was able to play with last beta, now cant start

[pkpowers]

installed the new 1.02 and get a constant crash after playing testing the beta ; need help

[Gil R.]

Please clarify the situation. Are you saying that you had played the beta 1.02 but then installed the official one and get a crash, or that you had installed the 1.03 beta but today installed over it the official 1.02?

Also, can you tell us what the crash message says or, better, post a screenshot?

Once you respond I'll alert Eric (= programmer) to your situation, though he might not able to respond until tomorrow.

[pkpowers]

I believe it was the last beta that was on the forum (1.03?) ; it ran perfect as original, perfect after that beta, now updated from 1.03 to 1.02(?); that seems backwards....now I get a crash (b to b has stopped working, windows searching for solution)

[pkpowers]

heres the error

[Gil R.]

There was no real reason to go with 1.02 if you were already playing 1.03 -- there's nothing in 1.03 that's not in 1.02. So the next thing to try should be to reinstall the 1.03 beta, and see if that works. If not, a reinstall might be in order. (If you have any games that you're in the middle of you can always copy the save files to a safe place so that you don't lost them.)

Also, you didn't upload your screenshot properly -- you need to click on two things, not one.

[pkpowers]

good grief ; why announce update 1.02 if the other beta was ahead??? I have no downloads left available for some reason, and sadly lost my saved copy ; whatever

[Yogi the Great]

ORIGINAL: Gil R.

There was no real reason to go with 1.02 if you were already playing 1.03 -- there's nothing in 1.03 that's not in 1.02. So the next thing to try should be to reinstall the 1.03 beta, and see if that works. If not, a reinstall might be in order. (If you have any games that you're in the middle of you can always copy the save files to a safe place so that you don't lost them.)

Also, you didn't upload your screenshot properly -- you need to click on two things, not one.

Understood but there may be some confusion here, especially when beta 1.03 was issued before official 1.02. Plus the check for update feature only considers official versions.

Also pbem as of this writing has not caught up. I "upgraded" to 1.02 but when I hit multiplayer the Slitherine pbem still gives me an error message that 1.01 is the latest update. I understand that that is incorrect but again it certainly can cause confusion.

I think beta and official also can create confusion and some may not be clear on the difference. When different versions are out there, official and beta, some may have questions as to how, when, which and if they should download.

Fantastic game and this is not a complaint at all, just recognizing and understanding that the various versions can cause confusion and possibly some compatibility issues. ??

[Gil R.]

The reason for this release sequence is that 1.02 fixes some critical issues that were affecting a lot of people, and 1.03 is going to take more time before it can be released. It would be bad to shelve 1.02 and never release it while waiting for 1.03 to be sufficiently tested.

Someone at the Matrix Help Desk should be able to help you redownload what you need, especially if you explain the situation.

[zakblood]

only download beta if,

one, you have the ability to reinstall the game if needed,

two, are prepared for bug finding and fixing,

three, have the time and don't play PBEM games, as you need to do a fresh game on the same version for it to work 100% correctly.

sorry you're having trouble, the help desk will sort it for you.

[ericbabe]

Please understand that we released 1.0.3 as a beta version during which time we released 1.0.2 as a non-beta or release version. I am always a little worried when we have open beta versions like this that it will be confusing to those who might not be familiar with the parlance of software testing. Please see this article for more information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Beta

[Erik Rutins]

Hi pkpowers,

ORIGINAL: pkpowers
good grief ; why announce update 1.02 if the other beta was ahead??? I have no downloads left available for some reason, and sadly lost my saved copy ; whatever

We regularly release public beta updates, which are only available in the Members Club and only for customers who wish to help beta test. If you install a public beta, you need to realize that overwriting it with an official release which is an older version could break it.

Official releases are often "older" than the betas because only after a version has been in beta for a while do we make it official. In the meantime we are often moving forward with beta testing for a future official release.

The official updates are available through all the normal paths and easy to get, the beta updates are deliberately kept behind a login/registration wall to avoid issues like this where you could mix them accidentally.

If you need any help re-downloading and reinstalling your game, please contact our Help Desk and they'll get you squared away very quickly.

I'm sorry for any inconvenience this caused, hopefully the explanations above make sense.

Regards,

- Erik