PBEM: No battle replay

[nabuok]

Strange one this. My friend and I have been playing EF by PBEM for many years but today we had an unusual problem. When I ran his turn there was no battle replay and the turn just started with "Battle Replay Over". I checked and his file was about half the size it should have been (based on his previous turns) I then went back to check what my previous file to him was like and noticed that was about half normal size too. Anyway, I played the turn, sent it off. He reports no problems but when I ran his next turn that too was missing a battle replay. I guess somewhere along the line one of us has a corrupt install. I'll report back if we get to the bottom of this.

[berto]

Several weeks ago, when I was testing PBEM for the forthcoming game Middle East, I observed something similar to what you describe.

Eventually I traced the problem to: When attempting to save the PBEM file attachment, Windows was not overriding any previous .bte files. And was littering my game folder with incomplete, corrupted files.

After much hair pulling and teeth gnashing, I finally figured it out. And adopted the new habit of deleting all previous .bte files before saving the PBEM attachment. No previous .bte file => no need to override (and possibly fail in the attempt).

Better still: Save the attachment to some other folder than your game folder. (A folder itself without any earlier .bte files.) Then use Windows Explorer to copy-and-paste into your game folder.

So it might be a Windows problem, or a problem with how your e-mail client interacts with Windows.

Might be. It was the case for me.

[nabuok]

Hi Berto,

Thanks for the insight on this. Strange that it should suddenly start after 10 years or thereabouts. I confess to not noticing any old .bte files hanging around but then I do just normally save the new .bte file straight from the email program and overwrite any existing files. In future I'll do it your suggested way. In the meantime I've started a test PBEM with my friend to see whether we can replicate the problem. As to our current game I suppose I could save his old turn 5 from my saved email folder and just re-run it.

Ian

[berto]

It could be a temporary glitch. Or maybe you did a Windows Update (or some other program update) which has somehow changed the default behavior of your mail services. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

We sometimes forget just how complex our multitasking PCs are, how many things have to work just right, but sometimes don't. Frustration ensues.

We observe Windows strangeness and annoyances all the time, don't we? [8|]

My workaround is a bit of a hassle. Only try what I suggest if the strange behavior you describe persists. Old habits die hard, right?

Also: With Windows, sometimes system reboots solve the strangest glitches. [:)]

[nabuok]

Hi Berto,

In the last 15 minutes I thought I'd take a look at the error log to see whether that had anything interesting, and it does (I think).

2015-01-07 12:12:49 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-07 12:17:59 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-07 12:18:01 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-07 12:19:30 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-07 12:19:32 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-07 19:32:57 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:


and a bit later.

2015-01-08 11:45:16 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:
2015-01-08 14:26:06 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:
2015-01-08 16:09:28 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:
2015-01-08 19:54:07 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:

And later:

2015-01-09 12:36:17 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:
2015-01-09 15:48:38 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:
2015-01-09 18:24:54 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-09 18:55:30 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-09 19:37:16 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 616, GetDateValue()) in battle.bte(), bad date value:
2015-01-09 19:53:24 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-09 20:26:41 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943
2015-01-09 20:27:34 East Front.exe: [ERROR ID 300] (CampaignFile.cpp, line 584, GetDateValue()) in Kertsch.scn(), bad date value: 4. Dezember 1943


Could the misspelling of "December" cause the file to become truncated?>

Ian

[berto]

Such a "bad date value" should only affect the order of where it displays in the frontend launcher scenarios/saves list. It would have nothing to do with .bte file corruption or your ability to load and process the .bte file, I think. When selecting a scenario/save, be sure you are choosing the right one. In Windows Explorer, in the game folder, clean out any crud first (e.g., partial, corrupted files).

Remember: you can also try deleting any current .bte files, then resort to backups by renaming any OLDER (or OLDEST) files, removing the "OLDER" (or "OLDEST") from the file name first.

You might try editing the battle.bte (and even Kertsch.scn), "fixing" the Dezember "misspelling". But I don't think that is quite relevant here.

[nabuok]

Hi Berto,

My friend and I did some PBEM testing today. We played a couple of turns in a test scenario and there was no problems with the replay function. I then reloaded what I thought was the last good .bte file from our big game. Replay worked okay and I played and then saved the turn. Interesting that the saved file I sent him was quite small. My friend reported that there was no replay function when it got to him. We then did three turns in another test scenario and everything worked okay. The conclusion seems to be that there's some sort of corruption in the .bte file from our big game.

Ian