This could be a HUGE bug!!!

from Stardock Forums
G'Day all....

After having just submitted my current game successfully tonight, I think I might have encountered a very large bug.

I restarted Galciv, and commenced a new game. Well, that's unusual, there are no stars nearby and in range on the mini-map. Gee, I've never seen that before.

Cntrl-N. Still no stars visible. Huh?

Cntrl-N again. Ditto.

Cntrl-N again. Ditto, but this time there is a minor Civ visible on the main map. Obviously For some reason my mini-map is malfunctioning.

What's going on??

Some background info:

I've been having trouble with my IE home page website being hijacked. I have tinkered with the registry (a week ago)to no avail, and Spy-Bot doesn't help. As a last resort, tonight I reinstalled IE, but this didn't make any difference to my hi-jacking problem. Incidentally, after doing this I had to reinstall outlook express as it was showing up as uninstalled. However, I did all this BEFORE I submitted my game tonight, so I can't see how this may have affected Galciv.

But, for some reason when I was trying to submit my game tonight Galciv was locking up when selecting 'metaverse' in the main menu - although there was a lot of disk activity, I thought I might be dialling up anyway (can't be sure as my modem speaker is buggered), as there was a lot of disk activity. I eventually submitted my game by getting to galciv.com from the desktop, then starting Galciv, completing the game, and submitting.

So, what may be going on?? After this post, I'm going to restart my system and try again. I'll let you know how I go.

Stupot
932 views 23 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, no luck on the restart.

Anybody know about this bug? I don't want to have to go through the rigmarole of a Galciv reinstall. >:(

Thanks, Stupot
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow . . . what a hassel . . . I've never had anything like that happen to me . . . mabye the info in the game is corupted thats all I can put it down to . . . re-installing is a bugger though.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
It actually sounds like two different issues to me. Clicking on the Metaverse button locking you up sounds like something isn't set up properly from the IE re-install.

But the really disturbing thing going on is the mini-map not showing any stars! I'd say you'll be hearing from Stardock very soon!
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Can you reproduce this bug, save the game, and send it to me with a screenshot, your debug.err file and your prefs.ini file?

[email protected]

 

Thanks.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Sounds like you have the "show stars" filter unchecked. I sometimes uncheck that one late in the game on some games, so I can better see the ships, when there are a lot of ships around. Then if I start a new game, the game remembers my filter settings, and I have to click the star filter back on to see them.

If that happened to you, it wouldn't be much of a bug. ;)


- Sirian
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

That was my thought, too, actually, but at some point I got confused and was thinking that there was nothing on the main map either except for the minor civ star.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Sounds like you have the "show stars" filter unchecked.
End of quote



Guess what...I woke up at 3 AM this morning with that very thought. I'm at work know, but I'll check when I get home. I had completely forgotten about the 'show stars' button, simply because I never turn it off. Funny that it should have turned itself off between games though.

Hopefully that's the answer, and everything's cool. :)

Clicking on the Metaverse button locking you up sounds like something isn't set up properly from the IE re-install.
End of quote


I think so as well, but I thought it wise to include this issue within the overall context just in case it has any relevance. Has anyone else experienced this lockup?


That was my thought, too, actually, but at some point I got confused and was thinking that there was nothing on the main map either except for the minor civ star.
End of quote


Well, all that was visible was Sol, USS Hero, USS Colony Ship and the minor civ star. There were (apparently) no anomalies or other ships in range. From memory there was no 'background nebulae' either. I did not bother exploring to find out what else was visible/invisible.

As I have noted, I will check tonight to see if I was a goose and just had the show stars button off, or whether it is a real bug.
Thanks for your support Cari...

Stupot
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
I hate to admit this, but I've never turned the stars off before last night! One click and every resource that didn't have a SB on it was glaring at me!!! I was actually searching that little mini-map full of stars for resources up until now! This goes to show you that there's a little something to learn every day! :HOT:
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Stupot, try going to 'run' in the start menu and typing 'sfc internet explorer'. This is the system file checker. It might fix some of your problems.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Well folks, I AM a GOOSE :p :p :p :p

Yes, I did have the star button turned off, or, I should say, the star button had turned itself off.

Guess I was just to frazzled by my IE problems to think of this first, but to be honest I had forgotten about the button completely.

Thanks for your interest and suggestions though.

