Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

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Bigfish14
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Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by Bigfish14 »

I know there are two threads on this subject already, but I'm not clear from them if its been possible to find a resolution. Any ideas would be very gratefully received! in short:

- new build PC (spec below), very clean install (built and set up exactly as per Nick Needham's FSX Bible, except its water not air-cooled)
- Win 7 x64
- all DirX 9 dlls in place (plus Dir X 10 & 11)
- splash screen loads from double clicking Bob.exe, and shows "v2.12"
- I can click any 2D menu option & change settings, but when I click anything which will require the 3D game to load, it immediately shows the "English Text stopped working" message and won't run at all
- I've done all the things suggested in the other two threads on this subject, with no effect

I was SO looking forward to getting back into Bob2 with my shiny new PC, everything to the max, so a fix would be very welcome.

Alan
i9-10900k @5.2GHz, Asus Maximus XII Hero, 32 Gb DDR4-3600, RTX 2060, Acer Predator X34, FSXSE, Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, Logitech Pro Pedals

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PV
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by PV »

Yes, your PC should have no trouble with BoB2.
So, let's see: you don't have any compatibility
mode set, you're running natively in W7? You
can see d3dx9_43.dll in \windows\system32?
You have particle density at medium? You have
a widescreen monitor, and you have
Options>GFX>UseDesktop Resolution set to OFF,
and the correct resolution for your monitor
selected - such as 1080x1920@32 ? What else
have I forgotten... You read through the notes
in the v2.12 release notes post on the forum here,
which mostly repeat what i've just listed...

Nothing else occurs to me immediately. Do you
get a crashlog.txt appearing in the BoB2 root
folder? We could have a look at that. And do
you see the 3D splash screen with the progress
bar, or do you crash immediately on clicking "fly"?

Bigfish14
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Joined: 27 Nov 2015, 17:30
Location: Nottingham, England

Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by Bigfish14 »

Hi there PV, many thanks for your reply. I'll recheck all those things ("never assume...."!) and get back.

Alan
i9-10900k @5.2GHz, Asus Maximus XII Hero, 32 Gb DDR4-3600, RTX 2060, Acer Predator X34, FSXSE, Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, Logitech Pro Pedals

Bigfish14
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Joined: 27 Nov 2015, 17:30
Location: Nottingham, England

Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by Bigfish14 »

Hello again PV, I've summarised below all suggestions gleaned from these 3 threads, and I've recorded against each one what is the case for my set-up. I've only included the header lines for crashlog.txt but I can post it all if it's useful. I've reconfirmed all of the following, and it still crashes immediately before I get the 3D loading splash screen. Hope this is useful, and I really appreciate your time and effort!
regards
Alan

"English text stopped working"

1. no Win 8?: check

2. look in Bob2 root crashlog.txt? Yes, starts:”Bob.exe caused a EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in module Bob.exe at 0023:00573D15, LoadResString()+54 byte(s), c:\merlin\bob\src\bfields\qmiss.cpp, line 1508+5 byte(s)
Exception handler called in int CMIGApp::Run().
Read from location 00000000 caused an access violation.”

3. set screen print size to 96 (R click on desktop, select screen resolution, check “make text or other items larger or smaller”, select 100% (default): check

4. in Bob2 GUI, select Options>GFX & set Campaign resolution to 1024x768: check (3D resolution set to 1920x1080 which is Iiyama PL2409HD native))

5. using v2.11 on Win 7?: check - I am using v2.12 in Win 7 x64

6. latest Direct X? : ie is d3dx9_43.dll present in Windows/system32: check, all present between d3dx9_24.dll through d3dx9_43.dll, plus dlls for DirX10 and DirX11

7. multiscreen installed on top of v2.11/2.12: check

8. Win 7 user? Apply Vista/Win 7 fix: R click on Bob.exe shortcut, properties, compatibility, check “disable desktop composition”, check privilege level=run as administrator: check

9. using widescreen monitor? - set Windows resolution to native monitor; in GUI, Options>GFX, set “use Windows Desktop Resolution”= OFF, and select nearest resolution to your monitor’s: check

10. confirm no compatibility mode in use? Check

11. native Win 7? Check. It's a clean instal of Win 7x64 on its own SSD, separate from Bob2 which is on another SSD in the root ie E:/Bob2

12. particle density=medium? Check

13. do you see 3D splashscreen with loading progress bar, or does it crash immediately when you click on “fly”?: it crashes immediately “Quick combat” is selected, doesn’t get to splash screen. 2D options are OK, except “credits” just shows plain text and I seem to recall its animated over some background?
i9-10900k @5.2GHz, Asus Maximus XII Hero, 32 Gb DDR4-3600, RTX 2060, Acer Predator X34, FSXSE, Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, Logitech Pro Pedals

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PV
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by PV »

Bigfish14 wrote:
[...]
2. look in Bob2 root crashlog.txt? Yes, starts:”Bob.exe caused a EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in module Bob.exe at 0023:00573D15, LoadResString()+54 byte(s), c:\merlin\bob\src\bfields\qmiss.cpp, line 1508+5 byte(s)
Exception handler called in int CMIGApp::Run().
Read from location 00000000 caused an access violation.”

