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Army Builder installation becoming corrupted

M

MarkC

Member
Hi

I've been using Army Builder for a number of years with no problems. However, late last week I had a problem where the installation appear to be corrupted. Army Builder would start, but the buttons wouldn't appear properly. There would be an outline where they should be, but you can't click on them. There is also a tiny icon in the upper left corner that appears to be the text label for the button shrunk down. This small icon is about 1/4 the width of the outline and 2/3 of the height of the outline. You can tab to the buttons though.

Additionally, once in the program many (but not all) of the icons don't appear correctly. Also AB can get into a situation where it locks up using 100% of CPU (eg with WFB data files, add a unit that can have a runic standard. When you select the placeholder (missing icon) for the Runic standard, AB locks up).

I uninstalled and reinstalled AB on Friday night and it was all okay (apart from having to re-register the license) on Friday. I started AB this morning, and I have the same problem again.

Question 1: If I uninstall and reinstall again, does the licensing system count this as a separate license/move to a different PC, or does it recognise it is still the same machine?

Further background: The machine is a XP laptop. It is nearly 3 years old and probably due to a reformat.

I often encounter the problem that if I install product A, then run product B, that product C will want to reinstall itself. Typically two of the products in the mix are ones developed in-house by my employer, but often the product that wants to reinstall is MS Office and VMware products. I have never had Army Builder be part of this mix.

I was having this problem last week and the Event Viewer was reporting problems with MsiInstaller missing MSXML*.* file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\SFPA Cache. I copied the files in one at a time to try and address this. The files added so far are msxml3.dll, msxml3r.dll, msxmlx.cat. It is currently complaining that it does not have msxmlx.inf, but this is not elsewhere on the machine so I haven't copied it in.

The Event Viewer has MsiInstaller errors and warnings about no valid source found for VMware workstation and The resource 'C:\program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\SFPA Cache\msxml.inf" does not exist.

Speculation: Army Builder relies on the MS XML. Adding/removing other products on the computer has resulted in MS XML installation becoming damaged.

Regards

Mark C
 
I uninstalled and reinstalled VMware (which was causing MsiInstaller to try to repari MS XML) and Army Builder.

I am no longer getting messages in the Event Log about problems with MS XML files.

Army Builder worked correctly after being reinstalled. However, after the machine was rebooted it reverted to the previous problem.

I uninstalled Army Builder again, manually removed the left over files and directories and reinstalled. Once again the interface was fine until I rebooted the machine.

Any suggestions? Is there a debug mode that I can use to see what it is failing to find/load?

Thanks

Mark C
 
Hi bk, thanks for your comments. However my problem is independant of the data files being used. I have been uninstalling, reinstalling, just having the example game system, reboot and then the problem comes back.

I suspect that there is some Microsoft trickery going on here. The AB installer must put down files that it needs and then Windows "repairs" them or reinstalls different versions of the files when it reboots.

I could even live with having to constantly reinstall the application, except for the need for internet connectivity to register it. A lot of the time that I would normally like to use AB, I don't have internet connectivity.

Regards

Mark C
 
I have found a workaround for my problem. If I run ArmyBuilder.exe from a CMD window it starts okay. All my previous tests were starting it from a shortcut on my desktop. A bit of experimentation found that if I changed the properties of the shortcut I could get it to start with the buttons intact.

Under Properties choose the Compatability tab. I found that if I either made the Compatability mode "Windows 2000" or ticked the "Turn off advanced text services for this program" that things worked. However, since doing that if I now start it from the CMD line the buttons are corrupted! There's obviously still some subtle problem, but it will keep me going until I can reformat my machine over Christmas.

My problem now is that whenever I try to activate the license I get the message "An unexpected error occurred during the processing of your license ..." I'm hoping that the problem is just with the Lone Wolf license server.

Regards

Mark C
 
Hey thanks for the tip, it looks as if I run it from the command prompt it will start correctly as you stated above. I'm creating a shortcut now and not having to reinstall the patch each time. Again, it would be nice if we had a developer confirm the issue. It could be quite nasty in their next release. FYI... I do not experience a licensing issue when I do your work around above.
 
nope that won't let you open a roster or load an existing file.. Also get the licensing issue too!
 
fyi.. reinstalled.. after deleting all registry entries, and I'm back to where I started. So I do not believe your clean rebuild will help but let me know since we are the only ones out here talking about this. Also, I sent a message back to support to see if they could let us know if they can help -- also requested a reset of my account so I could restart (not needed now)? I don't anticipate a response at this point and feel as if we have been left out to dry so to speak -- I wonder if I can get the $40.00 back that I spent on the non-functional product, or just chalk this one up as a learning experience, and never buy anything from lonewolf again -- (damm and I liked using it as well, too bad eh!). Anyway, let me know how the rebuild over the holiday's go!
 
Unbelieveable ...

GEEZ! What a simple fix! I ran from the command line and it worked. Changed the properties to Win2000 compatibility mode (left advanced text services on) and it works like a charm now. Why in the name of all the gods doesn't Lone Wolf simply acknowledge the problem and post this easy solution.

Thunderheart
 
Interesting that this works for you, when I try it... it indeed corrects the buttons, however if I try and save a file AB will crash. :-( then I have to reload after cleaning any reference to AB from my registry since this modification is set in the registry and is not updated with the install.
 
Don't know if anyone has noticed or not but the billing portion of their site is the only part that still works. They abandoned us all
 
I reformatted my laptop in December and re-installed Army Builder. Note that I had been planning on doing a reformat for some time as a number of applications were playing up and I don't consider it to be Army Builders fault.

All is working fine again now.

Regards

Mark C
 
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