Error during PBEM++ game

[rpg42]

I created a game. The man joined made his move. During my turn, an error pops up exactly the same as in this post - https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4215084&mpage=1&key=&#5051450
Is it possible to contact my opponent and warn him that I am having problems with the game?

[IronManBeta]

Hi there. I'm one of the dev team for this game and I'm trying to understand the problem here.

By design, the email address of the other player is not shared unless you choose to do so through the turn messaging feature. I call it the 'taunt' feature and it pops up when you send your turn to the other side. If you don't voluntarily share email addresses that way then I think you are out of luck.

I also want to understand the error "Cannot open file .... FPC20.$$$". This part of the game has worked very reliably in the past and we are scrambling for leads as to what might be causing the problem. Any other details you can remember and share here would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Rob C

[IronManBeta]

So you issued the challenge, the other person accepted and made his moves. You then saw that he was done and tried to download the game to do your moves? Or were there multiple turns played before it failed?

Did you see this message before the failure: "The game has been fetched from the PBEM++ server and is ready to play." or was there a "Failed: " and a reason of some sort? Or possibly it failed just prior to those messages. If you could do some screen shots as you reproduce this error, that would be of immense help to us. That will let me pin down just where things seem to be going off the rails now.

Thanks, Rob C

[rpg42]

I created a game, a person joined and made his move. I went to PBEM ++ and saw that it was now my turn. I pressed the Play button and got out an error. I will attach screenshots.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7yzzbdx2xmrg1kw/2021-07-19_22-10-25.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pu25wo0wslk320o/2021-07-19_22-10-53.png?dl=0

[rpg42]

I looked - the line "FPC20. $$$" is inside the save file of each game xxx.sav and not in the directory specified in the error.

[IronManBeta]

rpg42 - this is great! It is really helping me get to the heart of the problem.

Could you next take a screenshot of the contents of the folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Flashpoint Campaigns Red Storm\Modules\FPRS\" so that I can see what files are sitting in there? In particular, I'm looking for the name of the "xxx.sav" file that you refer to. If I know the exact file name, there is a chance Matrix can pull it for me and send it to me. Also, if you can send me your copy of that same file (or all of the xxx.sav files if there are more than one) then I can compare them directly on my computer. This could be what we need to figure this out!

You are correct btw, that the "sav" file is merely a zip wrapper for the real "FPC20.$$$" file which is the uncompressed data file and therefore the one the game needs to open and read in. Something is stopping it from extracting from the .sav to the .$$$ format. If you can see that the $$$ file is inside then it cannot be corrupt, but something is definitely not working here....

Thanks for your speedy reply, Rob Crandall

[rpg42]

These are all files that relate to this game.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0k6yeydr9nzwggb/FPC-RS.zip?dl=0

[IronManBeta]

Thanks, I will take a look at these and see what I can determine.

Rob C

[IronManBeta]

OK, Matrix sent me the saved .pbm file directly from their server and it was completely different in size. I'm not sure yet what went wrong, and it may just be a 'once a year' glitch but I think I can get you going again.

1. Download the full FPC20.$$$ file from here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ihtkpxiegycn ... 24%24?dl=0

2. Copy it into the path where it was wanted before: “c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Flashpoint Campaigns Red Storm\Modules\FPRS\Saved\FPC20.$$$” (I'm assuming this is the correct path but it comes from that other forum thread started by exsonic and this was his path, not yours, IIRC. You were able to find it on your computer though so I'm sure you can find it again.)

3. Load FPRS, go to PBEM++ again, select the proper game to continue and press Play again. It will download the pbm file, open it into a .hdr and .sav pair of files, and then try to unzip the .sav file into FPC20.$$$. This is the step that failed before but this time I'm hoping that our other version of FPC20.$$$ will be loaded up in place of the one that failed.

Even looking at the source code, I can't be sure if the game will not erase the FPC20.$$$ file just prior to all this, but let's give it a shot and see where it gets us.

cheers, Rob C

[IronManBeta]

Further note, when Matrix pulled the game file for me, it looked to them that it was a game between "kolotushka" (you) and "Nomadmas". Your screenshots though indicated "kolotushka" vs "bongrip", although "Nonadmas" was further down your list. I'm trying to figure out how this happened.

If somehow the game retrieved the game for the wrong player it would still load it. This alone would not have forced the exception that you saw. Possibly Matrix just misread the names from a list and picked the wrong row. I'm still scratching my head as to what this logic puzzle might mean, but I thought I would mention it to you in case it gives you any ideas.

Thanks, Rob

[rpg42]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xpe4byn80t7we6a/Saved.zip?dl=0

I ran the game again and copied the files that it created. You can take a look at them again.

[rpg42]

yes with Nonadmas I had games, but there were no problems with them.

[rpg42]

I tried to load your save - it's a different game, just from Nonadmas .

[IronManBeta]

Thanks for checking. It looks like I was sent one of your saved games, but not the correct save game. I will ping them again.

Glad to hear that the process I suggested worked even though it was for the wrong game. We will try it with the proper game next.

Stay tuned! Rob C

[IronManBeta]

I just received the correct file from Matrix and it appears to be identical to what you originally sent me. I'm going to investigate further next.

[IronManBeta]

I'm still tracing through code to find just the right spot where the error happened. I think I found it but nothing jumps out at me now.

Going back to your screenshot, what is the translation of the text circled in red? I don't know what it means but it might be significant.

[IronManBeta]

Google translate thinks this means "not able to locate the requested file." which is what you originally told me. Back to thinking again....

[rpg42]

cannot find the file specified

[rpg42]

Again the same error, in a different game.

cannot find the file specified

[dgross]

Was there a solution to this? I'm getting the same error message trying to open my opponent's return file in a conventional PBM classic game. It also locks up the game and I have to close it with task manager.