No animations or combat report

[pompack]

Stock scen 15 PBEM, Historical start

From the first turn, there are no combat animations or combat report. Japanese player reports that the switches are always set to OFF when first examined after combat; he turns them ON but by the next turn they are OFF again. The Allied player aways sees the switches as ON but no animations or report.

Both players are patched to 1.806

This problem has been reported before, and then "it went away". We are to the 15Dec41 turn and it has not gone away yet.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[Nomad]

Start over? I think the Japanese player set them off to start the game and I thought they could not be changed after that.

[erstad]

Make sure the switches are set correctly immediately before the japanese player saves the turn save.

If he is checking immediately after combat, and then if there some save/reloads before he actually saves the turn file, I'm pretty sure I've seen them get reset.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: erstad

Make sure the switches are set correctly immediately before the japanese player saves the turn save.

If he is checking immediately after combat, and then if there some save/reloads before he actually saves the turn file, I'm pretty sure I've seen them get reset.

All the switches were set properly by the Japanese player before the game started

Each turn the Japanese player has reset the switches to the proper position. They never stay set

Also, I started two test PBEM games playing both sides. In both cases there were no animations or report. In one game they finally appeared on turn 4 and in the other game they appeared in turn 5. So far they have not corrected by turn 8 in our real game.

[sventhebold]

Pompack
Just ran it again and it shut off again. Scratches head becomes bald. 

[Charbroiled]

I think your problem is with the "Historical" start. IIRC, there is a bug that causes problems with the combat reports.

[pompack]

After running extensive tests and several days agonizing over a real PBEM, I have reached the following conclusions:

1. EVERY Historical start is bugged: Animations and the Combat Report will be turned OFF during the initial combat

2. The bug will disappear and the animations and Combat Report will return the first time the Japanese player succeeds in resetting the Combat Animations Switch and the Combat Reports switch to ON (but it may be difficult to sucessfully do this (see #3 below)

3. When the Japanese player resets the switches to ON, some other unknown mechanism sets them back to OFF during the course of the Japanese Orders Phase (verified by setting the switchs to ON and then discovering they are reset to OFF when checked immediately before the Japanese player ends the turn)

4. If the Sync Bug is present, even setting the switches to ON immediately before ending the turn does not stick (note that the sync bug was detected by the Allied player watching the combat replay and then examining the map to discover that the replay was misleading e.g. Hong Kong falls but HongKong is still in Allied possession- without the ability to compare the Combat Report forwared by the Japanese Player with the displayed Combat Report it is difficult to quickly detect when the Sync Bug is present)

EXPERIMENTAL DATA:

Tests 1-5: Create PBEM game (Historical Start scen 15) playing both sides on one computer. Observe no animations or report. Issue no orders for either side. Tests 1-3 set CA and CR ON on Dec 8 orders phase and Dec 8 combat has animations. Test 4/5 wait until Dec9/Dec10 to set switches and discover animations and report recovers on Dec9combat/dec10combat

Test 6: As for Test 1 but issue orders as Japanese after setting switches ON- animations and reports do not recover. On turn Dec9 Japanese player sets switches, issues orders, checks switches (before ending turn) and observes that switches have been reset to OFF. Set switches to ON and end turn. Animations and Combat Report recovered on next combat phase\

Note that the Allied player did NOT run the Combat Replay EXCEPT for trial 5; running the Combat Replay by the Allied player had no effect on the problem or it's correction

Not tested but experieced via the real PBEM, once we managed to stomp on the Sync Bug the animations and reports came back the first turn after the Japanese player set the switches back to ON ( setting them immediately before ending the turn)

Note 1: For Test 6, a check immediately before ending the Japanese Orders Phase following successful recovery of the Animations and Report (and issuing additional orders) did NOT show the the switches reset by the Gremlin. Apparently once it is fixed it stays fixed, whatever it is.

Note 2: While it is not conclusive that the Sync Bug blocked recovery, it is a logical conclusion to jump to since the only time that setting the switches to ON immediately preceeding ending the phase failed to fix the problem was a turn when the Sync Bug was know to be present (Hong Kong falling twice)

Note 3: While there is no evidence of effect either way, note that the preferences screen was accessed via the Hot Key (P) instead of the task bar hot button on the final two turns that (finally) successfully resynced and restored the animations and report

CONCLUSIONS: we can live with this bug even if we want to play Historical Start but I certainly be nice if it is fixed in AE (as long as it does not delay it [:D])