Dungeon Master Forum

Hey, guess what? I've finally decided to continue work on my dungeon after a couple of months without doing anything, and I was just working on the text file for it when I thought I should save it (which is obviously a good idea with any file). It came up with a box saying it would save it in "Text Only" format which would remove all formatting. I had no clue what that was but thought it meant it wouldn't save my changes, but it did. So I dunno what that was all about. Anyway, I've done part of the current level, and thought I'd stick the compile instruction in the Config file and see how many errors I got (if any) when I loaded it up. But after it came up with the title screen and the messages in the bottom left corner ("loading bitmaps..." etc), it went to a window saying it couldn't open the file because it was corrupt and RTC would terminate in 10 secs, 9, 8, 7...etc. I tried it lots of times and it keeps dong this...has the file bugered up, and if so, does anyone have any clue how or why? Did I do something wrong?
Also, I tried to play it (my dungeon) recently (having not edited it for ages), and I'm sure it had been fine last time I tried, but this time I get to a certain creature, and just as either I hit it or it hits me, the game bombs to desktop, poof, and up comes one of those "Diags..." files in the DM folder. Hmph. I sent it to GG a couple of weeks ago but no response yet so I suppose he is busy. I wonder if this crash bug has anything to do with the file not compiling? Before this bug, the compile had worked fine with no errors or warnings.
And if it's any help, this is the what it says in the file I get which bombed the dungeon when I was playing it...

RTC (V0.24) Diagnostic file - Thu Jul 24 11:45:28 2003

Error:
an access violation exception.

Stack Dump:
RTC.AddItemToTileAddIt(int 206, pointer 0x00000000, char 18, char 23, char 1, char 3);
RTC.AddItemToTile(int 206, char 18, char 23, char 1, char 3);
RTC.DamageMonster(int 205, int 1210, char 18, char 23, char 1, int 0);
RTC.MemberAttack(int 90, int 998);
RTC.OnLMouseButtonDown(int 495, int 248);
RTC.WinMain();


...and this is what I get after a compile attempt when it says the file is corrupt...

RTC (V0.24) Diagnostic file - Sun Aug 17 01:00:28 2003

Error:
an access violation exception.

Stack Dump:
RTC.InitSecondary();
RTC.DoFrame(int 7);
RTC.WinMain();


Can anyone help me? I thought this whole dungeon-creating thing was going pretty well, but now it seems I can neither play nor add to my dungeon without it smegging up. Any ideas?
Oh, and I'm a bit thick when it comes to technical terms so please use plain boring little words so I have some clue what you are talking about...I'm no computer expert, heh. Mind you, that should be obvious by now .

what are you editing it in?
I've found sometimes hidden rubbish added to plain text files in other programmes, so when it's entered into notepad again there are unknown characters (new line breaks, i think)
Try openign it in notepad if you aren't, and see how it looks.
If there are corrupt characters and you aren't using word already for this, try openign the .txt file in word, saving it as a plain text file in this, and then re-opening it in notepad. This has usually stripped the excess characters

Just a thought : )

Okies...well I started it in Notepad, but after about the second level or so it kept coming up with an error message saying "Not enough memory...". This seems to happen in Notepad after you've done a certain amount of characters or something, since even if you close and open it again, it only lets you do about five characters ebfore coming up with the error again.
So I've been doing it in Wordpad, and it's been fine so far. But I'll try Notepad and see if it works...

Hmm just tried that...still doing the same "Critical Error - Terminating Program. File Corrupt..." etc etc. And I tried it without the Compile command to see if it would still bomb when I hit the mob...and it did. Grrr...

Notepad has a 48Kb (32?) limit in Windows 98 and earlier, so it's not suitable for large TXT files.

Send me your file if you like and I'll see if I can troubleshoot it.

mh12225054@hotmail.com

Have sent it, along with a waffly account liberally sprinkled with complaints that I seem to have smegged something up without even touching it . Any help you can give will be as gratefully recieved as always, and I'm sure I'll have plenty more problems for you to sort out for me once this one is dealt with .

