BD2K3 may or may not cause your game to break a bit.

[SLAPPYHAPPY2000]

BD2K3 is a level-set for Rocks'n'Diamonds created by Alan Bond in 2003. It has not been updated since, so if you cannot fix this problem, then I understand...
But the bugs that occur when you play BD2K3 can go from minor to almost game-breaking in a matter of minutes, ranging from just BD2K3 to all of the other level-sets. Here are the bugs that I have encountered:

WHERE DID THE MUSIC GO, ROCKFORD?
I was playing BD2K3 and suddenly, the music suddenly stopped playing. All that was left was the sounds. At first, I thought that I just needed to switch between level-sets to fix it, so I switched to Emerald Mine. But the music would not play for that level-set either, and I had no choice to restart the game. It did keep happening quite a few times actually. I think it might have to do with how the music loops, or how fast or slow at certain times you open up the menu, but I can't play for sure.

YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD BE SNAKE BITE, BUT IT WAS ME, BD2K3!
Switching from BD2K3 to Snake Bite (and any other downloadable level-set with custom stuff at that) caused quite a few problems for me. None of the Snake Bite music or sounds would play, and sometimes, it would sample sounds from BD2K3 itself! Not even quitting and rejoining the game would fix it! The only way I could resolve the issue was if I went into one of the "Classic Original Games", specifically Emerald Mine. It then crashed the game, but when I opened it, all of the music and sound was fixed successfully. This glitch happened a while ago (but on the same version of Rocks'n'Diamonds) and I could not get the glitch to happen again since. Who knows...

SPLISH SPLASH, NOW YOUR GAME... crash?
I was playing BD2K3 and randomly, out of nowhere, I was pushing a boulder, and then the game crashed. Rocks'n'Diamonds would refuse to open after that, and the only way that I could fix this problem was taking the BD2K3 file folder out of Rocks'n'Diamonds, opening Rocks'n'Diamonds, then watching Rocks'n'Diamonds crash from confusion (most likely "Where did the game breaking level-set go?"), then re-opening Rocks'n'Diamonds, and then it worked successfully. I even got BD2K3 to work again by simply putting it back into the Rocks'n'Diamonds file folder. This happened three months ago, and I only just learned of the forum about a week ago, so I wasn't able to bring this issue up to anyone. But when the first bug happened, I thought of finally bringing this to light. I wasn't able to replicate this bug since, and I have no idea what caused it in the first place...

Even though these issues with BD2K3 can be pretty major and in some cases almost game-breaking, I still love BD2K3. I love how well done it is, and I am a huge fan of Alan Bond and all of his other works, and I won't let a few bugs make me turn away from this awesome creation for the Rocks'n'Diamonds community and all of its wonderful members. Unless it actually breaks my game beyond repair next time...

[Holger]

I have never seen BD2K3 crashing or "breaking" R'n'D, so I am very interested in what happened here.

First of all, some questions:

- which version of R'n'D did you use when you encountered these problems?
- on which platform did you run the game (WIndows, Linux or Mac)?

And some notes:

Whenever you encounter a problem (especially a crash, or what might look like a crash to you), please have a look at the files "stdout.txt" and "stderr.txt" before starting the game for the next time. You can find these log files in your personal R'n'D data directory, which location varies from system to system (like "Documents/Rocks'n'Diamonds" on Windows).

I was playing BD2K3 and suddenly, the music suddenly stopped playing.

As far as I know, this may happen on certain Windows versions which have problems playing MIDI music. Unfortunately, decent MIDI support seems to get worse on modern systems...

Stopping and starting the background music (using the "music" button) usually fixes this problem, but only for a short time on affected systems.

Switching from BD2K3 to Snake Bite (and any other downloadable level-set with custom stuff at that) caused quite a few problems for me. None of the Snake Bite music or sounds would play, and sometimes, it would sample sounds from BD2K3 itself! Not even quitting and rejoining the game would fix it!

I have never seen something like that, and I would really like to know what was going on there.

I was playing BD2K3 and randomly, out of nowhere, I was pushing a boulder, and then the game crashed. Rocks'n'Diamonds would refuse to open after that

Never seen something like that neither, but: How does "refuse to open after that" look exactly? Does the game window appear and disappear, do you get an empty, black windows, do you get an error message in the game window, do you reach the main menu? Having a look at the mentioned log files may also give some more hints what may have happened in such cases.

and the only way that I could fix this problem was taking the BD2K3 file folder out of Rocks'n'Diamonds, opening Rocks'n'Diamonds, then watching Rocks'n'Diamonds crash from confusion (most likely "Where did the game breaking level-set go?"), then re-opening Rocks'n'Diamonds, and then it worked successfully.

Very strange -- if R'n'D cannot find the level set last played, it usually just falls back to the first level set it can find (which is the first tutorial level set on a "vanilla" R'n'D, for example).

Same here: How did "crash" exactly look like?

Unless it actually breaks my game beyond repair next time...

