Frustrating CTD

**Fool** · 01-08-2008, 04:25

Hello all, I'm having a really frustrating problem with a CTD.

I installed EB ontop of a fresh (and perfectly working) RTW 1.5, as per the directions, and it worked fine, I started a campaign and when I saw the water graphics, I decided that I would opt for returning them to the Vanilla graphics. So I quit the game without doing anything, but as soon as I hit the "Quit" button, instead of going to the main menu, the game CTDed. I wasn't too concerned as this has happened before on mods I have used, and they turned out fine.

But this time, after applying the neccessary changes to get the Vanilla water back (this file does not seem to be the source of the problem as I get the CTD without it present), and going to play EB, the game CTDed in the middle of the very first load screen, right after the intro movie, like 1 second after the music starts to play. I then uninstalled everything RTW and tried again from scratch, except this time when I started RTW Vanilla, I got the startup CTD without even installing EB.

Nevertheless I reinstalled EB, and taking the advice from this forum I put the
"-nm" in the EB desktop shortcut, there was no intro movie, but I still got the same CTD. Then I ran the "validateInstall" progamme, and I got this:

You seem to have a corrupt install. There are changes to files, or some are missing.
However, these may be conscious changes you have made, to remod EB. See below for details.
==========
Changed file: .\data\credits.txt (expected checksum 632aad51f3a61c5da34140e4fa28800b, got b0a7954002857cc32e253a5e08b5c194)
Changed file: .\data\export_descr_advice.txt (expected checksum f29c56a6d711e3ebb70b855365500de8, got 97794093b86abe2d5ebab1920b9c3363)
Changed file: .\data\fmv\atvi_spinning_logo_640x480.wmv (expected checksum 7e15895ba7a723535f55e4deb91c085b, got e9ac1729af2fdeffe8365a567cd76b23)
Changed file: .\data\menu\splash.tga (expected checksum a57cc84af0e6c1300577336f17e0bfd6, got d1329cf835f69e6dff4b4cc0cb08d144)
Added file: .\data\fmv\death\thumbs.db
Added file: .\data\fmv\thumbs.db
Added file: .\eb\data\packs\mod_1.pak
Added file: .\gamespy arcade.url
Added file: .\icon.ico

This had no effect, after restarting my machine and trying again, I got the same CTD.

I`ve also uninstalled Nero and ran a chkdsk... to no effect.
It`s not caused by CPU or ghraphics card overheating.

**bovi** · 01-08-2008, 08:47

The installation validation will not make any changes to your RTW/EB installation, just check how it looks.

Perhaps you should try to move the eb\data\packs\mod_1.pak file to somewhere else and start the game to see if it resumes normal operation then. I do not know the contents, but I guess that this is the vanilla water you added back in. You say you do not think it is the cause of the CTD, but it appears to me to be two entirely different issues.

The fact that you get the on-load CTD with normal RTW means that this is unlikely to be an EB issue. I suggest you get that working first, then try EB again afterwards. You could ask for support from CA, I have no experience with them though. Perhaps an upgrade or downgrade of your drivers would make a difference. Can you remember any other changes you have made to your system from the time it worked, beyond installing the vanilla water?

**Fool** · 01-09-2008, 00:20

Hmm, upon closer examination of my pcmon report of the load-CTD (without EB installed), I noticed that there were several files that were "NAME NOT FOUND" :

data/menu/buttons_composite2.tga.dds
data/menu/slider_composite.tga.dds
data/menu/slider_composite2.tga.dds
data/menu/border_4pix_black_gold2.tga.dds
data/menu/text_border.tga.dds
data/menu/yellow_highlight.tga.dds
data/menu/border_4pix_black_gold_selected.tga.dds
data/menu/border_4pix_black_gold_black.tga.dds
data/menu/unit_card.tga.dds
data/menu/icons.tga.dds

I have the regular ".tga" files, but what is this "tga.dds" business? Does anyone have/ know of these files?

I truly wonder how this came about, because like I said; before I installed EB, vanilla RTW was working fine. This is quite mysterious, I cannot beleive that these files suddenly vanished from my RTW CDs. Perhaps my installing of EB was some coincidence? Maybe the CDs became damaged between when I last used them, and when I went to play EB?

**bovi** · 01-09-2008, 09:49

The CD isn't used for anything else than checking that you've purchased the game, and it gets past that check before crashing. That .tga.dds business is okay, it will successfully failover to the .tga files.

You of course took a backup of the 1.5 vanilla installation, as suggested in the installation instructions? Please try to run that and see if the same problem happens there.

**Fool** · 01-09-2008, 20:54

No, I didn`t back up vanilla, because I`ve never heard of/ come across a problem that a simple uninstallation of the mod AND vanilla couldn't fix, this crash is occuring after I install a completely fresh copy of vanilla, which is why I was saying that maybe my CDs are damaged.
I may have now found the problem, after more scrutiny of my procmon report, I seem to be missing the ENTIRE "data/ui" file. I can't beleive I didn't see the massive list of "FILE PATH NOT FOUND" before this. Again, this is AFTER I have uninstalled vanilla and reinstalled it.