Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Technical Problems Fresh instalation crashing

from a fresh instalation, before restarting the computer Beyond Divinity runs perfectly. After i restart my computer, the game loads between 25% and 50% on the load bar and dumps me back onto the desktop. This also occurs when i exit beyond divinity and attempt to restart the game.

Game options selected:
new game
very easy difficulty
death knight- warrior with default stats
hero - thief with default stats

This is without the patch.

Edit:

problem identified and temporary solution found

Editor\dgen_themes.000
file is reducing itself in size from 2.5 mb to 1.5 mb upon startup of program beyond divinity and not properly reverting back to 2.5 mb size. this results in a file not found error, dumping the application back onto the desktop

temporary solution is to copy working 2.5 mb version over 1.5 mb version. it will work, just a pain in the but to do so.

thanks to raze for finding the crc checking program, i was looking for a rouge file, not a file with the wrong size, and it showed me the problem as clear as day.

After a fresh installation, aren't you forced to restart the computer to finish installing the copy protection drivers?

If you exit the game, run the configuration program and hit the reset button, does that let you play again? Alternately, you could delete the configuration files config.div, slashed.cfg and slashed-d3d6.cfg in the Beyond Divinity folder (if they exist), to force the configuration program to recreate them the next time it or the game are started.

Try deleting the files in the dynamic folders;
'..\Beyond Divinity\Acts\Act1\Dynamic', '..\Beyond Divinity\Acts\Act2\Dynamic', etc.
These folders are used as a cache for the game. Files are created / copied there from the save game folder when you load, and written / copied to those folders when you save a game. The files will be re-created as required the next time you start Beyond Divinity. If there was a corrupt file in those folders, deleting the files should fix the problem.

for the cd protection requireing a restart, it only asks if you want it restarted, but it is not required to run (from my experiance)
hitting the reset configuration button allows the game to load to 25% to 50% (same as not useing it), i will try deleteing the dynamic files as you suggested and will edit this post with results

Edit:

deleting dynamic files does not allow the game to load any further,

as of right now, i only get 1 running game per fresh installation

Edit 2:

I deleted the configuration files along with the dynamic files

I thought I had to restart, but don't recall if I tried the game again or just assumed it would repeat the reboot message.

Maybe try updating the StarForce drivers. This fixed a recent crash-on-start problem for a couple people, though in those cases they were getting an error dialog rather than a crash straight to desktop (but it was after the copy protection screen, during the load process).

Did you try deleting the configuration files? There has to be something different between a clean install and being played once. If not the copy protection or configuration files, then I'm not sure what. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Try installing the patch; this isn't a known issue, but maybe the patch will change whatever is causing the problem.

I vaguely recall someone having a similar problem awhile ago, but don't remember if it was for DD or BD. I'll search for it in a bit, and see if it could be relevant.

one thought that crosses my mind is moddifying the attributes of all game files right after instalation to be read only (when the game works), and letting any save/dynamic files that the game creates stay without the read-only part. And if that fails i can always try installing the patch,... 20mb dl (i'm beihind a dial-up)

i'll update the starforce drivers and edit this post with results.

Edit:

updating starforce drivers has no effect, removing starforce drivers activates a reinstall of starforce drivers, resulting in a consistant crash to desktop at 50% mark when loading the main menu

For StarForce games, it is required <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

strange how it only refuses to load AFTER the restart, and after the first exit.

I'm still playing around with the read-only attributes to try to get this game to work

modifying the read-only attributes of any of the files also results in an earlier crash to desktop (at 25% and earlier)

Entering the main menu and pressing exit somehow corrupts the game data files to the effect of the game not being able to load past 50% before the main menu.

asside from looking for a 3rd party crack/hack to fix the game, i've run out of ideas.

does anyone have any suggestions?

edit:

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/500/500092p2.html

from this preview article, it sounds like beyond divinity had some complications with the starforce drivers, and that the starforce drivers require a specific size for the game to run.

My guess is that when the game expands some game files to open/read/load them the file size changes, and when the game closes, it uses a different method to repack the files, resulting in a different file size and/or windows xp reports a different size.

if that's the case, theoreticly, the only way to fix the crashing is to isolate the starforce protection and to feed it what it wants to see so it will let the game load normaly, or get a patch that fixes the discrepency between the loading/unloading of the game files.

[color:"orange"]Entering the main menu and pressing exit somehow corrupts the game data files to the effect of the game not being able to load past 50% before the main menu.[/color]

You can use a program such as FileCheck (described below) to find out which files are changed between install and the first exit of the game. Searching from Windows Explorer for all files in the BD folders created that day and then sorting by date will identify any new files added (I would delete the files in the dynamic folders before doing this, since you know they are not the problem).

If you can delete any new configuration files or replace any modified files with the original versions and the game loads properly, then that will narrow down the problem. It is possible the game (or DirectX or StarForce) just does something differently on the first load, which may not show in a new or modified file.


I don't think any files are being expanded on start and then re-compressed. It would not make sense to base the copy protection check on any data that will be changed, so anything extracted on startup should just be closed on exit and the original archive/database left unchanged.


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The install program should report any problems, such as CRC errors, during install. However, if it fails to do so, or a file becomes corrupt after installation, the integrity of the files can still be verified using a program such as FileCheck; download (194KB). This is a small freeware program (no install required) to calculate the CRC-32 values (the cyclic redundancy check used in zip files) of a number of files. It can also compare a previously calculated CRC file with a set of files/folders.

