but it is.

Hi PositiveG:

I know...but this is a fresh install (with complete hard disk reformat) with no "WAC"....