I haven't played BD2K3 with the last few versions of R'n'D, so it may be possible that there was indeed some fatal bug(s) introduced which are triggered by this level set. I will also do some tests with BD2K3 -- knowing which version and platform you used when you encountered all this strange behaviour would be helpful here.

[SLAPPYHAPPY2000]

- which version of R'n'D did you use when you encountered these problems?
- on which platform did you run the game (WIndows, Linux or Mac)?

I use Windows to play and create in Rocks'n'Diamonds, and the first glitch was in the newest version, the second glitch was in the newest version, and the third... I think it was three months ago, but it might have been earlier, and on an earlier version of Rocks'n'Diamonds. Don't take my word for it...

Whenever you encounter a problem (especially a crash, or what might look like a crash to you), please have a look at the files "stdout.txt" and "stderr.txt" before starting the game for the next time. You can find these log files in your personal R'n'D data directory, which location varies from system to system (like "Documents/Rocks'n'Diamonds" on Windows).

I did not know you could do that. Maybe that could help a bit?

As far as I know, this may happen on certain Windows versions which have problems playing MIDI music. Unfortunately, decent MIDI support seems to get worse on modern systems...

Stopping and starting the background music (using the "music" button) usually fixes this problem, but only for a short time on affected systems.

Nice to know, maybe that will help with the other times that it happens, since it happens pretty darn often!

Switching from BD2K3 to Snake Bite (and any other downloadable level-set with custom stuff at that) caused quite a few problems for me. None of the Snake Bite music or sounds would play, and sometimes, it would sample sounds from BD2K3 itself! Not even quitting and rejoining the game would fix it!

I have never seen something like that, and I would really like to know what was going on there.

Exactly what it sounds like. Playing BD2K3 and then switching to another custom level-set such as Snake Bite (and everything else, I only really saw it on Snake Bite) removed all of the sounds and music of the current level-set. Sometimes, sound files from BD2K3 would play when you do normal actions like collecting a gem or opening an exit door. I "fixed" this problem by switching to a vanilla level-set (Emerald Mine), which crashed the game. Then, when I re-opened the game, no more problems. After I wrote in the forum about these bugs this morning, I went back and tried to replicate this bug, repeating what I did before on that day. It did not work . I have no idea what caused it or how to make it happen again, so if you can, that would kind of be nice.

I was playing BD2K3 and randomly, out of nowhere, I was pushing a boulder, and then the game crashed. Rocks'n'Diamonds would refuse to open after that

Never seen something like that neither, but: How does "refuse to open after that" look exactly? Does the game window appear and disappear, do you get an empty, black windows, do you get an error message in the game window, do you reach the main menu? Having a look at the mentioned log files may also give some more hints what may have happened in such cases.

The way it refused to open kind of confused me. The window opened, and the loading screen with the cute hourglass ( :3 ) appeared in the window, and it loaded the files, but before it could get to the title screen, it crashed. I think that it might have had trouble reading a few files, but I'm no R'n'D expert (I wish I was tho), so I have no idea for sure.

and the only way that I could fix this problem was taking the BD2K3 file folder out of Rocks'n'Diamonds, opening Rocks'n'Diamonds, then watching Rocks'n'Diamonds crash from confusion (most likely "Where did the game breaking level-set go?"), then re-opening Rocks'n'Diamonds, and then it worked successfully.

Very strange -- if R'n'D cannot find the level set last played, it usually just falls back to the first level set it can find (which is the first tutorial level set on a "vanilla" R'n'D, for example).

Same here: How did "crash" exactly look like?

Same thing, except much shorter. The cute hourglass ( :3 ) and the file processing texts both appeared, but only for about half of a second, and then the crash commenced.

I haven't played BD2K3 with the last few versions of R'n'D, so it may be possible that there was indeed some fatal bug(s) introduced which are triggered by this level set. I will also do some tests with BD2K3 -- knowing which version and platform you used when you encountered all this strange behaviour would be helpful here.

Stated versions and platform above, and I'm glad I could help! But I'm afraid to go near BD2K3 until this issue is resolved...

[Holger]

I use Windows

Could you please be a bit more specific? There's more than one version of Windows R'n'D runs on.

I assume you are using WIndows 10 here, but maybe it could also be Windows 7 (or even Windows XP, who knows)...

And R'n'D used was version 4.1.4.1, right? (I like to have the number in the thread, if I come back later, when the "newest version" has changed.)

[SLAPPYHAPPY2000]

Could you please be a bit more specific? There's more than one version of Windows R'n'D runs on.

I assume you are using WIndows 10 here, but maybe it could also be Windows 7 (or even Windows XP, who knows)...

And R'n'D used was version 4.1.4.1, right? (I like to have the number in the thread, if I come back later, when the "newest version" has changed.)

I have Rocks'n'Diamonds version 4.1.4.1, yes, and I am indeed playing on a Windows 10 platform. Sorry to confuse you a bit .
I really hope that you can resolve this issue, but if you can't, thanks anyway.