LeegleechN, I've just tried that and all I get is "can't find 'sfc'". (I'm running Windows ME). I am seriously considering a complete system reinstall anyway, just to iron out all the little bugs that seem to accumulate...

Stupot

Stupot
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
LeegleechN, I've just tried that and all I get is "can't find 'sfc'". (I'm running Windows ME). I am seriously considering a complete system reinstall anyway, just to iron out all the little bugs that seem to accumulate...
End of quote


If you go to the control panel and select 'add / remove programs' find IE in the list and double click on it , some options will appear ... select 'repair internet explorer' . Cant say if that will fix your problem, but it has always (touch wood) worked for me in the past.
Not being funny but you should upgrade if you can to XP or downgrade to 98SE , both are better OS's, ME was made to appease the 'home' owners who felt left out by Windows2000, and as such has many 'undocumented features' ...
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I've never seen the game filters "uncheck themselves". Could you possibly have clicked it by mistake at some point, and not noticed? Like trying to click in the lower left corner of the map and misfiring slightly?

We don't want to send Cari on wild goose chases after phantom bugs. :) Plenty enough of the bona fide variety to keep her busy. :SURPRISED: ;) :HOT:


- Sirian
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Not being funny but you should upgrade if you can to XP or downgrade to 98SE , both are better OS's, ME was made to appease the 'home' owners who felt left out by Windows2000, and as such has many 'undocumented features' ...
End of quote


Yes, i'm aware that many consider it to be a dog, but to tell the truth I really haven't had any problems (apart from this one, which is ultimately of my own doing, by tampering with the registry). I will upgrade to XP eventually though.


I've never seen the game filters "uncheck themselves". Could you possibly have clicked it by mistake at some point, and not noticed? Like trying to click in the lower left corner of the map and misfiring slightly?
End of quote


Neither have I...so I must just have bumped it accidentally. And again my apologies for the false alarm ;)


Stupot
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Glad to hear it was nothing major, Stupot! Any word on the lockup issue?
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I haven't yet tried it, but I think Leegleech's 'sfc' will just run the repair IE utility found in add/remove programs_Internet Explorer.

To be honest, I'm a bit 'GalCivved out' at the moment, and I've just bought Neverwinter Nights which I'm getting into. Don't worry though "I SHALL RETURN". It just irks me thinking of my metaverse score degrading though.... :(

Stupot
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Sirian -- I have, but only on 1.05 and only when the whole game started wigging out. When I was testing some thoeries I would repeatedly load the same save game with little or no action in between. Memory leak or something, but the game starts to get weird. The mini-map always started in sector 0,0 often with planets turned off, ships wouldn't move, hitting "turn" just got a busy clock. Haven't seen it in a while, but I don't experiment like that any more.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
I had a serious technology bug after the lates incremental upgrade . It shows all tecnologies as being
undeveloped even though I have earned almost all of them and have several Excalibur-class ships.

~SDC~
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
us2wiz, just checking :on the bottom left handside of your Research screen is a button which should say "Archives" if it is "Available" it is showing all the techs you have developed. Is that the case ?
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
Guy. I am NOT stupid. I have been playing this game since day one. I am well aware of archives. I am getting the same list for archives as for technologies to be developed. It is a BUG!! Do you NOW believe me? After all this is beta software. Another bug is the game kicks out if you tey use foreign relations to acess minor worlds or major ones.

~SDC~
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm sorry....I didn't mean to offend you. I couldn't figure out how much time you had spend with the game.

I just realized you are talking about Altarian Prophecy. I think there is a sticky thread at the top for bug report on that
http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=118283#118472

Happy gaming
[Message Edited]
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Try downloading Ad-Aware from www.ad-aware.com

Its free and it catches almost all those nasty spyware and browser hijacker programs.

The home page hijacker is probably disguised as an .hta file somewhere on your system. this is a windows script file that is being run when your system boots. You can try and find it by searching your system for all *.hta files then loading the hta files into notepad to examine them. They should all be text readable files. If you find one that has the webpage your homepage is being hijacked to referenced, then you have found your culprit. Just delete or rename it to eliminate the problem. You can also search the registry for a reference to that .hta file and delete it. Most likely its in the "Run" registry key.

But, Ad-Aware will probably find it and clean it for you... :)

Rob