bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
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My computer mysteriously rebooted itself while I was playing a hold this morning, and now I have no holds at all in JtRH. Nothing, zip, nada, etc. Play Tutorial, Play New Game, Continue Playing Game, and Restore are all greyed out. All that's left is my player.

Any suggestions, other than scream and throw things around the room?

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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Before you do anything else, make a copy of all your .dat files. Mike can likely help recover your data but you should have backups as close as possible to the state they were in after the crash.

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krammer
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If you have a backup of your player, then try importing the holds then the player again - if it's the same one it should "merge" the savegames, demos etc.

If you don't have a backup, then... Sorry, and I sympathise - I've had the same probelm myself before. If you want someone to send you there saves file, I can do that - I've not got a massive amount of holds complete, but better than nothing. Alternatively - well, it *is* always easier second time through...

Wait - you've even lost the JtRH hold? Sounds dodgy. Try zipping up your dats and sending Mike a copy in case he can get anything back out of them...

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bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
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I have a copy of data.dat drom the time the computer rebooted itself, but player.dat is obviously newer. The problem now is, how do I get them to Mike? I'm sure none of my email accounts will handle a 148 meg file.

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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data.dat is probably not the important one in this case - it's the other data files that contain the hold headers and character progress (if data.dat was the corrupted file, you'd still be able to see all the holds on the lists, they just wouldn't work when you tried playing them.)

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bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
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I was hoping that creating a new player might let me restart, but every time I try to import a hold, JtRH just closes with no warning.

I've always thought that JtRH was strange in that you have all your eggs in one basket. It seemed to me that it would make more sense if each hold and its restores were kept separate - possibly a directory for each one - but maybe that wasn't even possible.

edit: It gets better - I can't read the DVD where I archived my original copy of JtRH, so I can't even install it again.

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[Last edited by bandit1200 at 04-25-2006 07:26 PM]

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

Well, the good news is I found a copy of JtRh on my laptop which is only 3 weeks old, but now I'm not sure I want it. I managed to read the DVD with my original install copy of JtRH by sticking a different DVD drive in the 'puter. I installed JtRH and imported Rassa Palace, which is the hold I was playing when the trouble started, and the game is totally different! I don't know how long since I lost the shaded square around Beethro when he is invisible, but that is back. Beethro again goes down the stairs instead of stopping on the first one until I press a key. When he is killed, the screen fades to black again. I had never even noticed all these had stopped working. In Rassa Palace, in the room with the triangle of trapdoors, there are now 4 checkpoints that I never saw before, and in another room, there are four force arrows that weren't there this morning. And the speed! It's great to have a game that responds again when moving between rooms and restores, etc.

The difficulty now is choosing between a great new game, and having all my completed and half completed holds.

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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Why don't you export your progress from the 3-week old JtRH and import it into the non-corrupted new version?

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Alneyan
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Some of the effects you describe could have been linked to settings. The shaded invisibility area comes from alpha blending (this option also enables the death scene for Beethro and the moving map, I think), and you can hide checkpoints if you so wish. The default behaviour is the one in your new version, so something was also wrong there if you don't recall changing settings.

Of course, I cannot offer any information for the rest of your problem. I couldn't program my way out of a paper bag, let alone debug said paper bag.

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
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eytanz wrote:
Why don't you export your progress from the 3-week old JtRH and import it into the non-corrupted new version?

Just copying the 3 week old version across would achieve the same thing wouldn't it? Without messing around exporting and importing. But I would also end up with a slow game again. Maybe I'll have two versions running instead.

Alneyan wrote:Some of the effects you describe could have been linked to settings. The shaded invisibility area comes from alpha blending (this option also enables the death scene for Beethro and the moving map, I think), and you can hide checkpoints if you so wish. The default behaviour is the one in your new version, so something was also wrong there if you don't recall changing settings.

Yep, that would account for various things suddenly reappearing. I probably unchecked alpha blending once when the game was running slow, and forgot to check it again. The checkpoints is a different matter as there was 1 checkpoint in that particular room, and now there are five. I *need* checkpoints showing, and I ain't complaining that another 4 turned up

I just checked that particular room in the Hints and Solutions forum, and the extra 4 checkpoints don't exist, so I wonder where they have appeared from. Hmm, the extra force arrows don't exist either. Cue the mingle mangle music.

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[Last edited by bandit1200 at 04-26-2006 12:13 AM]

eytanz
Level: Smitemaster

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Are you running the latest patch? Many (though not all) slowdown issues were resolved in the last few patches.

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NiroZ
Level: Smitemaster
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well what i would recommend doing is:

make a copy of your entire new JTRH folder, place it somewere else, then insert the .dat files into that(replace).

Does the copy work?