Here's what's wrong:

Line 238: Not enough digits for grid on first line (Level 4)

Line 779 & 780 (Item 722 & 723): No POSITION for Golem. Should be CENTRE before HEALTH

Line 785 (Item 728): TARGET misspelled TARGER

Line 798 (Item 741): Iron Key has no POSITION, it requires one even though it's carried by a giggler

Line 799 (Item 742): Giggler requires a POSITION before HEALTH

Line 801 (Item 744): Door name doesn't exist in RTC. Should be DOOR_WOODEN_REINFORCED_IRON

Line 804 (Item 747): You've misspelled MOVEABLE. Should be FLOORITEM_WALL_MOVABLE

If you fix this stuff, it should compile OK.

Hey Gambit.. wanna do my taxes for me.

(j/k)

you should go into programming.. seems to be your forte to search out errors in long teidious searches through hundreds of parameters.

Well I would have thought they would come up as Critical Errors or something, but anyway I corrected them and tried to load it up, but it STILL comes up with the "File Corrupt" window . And do you have any ideas what make it bugger up with that Scorpion encounter? This is really annoying...it worked fine a few months ago .

Oh, and here is a copy of the Diags file I get when it crashes after a compile attempt...

RTC (V0.24) Diagnostic file - Wed Aug 20 16:06:13 2003

Error:
an access violation exception.

Stack Dump:
RTC.InitSecondary();
RTC.DoFrame(int 7);
RTC.WinMain();



I believe I posted a copy of the one after a Scorpion-fight-crash-bug in the first message of this thread.

Hmm.. this is curious. I don't get the problems you encountered Ameena -- RTC just give the standard list of Critical Errors and warnings which made it easy to find where the problems were. I don't get the crashes and didn't experience anything weird with the scorpions.

Are you sure you're using the file correctly? I think you may be using a messed up file as Beowuuf suggested (although the file you sent me seemed OK). Try using a better text editor (something like TextPad is good)

So are you using Notepad for your files then Gambit? Doesn't it come up with the "Not enough memory" error after a while? I find that soooo annoying...but if Wordpad isn't working either...grrrrr...what about plain MS Word? Would that be okay? I hope this file isn't permenantly buggered...

I use Homesite because I'm familiar with it for web development.

I do sometimes use Notepad which is fine under WinXP as there's no memory limit.

Wordpad should be fine as long as you're saving in plain txt format.

I have been. But it's buggered. Obviously. Bah. How come it works on yours? So you managed to compile it okay? <sob>

With computers there is always a reason, but I'll be damned if I know it more than each second time. Maybe you give TxtEdit a try, I've made good experiences with it. Don't be shocked because of the homepage... the program works very nicely for bigger amounts of text... and it's freeware.

http://www.luziusschneider.com/TxtEditHome.htm

Regards, PitD

Grrrrrrrrrrr.....
I installed that Textpad thing you said about, Gambit, and opened my file and saved it,t hen tried to Compile it...but guess what?
"File Corrupt"
Grrrr...how do I uncorrupt it and how did it get like that anyway <sob> Stupid thing .

hi, you can send me your dungeon aswell at beowuuf@yahoo.com if you want a third computer to compare it under

I just tried sending you my RTC file but I got an auto-message saying there was a delivery failure 'cause it says you account is "over quota", which I take to mean "it's full". I'll try again later.

yeah, it's getting spammed alot i nthe last month, so it keeps goign over quota - i'll empty it (again) and hopefully your mail can get through!

you could redirect some spam directly into the trashcan... ;o)

Regards, PitD

Well, I posted again yesterday and recieved no error e-mail so I think it's arrived at your inbox, Wuufy . No rush in sorting it out...I've still got a couple more levels to write out on paper anyway.

Anyone getting back to me on this? I think I sent my dungeon to both Beowuuf and Gambit. It still doesn't work. Beowuuf, what you were saying about finding loads of places I'd skipped lines or whatever it was in the character section, I can't find anything like that in my file so maybe one of us has something wrong there lol. It's annoying...I want to get on with this dungeon but there's no point in continuing to type it out when it's not gonna work . I still get the same errors when I try to compile it and I dunno what it is <sob>.

lol, sorry, still trying to get my head back in the game from coming back onshore, plus my gf is on a stupid training camp thing for her work, so fighting to talk to her on the phone/staying awake - will get back to you probably at the weekend : )

as for the psaces - there seemed to be alot of return keys and spaces in your character definitions when iopened it in wordpad - it uisually happened after a character first name, or in the middle of their strength, wisdom etc definitions - will check out the new one and see if the same problem

and that saved game aswell!