HELP! OS X Mavericks and R&D 3.3.1.0

[Holger]

And does it help to remove that ".DS_Store" file/folder from the "Rocks'n'Diamonds 3.3.1.0_Crashed" folder?

Does the previously crashed game run again after removing it?

[Lee Brewer]

I re-installed/ran R&D - played - quit - removed .DS_Store - tried to run again - same exact results - window flashed on for a second then disappears.

[Holger]

Yesterday, I was able to test this on a Mac with "Mavericks" installed on it, and I was able to exactly reproduce this problem as you described it. I have absolutely no idea why this happens, but it seems that Mac OS X always starts the game with a different working directory after the first invocation of the game (while starting it with the correct one only for the first invocation), for each newly extracted game archive. Very, very strange.

I've changed the code a little bit to correctly determine the main game data directory from the path to program binary. I wasn't able to test this on a "Mavericks" Mac so far, but it runs fine on my "Lion" Mac.

Could you please test if it also works on your Mac? Here's a package to test it:

http://www.artsoft.org/RELEASES/macosx/ ... .3.1.2.dmg

Please try it and let me know if this works for you. If yes, I would release it as the official version 3.3.1.2.

[Lee Brewer]

Doing so now...

[Lee Brewer]

BINGO!



I installed it, ran it, played a second, quit, ran it... IT LOADED and RAN


Thanks for all the help - now I can keep Mavericks!

Well - I still need to test to see if it runs my levels - which I assume it will.

Muchas Danke

[Lee Brewer]

OOPS!

OK - all is fine as far as loading in BD2K3 etc. But when I go to the level selection page and try to load my levels "Lee Brewer Nov 2013," levels start to load, but the entire window disappears while it is loading the graphics. I thought maybe it had gotten done loading the graphics and was getting hung up loading the music folder. So I deleted the music folder, And the same results occurred.

Having done some troubleshooting in the past, I thought maybe my music files were the wrong format even though they worked in previous versions. I did not know whether you had change this or not.

So I have a zip file and plan on sending it to you.

[Lee Brewer]

OK - decided to do a little poking around.

I got rid of my graphics and just put the levels into the levels folder.

The game loads OK.

I quit and restarted, the game is OK.

I out my graphics back in and the game would not load.

So somewhere in the graphics folder is the problem and it is closer to the bottom of the list of them I think just by trying to read the screen as the graphics are loading and seeing which is the last to load (impossible- but it took awhile to go down through the list before crashing).

[Lee Brewer]

FOUND IT!

Holger,I do not know why, but the file L-Bugs_100X185.pcx messes up the load.

I removed it and all is OK.

I reloaded it into my grpahics program and it loads OK. So I duplicated it and saved it back on the appropriate level. It still makes the game crash and not load.

Any ideas why? It should be in the files I sent.

BTW - I also just found out I did not send the current levels of mine. Although the only diff in what I sent you is that the current files have 98 levels.

[Holger]

Sorry for not being able to answer earlier. Yes, I also found out that the PCX file you mentioned caused R'n'D to stop loading the level set. I thought you had already seen it in the error log file "stderr.txt" as follows:

--- snip ---
rocksndiamonds: cannot load artwork file 'L-Bugs_101X185.pcx'
rocksndiamonds: aborting
--- snip ---

If you start R'n'D with verbose output, you will see a bit more. To do this, either start the game on the command line with the "-v" (or "--verbose") option, or change the last line in "setup.conf" from "options.verbose: false" to "options.verbose: true". Then you will get the following additional warning before the error message above:

--- snip ---
rocksndiamonds: warning: cannot load image file '/Users/your_user_name/Documents/Rocks'n'Diamonds/levels/Lee's Levels NOV 2013/graphics/L-Bugs_101X185.pcx': LoadImage() failed: IMG_Load(): bytes per line is too large (corrupt?)
--- snip ---

I don't really know why the SDL library "SDL_image" chokes on that file, but when reading and re-writing that file with ImageMagick, it works fine afterwards. Try loading and saving it with a different graphics program that you are usually using. I'm not sure if the file is really "bad", or if this is a bug in SDL_image.

I think I have to improve error handling, especially when not starting the game from the command line (so errors written to some error log files may not be as obvious as those directly dumped to the shell where you started it from, as I usually do). Additionally, R'n'D should probably fall back to a "known good" level/artwork set after such an error, to prevent it from running into it again and again after restarting (requiring config files to be edited or the R'n'D user data directory to be renamed/removed to make it run again).

[Lee Brewer]

Thanks for all the hard work, new version, and corrections Holger.

Sorry I missed the OBVIOUS in the stderr.txt file. I am on meds and am not as sharp as I wish I was/used to be.

I also need to brush up on computer skills I have let go over the years - I used to know my way around AMIGAdos pretty well. I need to get a LOT better versed/practiced in the BASH shell.

Working on finishing a reference book as my main project right now. Hope to be able to do more R&D after the book is out the door. Right now I use it during those times I need a break.

BTW - I use Ulead Photo Impact for graphics. All the rest were done with this program so I am not sure either how this could have happened... except to say it was a "Microsoft Moment" since the program only runs in Windows. I wish they made it (Corel now owns it) for Mac. Its the best I have seen.