Also, if you want to send the file/files to mike, you get a bittorrent client, create a new torrent, send the .torrent file to mike(should be less than 100kb) hope that he has a bittorrent client, and send the files across.
I haven't tried it my self, but its theoretically possible, althought this process could take some time if one or both you you have a slow bandwidth.

michthro
Level: Smitemaestro
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bandit1200 wrote:
In Rassa Palace, in the room with the triangle of trapdoors, there are now 4 checkpoints that I never saw before, and in another room, there are four force arrows that weren't there this morning.

That could simply be because Rassa Palace has been updated somewhere along the line.

bandit1200 wrote:
And the speed! It's great to have a game that responds again when moving between rooms and restores, etc.

I know how you feel about the speed. The bad news is that it only seems to be faster because you have only one hold imported. The more holds you have, the slower the game becomes. If you were to recover all your progress and play that under the "faster" version, it would be terribly slow. The latest versions are only much faster. Try installing the latest patch (after backing up your DROD folder), and it should only be faster still. If not, there is a serious bug somewhere. Another good reason for keeping up with the latest version, is that monster behaviour sometimes changes, so demos recorded with an old version may become invalid.

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

eytanz wrote:
Are you running the latest patch? Many (though not all) slowdown issues were resolved in the last few patches.

I was running 2.0.13 on the copy that's damaged and on the laptop. I have since updated the new installation and the laptop installation to 2.0.14. The new version runs fast, the laptop version is slow. I did get a big speed upgrade with one of the updates, but it went downhill again after that. One thing I have noticed after updating the laptop installation, the percentage completed of each hold now shows much faster in the change location window. (I hope this is making sense, I spent the second half of the night having migraine, so things are a bit confused.)

NiroZ wrote:well what i would recommend doing is:

make a copy of your entire new JTRH folder, place it somewere else, then insert the .dat files into that(replace).

Does the copy work?

Unfortunately not, but that's to be expected.

Also, if you want to send the file/files to mike, you get a bittorrent client, create a new torrent, send the .torrent file to mike(should be less than 100kb) hope that he has a bittorrent client, and send the files across.

FTP would be much easier, especially as my ISP throttles P2P traffic.

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

michthro wrote:

bandit1200 wrote:
In Rassa Palace, in the room with the triangle of trapdoors, there are now 4 checkpoints that I never saw before, and in another room, there are four force arrows that weren't there this morning.

That could simply be because Rassa Palace has been updated somewhere along the line.

bandit1200 wrote:
And the speed! It's great to have a game that responds again when moving between rooms and restores, etc.

I know how you feel about the speed. The bad news is that it only seems to be faster because you have only one hold imported. The more holds you have, the slower the game becomes. If you were to recover all your progress and play that under the "faster" version, it would be terribly slow. The latest versions are only much faster. Try installing the latest patch (after backing up your DROD folder), and it should only be faster still. If not, there is a serious bug somewhere. Another good reason for keeping up with the latest version, is that monster behaviour sometimes changes, so demos recorded with an old version may become invalid.

I thought about Rassa Palace being updated and checked, but I am using the same version that is available in Holds.

I generally patch JtRH the day the patches become available, so it is always up to date. I understand why the game slows down, which is something else that comes under the "all your eggs in one basket" which I mentioned yesterday. I appreciate that the developers couldn't have known in advance what effect having over 100 holds installed would have.

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
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Guys, guys,

I see an assumption here that scares me. In the past, Mike has helped several people recover corrupted DAT files, but it's a time-consuming process. Let's not just assume he's going to recover your data for you.

The best assumption to make is that he won't fix corrupted DAT files or that even if he has time and is willing, that the DAT files won't be in a fixable state. I would much prefer that people make backups of their files, just like you would with any long-term project that you put a lot of time into. Asking Mike to recover your corrupted DAT files should be considered a last resort, and there's no guarantee that option will work or be available.

If you've exhausted other possibilities, then you can send an e-mail to bugs@caravelgames.com which Mike will get and ask him directly what can be done regarding recovery. He might ask for you to send your dat files. Don't expect him to set up extra software to make transferring the files easier for you. Let's put this in perspective--how many game companies do you know that would have their lead programmer analyze and fix corrupted data files for you?

-Erik

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bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

Don't worry Erik, I had no intentions of sending anything anywhere, at least without someone contacting me first. As it happens, I don't need to send anything to Mike.

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5064
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bandit1200 wrote:
I understand why the game slows down, which is something else that comes under the "all your eggs in one basket" which I mentioned yesterday. I appreciate that the developers couldn't have known in advance what effect having over 100 holds installed would have.

I understand this is a real issue for many "power" players and I think it's worth addressing. With thanks to Matt S. and Adam for helpful ideas, I've implemented several accelerated data lookups in the DROD 3.0 engine, written especially with scalability in mind. With all CNet holds imported (over 100MB of .dat files), these tables take up a few more megs of RAM, but there's minimal delay when going between screens, etc., on my mid-range computer.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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[Last edited by mrimer at 05-01-2006 03:24 AM]