[...]

13. do you see 3D splashscreen with loading progress bar, or does it crash immediately when you click on “fly”?: it crashes immediately “Quick combat” is selected, doesn’t get to splash screen. 2D options are OK, except “credits” just shows plain text and I seem to recall its animated over some background?
Oh. This most unusual. I don't think I've ever seen one of these before...

"it crashes immediately “Quick combat” is selected"
Umm, is the exact wording "Quick Shots" or "Instant Action"?

Bigfish14
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by Bigfish14 »

Hi there PV, thanks for being on the case!

Sorry, getting my sim GUIs confused!

It crashes on clicking the top menu choice "Instant Action".

Alan
i9-10900k @5.2GHz, Asus Maximus XII Hero, 32 Gb DDR4-3600, RTX 2060, Acer Predator X34, FSXSE, Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, Logitech Pro Pedals

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PV
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by PV »

Hmmm. OK, the easy answer (BoB1 base, not BoB2)
is eliminated. You are crashing upon loading the
Quick Mission module, and it seems to be having
difficulty with character strings. This is quite odd,
in that people run this all the time with no such
failure. So, first, is this an International version
in a less common language? Otherwise, I suspect
it might be a bad download, some sort of errant bit
in the exe or the quick.dat file. If neither of those,
perhaps something odd with the video driver (that's
a bit of a cheat - whenever nothing else makes sense,
blame the video driver, however it has proven to be
the case on occasion, as well as the advanced settings
of the video driver control GUI), but beyond that, I
am not getting ideas.

...Hmmm, I did a search of the archive here, and the
only previous instance of this error was indeed due to
a patch loaded over a Rowan BoB1 install instead of
BoB2. Is it possible you have both of these sims
installed on the same machine? I believe the A2A
version used the same registry entries as Rowan had
used for BoB1, so with both installed, they can get
entangled together as the machine fetches bits from
both installs when it tries to run one. You have to
change the first characters of the folder name of the
BoB1 install in order to be able to run the BoB2 sim
successfully.

Bigfish14
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Joined: 27 Nov 2015, 17:30
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by Bigfish14 »

Well old chap the thing is, it did strike me as a bit odd when I took the Bob disc out of its box to instal it on the new PC that I didn't remember it being brown, and I somehow thought it had a large Roman "II" on the label. However....

Then I re-read your last post and in particular your immortal words "Hmmm. OK, the easy answer (BoB1 base, not BoB2) is eliminated."....

So er, yes, it does in fact appear to be the case that I have been attempting to instal 2.12 over the original Rowan BoB1 base .....

And as soon as I installed the other disc from the other box, the one with the big Roman "II" on it, there I am am flying the good old Spit, without doing any of those fixes listed above. Smoothest flight and TIR views I've ever had.

My total embarrassment is only mitigated by the fact that no-one but me and you will ever know.

Oh no, hang on, this is the BoB2 Technical Support Forum. Do I just re-register under a totally different name, or leave the country now?

So I can only apologise profusely for being such an idiot, and thanks so much for stating the obvious and thus rescuing my Bob2 flying! I'm looking forward to some outstanding big dogfights with no stuttering.

With kindest regards for a very Happy 2016.

Alan
i9-10900k @5.2GHz, Asus Maximus XII Hero, 32 Gb DDR4-3600, RTX 2060, Acer Predator X34, FSXSE, Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, Logitech Pro Pedals

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Trumper
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by Trumper »

:D ou are not the first and wont be the last ,well done for reporting back because your post allows others to learn and also our techie lot to do some thinking. :) Now be patient for the next update :)

Bigfish14
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Joined: 27 Nov 2015, 17:30
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by Bigfish14 »

Trumper, you are too kind! I really should know better, since I was flying Bob1 via that CD (!!) with the brown label in Win 95, in the last century! My brief current history in this forum is only because I irretrievably lost my previous PW etc. and had to re-create myself. I never cease to be grateful to all the clever chaps who have kept it going and improved it out of all recognition, and for free. The moral of this sorry tale is probably never to underestimate the idiocy of the "customer", so perhaps a 24 point warning at the start of the instal instructions along the lines of "DON'T USE A BoB1 DISC!!" is all that's needed.....

Best wishes

Alan

PS hope PV will be as forgiving when Canada wakes up...
i9-10900k @5.2GHz, Asus Maximus XII Hero, 32 Gb DDR4-3600, RTX 2060, Acer Predator X34, FSXSE, Honeycomb Alpha + Bravo, Logitech Pro Pedals

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stickman
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Re: Battle of Britain English Text stopped working - reprise

Post by stickman »

Bigfish14,
perhaps a 24 point warning at the start of the instal instructions along the lines of "DON'T USE A BoB1 DISC!!" is all that's needed.....
Well.. us BDG guys never thought that warning was needed.
However! It is only a short line, and probably should be added. May save some other folks much pain and embarrassment. :P

Do not feel so bad, BigFish. It is an easy mistake to make!

Aloha!

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