Unable to load PBEM game

[Willard]

Hubert and other SC experts-

I just started a PBEM game with a friend.
I received his turn file and copied it into SC's PBEM file. I started up SC and clicked on LOAD PBEM GAME. A small DOS screen pops up (i think) very quickly and my entire game shuts down. The small DOS screen comes up so fast I can even read any information on it. Bottom line is I cant even load the PBEM file. Any suggestions. I am running 1.03 and havent had any problems whatsoever. Thanks in advance for the help.

Willard

[Friar Bellows]

Is your PBEM opponent using version 1.03? Maybe he's using an earlier, incompatible version like 1.0?

[Willard]

Both of us are using 1.03. When I put the PBEM file in the PBEM folder, I startup SC and click the LOAD PBEM game button. Instead of going to PBEM file screen, I get a quick pop-up DOS window and then SC shuts down. This does not happen when I try to load saved games.

[Willard]

Hubert help!!!!!

[Niklas.Andersson]

I had that exact problem once.

The "cure" was to replay the game the turn before it crashes and not moving/attacking any thing, and do the same for the oppionents turn. Not a very solution but it worked and we could play as normal the rest of the game without problem.

BTW: I havent run in any problem playing PBEM ver 1.02 for me and 1.03 opponent -this is not a good solution eather but i refuse get the cd-protected 1.03 ver.

[Hubert Cater]

Sounds like the PBEM file has been corrupted, this can happen as some ISP's strip the PBEM file or reduce the size for some reason. The best way around this is to probably use Winzip, a free downloadable utility that compresses files and seems to protect the files from your Internet Service Provider. You will have to compress the file, then send, and then your opponent will have to extract it to his PBEM folder. You will also have to repeat the process when receiving files.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[Machinov]

I'm having the same problem and it's very annoying. I have tried to rename the files, move them to other folders and so on; and nothing seems to be good enough. None of my PBEMs are working from the first turn!!

[Hubert Cater]

If you update to version 1.04 this should no longer cause the game to crash, instead you will receive a warning message. Check the file size of the PBEM game, if it is really small, less than 300K then try zipping the file first as some ISP's strip these files for some reason. Winzip is a free utility available here

http://www.winzip.com

If after using this method it still does not work, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Hubert

[ September 09, 2002, 10:10 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

[boots]

My friend and I are trying to play pbem, both of us have 1.4 patch, both of us have cable modems, but i cant get his attachment into my game....mine however show up there ? Isnt there a site where we can play online without having to deal with this pbem insanity????

[Hubert Cater]

TCP/IP is coming soon...

Hubert

[Kurt Bullard]

One other minor thing worth checking... (Hope this isn't redundant.)

I had the problem where SC would disappear after entering my correct password. It turns out something -- probably my anti-virus software -- was setting the .sav file to be "read-only". When I unchecked "read-only", it worked great.

Kurt

P.S. - The key clue came from the temporary fix that produces "exception_trace.log". It showed lots of "I/O Errors".

[Hubert Cater]

Actually this makes sense, seems as this could also be causing problems, thanks for the tip!

Hubert

[RicKhan]

Greeting,

My experience with PBEM games and the sending of files over a hotmail account, is to use WinZip.
When Zipped the chance of loading the files and playing without problems is greatly incresed.

Good Luck

[Bruce70]

I have the same problem as above (dos screen flashes during turn replay and then SC closes). I have already played 2 PBEM game to near completeion with no problems and the game in question is up to turn 23 or so (the axis player has just declared war on Sweden, USSR and Greece).

We are both using Eudora, running on W2K. We have tried resending the file, zipping and then resending, going back to a previous turn and doing all of the above - nothing works (except that the replay crashes at a different stage each time).

I can send a save file if it will help.

[Update: Just tried opening thew file on the computer it was created on and it still crashed, so the problem isn't in sending the file.]

[ October 07, 2002, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: Bruce70 ]

[Hubert Cater]

There were a few replay bugs that were found after v1.04 was released, these have been fixed and an interim executable is available at the following link:

http://www.furysoftware.com/download/sc.zip

If you extract it into your Strategic Command installation folder it will update the v1.04 executable and should fix the PBEM replay bug you have encountered.

This fix will be included in the v1.05 TCP/IP patch that will be available very soon.

Hubert

[Bruce70]

That worked, thanks.