After doing a clean install of BD and rebooting, I deleted the files in the '..\Beyond Divinity\DirectX9' folder (since they are not needed if/once DirectX 9 is installed). Then I used FileCheck to create a crc file of the game folders, installed the 1.45 patch and did so again, both before starting the game. If you compare the appropriate CRC file to your install, it should tell you if there are any corrupt files. You do not need to worry about moving any saved games out of the savegames folder or deleting the files in the dynamic folders, since new files will not be tested by FileCheck, just those listed in the crc file. If you have started the game and changed any options, there will be differences reported in the config.div and keylist.txt files. In my install the '..\Beyond Divinity\Editor\dgen_themes.000' file was also reported to be different.

There are several files in the Beyond Divinity folder created when the game is started or options are changed, including init.cfg, mapids.000, persist.dat, sinfo.000, slashed-d3d6.cfg, slashed.cfg, sound.cfg and starlog.txt. A couple other files are also added, but another crc file including these wouldn't help much, since most or all are system or option dependent, so these files would usually be reported as different regardless of being valid or corrupt.
At least the config.div, slashed.cfg and slashed-d3d6.cfg files in the Beyond Divinity folder can be deleted, and the configuration program / game will recreate them the next time it is started.

Beyond Divinity CRC files (190 KB)
[*] These crc files are based on the UK English version; the North American version should be the same, I think, and the Australian version not too different (it uses a different copy protection).
[*] FileCheck expects the files to be in the original locations to verify, so if you installed BD to a location other than the default (C:\Program Files\Larian Studios\Beyond Divinity), open the CRC file in Wordpad (for example), and do a search-and-replace so the file/folder paths match your install.

If your CRC values match, it is not the game itself, but likely a conflict with something else in your system or a problem in the saved game folder. When examining the list of 'errors' FileCheck produces, potential problem files would be those with an error trying to read, or with a large size difference (especially zero byte files) from the known good install.

i installed bd again, wrote the file size down byte by byte (Site Alpha)
copyied the entire install to another directory (site Beta)
started alpha, hit exit
folder of Alpha increased by 20 mb
19.9mb located inside acts/act1/dynamic/
after removing the dynamic files, the filesize is short by ~1mb, 1 new folder (capture) and 11 new files.
after looking through a combined search of both folders for 30 minutes, i reached the end without finding the extra files that the right click properties said were there, along with the missing 1mb.

i'll try the file you suggested and post results here.

in response to:
"I don't think any files are being expanded on start and then re-compressed. It would not make sense to base the copy protection check on any data that will be changed, so anything extracted on startup should just be closed on exit and the original archive/database left unchanged. "

logicly, it doesn't make sence, but what could be happening is the game extracts dynamic files for act1 and doesn't clean them up along with moving them instead of copying them to the dynamic folder. the crash to desktop could be from a request to load a file that isn't there. the 1 mb could be the compressed size and 21mb could be the extracted size (hence the 20mb difference above and 1mb difference below. how the 11 extra files fit in eludes me at the moment.

crc description:

Verifying CRCs in file C:\Verify.CRC ...
File C:\combo\Beyond Divinity_Beta\keylist.txt does NOT match.
OldBytes = 1012, NewBytes = 953, OldCRC = 658EE188, NewCRC = 2C5669C8
Directory C:\combo\Beyond Divinity_Beta does NOT match.
OldBytes = 25822243, NewBytes = 25822184
OldFileCount = 22, NewFileCount = 22
OldMetaCRC = 4C550BA3, NewMetaCRC = 651786B7
File C:\combo\Beyond Divinity_Beta\Editor\dgen_themes.000 does NOT match.
OldBytes = 2377817, NewBytes = 1458240, OldCRC = 939F577D, NewCRC = 85796BF6
Directory C:\combo\Beyond Divinity_Beta\Editor does NOT match.
OldBytes = 6142134, NewBytes = 5222557
OldFileCount = 4, NewFileCount = 4
OldMetaCRC = 496C02AE, NewMetaCRC = DDEE9DF7
Summary does not match.
OldBytes = 1710289480, NewBytes = 1709369844
OldFileCount = 6376, NewFileCount = 6376
OldDirCount = 370, NewDirCount = 370
OldMetaCRC = 9A6158F4, NewMetaCRC = 7D469DE8
Verify time = 77.4 sec (16 Oct 2004 19:11:28)

keylist.txt - is just hot-key definitions
dgen_themes.000 - this is where the 1mb shrinks from
it goes from 2.5 to 1.5 mb, my guess is that this is the title music or some other track (or group of tracks) that gets loaded, removed from archive, and thrown away. without that track the game would get a file not found error, and with most programming languages a file not found causes a crash (excluding visual basic command 'on error resume next')

to fix this, all i need to do is copy dgen_themes.000 that is 2.5mb over the 1.5mb

its a shame a bug like this could get past beta testing, but i guess anything could happen.

[color:"orange"]to fix this, all i need to do is copy dgen_themes.000 that is 2.5mb over the 1.5mb[/color]

My dgen_themes.000 file matches both the sizes and CRC32 values of yours, from before and after the game is started, and I have not had any problems. Perhaps when the Larians get back on monday they can try to figure out why that change would cause a crash in your case.

My file also matches those sizes before and after running the game. But i wonder if the problem is lying there.

1st you mentioned you dont have the patch. (i know dialup is painful, but a program like Download Accelerator Can help you to get the download over a couple of connecting times.)

This patch from Microsoft also sorts out a lot of crashing problems...

If you are unsure if other programs have crawled onto your computer without you knowing it, check and remove them with Spybot

Hope some of these links help.