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C1 Genetics Kit: looking for files!   
NeoQwerty

NeoQwerty
Canada  


  8/14/2017  1

Right, so I might have solved some of my problem with the C1 kit: the file available for download and linked everywhere? It's corrupted and causes buffer overflows querying things and trying madly to fix itself.

I'm now calling for ANYONE left in the community to get in touch with me if they have either: a version of the installer that, when opened with 7zip as a zip file, does NOT have an underscore instead of the third letter of its extension files on everything but SETUP.EXE and SETUP.LST, or someone who has a stable working Genetics Kit to provide me with most of the raw files in its folder: (just copypasted will work, ironically enough the setup was spared JUST enough that it correctly installs and registers most of the Kit)

The "chemicals" DEF and TXT files
Possibly the "Genetics Kit" EXE, CNT and HLP files
The "PoseName" DEF and TXT files

Not required, but if you have a copy of setup1.exe (not SETUP.EXE, that one is whole) I would have all the files contained in the installer.

I can thankfully backtrack everything else to working DLLs included in various Microsoft programs, which means SFC /scannow repaired the files that the installer broke.

 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  8/14/2017

Where did you download the corrupted file from?

My TCR Norns
 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  8/14/2017

Here. Straight from my harddrive. I even reinstalled it onto my own C1 and tested editing and saving genes with it. All works.

Btw, the presence of underscores in those filenames is not a sign of corruption. That's just how the files are packed for that particular installer.

 
NeoQwerty

NeoQwerty



  8/14/2017

Thanks, GimmeCat! What OS are you running? Is it Windows 10 x64? (I'm trying to figure if it's every Win10 or every 64 bit windows OS, or if it's just my own install it doesn't like, no matter how I try to fool it with compatibility mode...)

Also Malkin, it's the file provided via Gameware Europe's own archive of the Creatures resources.

I said that the version everyone links to was corrupted because the installer file itself had an error that 7zip reports as "warning: there is some data after the end of the payload data" when parsed in Windows 10 x64. It also never finishes setup despite saying it completed setup and placing me back to the Winzip Self-Extractor, and when I click cancel (the "setup" button is greyed out), it says "SETUP.EXE is still running, if you cancel now temporary files won't be removed".

There were also several corrupted DLLs that had the same names as the ones in the installer, when they were fine before. I've run SFC before install, then after install, then after the Genetics (and Preview) Kit crashed, and it seems to have been a one-off error, thankfully. No repairs to files had to be carried out.

The Genetics Kit.exe installed with the installer goes into buffer overloads trying to query multiple DLLs and the system's own error traps has to forcefully stop it. It can load genomes. It can automatically correct genomes. It can save genomes. It can inject eggs. But it crashes if I click on a gene or try to adjust a tab's width, which means a very specific part of the exe is crashing the whole thing down, and it does that even when I'm running it with Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode as admin, from My Documents.

Likewise, the TXT files show up in JAPANESE in notepad, and in notepad++ they use bad encoding and seem to have been corrupted, though they're at least in english that time.

You can see where I'd get the impression that the installer is corrupted, right? This is the first time I've seen a program only crash when I try to interact with a very specific part of its GUI while everything else is fully functional, the only time I've seen this sort of behavior on programs before is in videogames that read corrupt data as valid instructions and tries to carry it out.

Also, having tracked down the Preview Kit via AmberCreatures and installed THAT one? Its chemicals.txt file isn't being rendered as japanese, though it also has that crash glitch where trying to select a gene or resize the width of a tab crashes the Preview Kit, and an installer that never closes the winzip extractor properly, either.

But I can at least say that I've tried as much as I could to troubleshoot it, and the only two steps left are to "transplant" someone's working installed Genetics Kit files to mine and see if it was the installer being bugged in Win10 x64, or if the program itself is a mostly lost cause except as a slightly more useful Preview Kit unless I run Windows 98 in a VM.

 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  8/14/2017

Just another reason why Win10 is garbage, IMO. :P

Ok, try the transplant idea. Can't hurt, though I can't see it working any better.

I'm on Win7 x64, btw.

 
NeoQwerty

NeoQwerty



  8/14/2017

Ok, I have now confirmed it's ALSO not the files. Looks like it's just C++ and the buffer overflow crap...

Funny enough, chemicals.txt STILL thinks it's been encoded in japanese in the transplant.

Guess now I'm off to set up a virtual machine and see if it behaves in that. On the plus side, with all this I'll have a solution if other people in Windows 10 want to use the Genetics Kit! :D

 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  8/15/2017

I use the kit in Windows 10 and don't have these problems fwiw. So I don't know why they're happening but it's not that in itself.

This may sound silly but have you tried doing it without assuming it's broken? No compatibility mode or anything? I ask because many of us user Windows 10 and while some bugs happen this kind of total misbehavior is not something I've seen posted here in the year or so I've been watching. I was running it just fine in Windows 10. Albeit I used the C3DS version more often, I have done editing projects with the C1 version. I don't think the file we've all downloaded and generally had work is now corrupt. If that's the case it's a recent change.


Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
NeoQwerty

NeoQwerty



  8/15/2017

Win10, x64, latest update.

Tried it normally. Tried it as admin. Tried it in compatibility mode for win7. Tried compat mode win7 as admin. Tried it in compat Vista. Compat Vista admin. Compat XP. Compat XP admin. Ran Process Monitor to see what was going on (buffer overflow when i try to select or edit a gene), ran SFC to be sure and repair any bad DLL. Tried to redownload the file. Tried to redownload the waybacked file. Tried uninstall, reboot, reinstall, reboot, attempt. Tried to install it at three different spots (default, in GOG's folder, in Documents). Tried it with GimmeCat's installer download. Tried it with GimmeCat's confirmed as working on Win7 x64 files.

I'm bugging a friend with a win10 x64 install to try installing and editting to figure out if it's Win10 x64 that doesn't like it, or just mine.

Anything that isn't on the list that I haven't tried?

(in case it wasn't clear from text, no, I'm not trying to be a smartypants or rude, I'm seriously baffled and I spent hours trying out random stuff to fix it, I would LOVE if anyone can think of anything short of "reinstall windows 10".)

It works in an XP virtual machine, at least, and my computer turns out to be Hyper-V able, so I just had to enable that and get XP Mode's virtual drive. Downside is, I'll have to keep reinstalling the drive every month, but that's pretty easy to automate.

 
GimmeCat

GimmeCat



  8/15/2017

NeoQwerty wrote:
I'll have to keep reinstalling the drive every month, but that's pretty easy to automate.




Why's that?

The only other thing I would suggest is try installing the Gen Kit in a simple location like C:\Creatures\GenKit, to avoid the common problems of it hating the Program Files location and foldernames that are potentially too long, like GOG's default.

But tbh, a buffer overflow speaks of a system incompatibility to me, like Win10 just doesn't know how to handle the ancient memory instructions the prog uses. But others say it works just fine, so... it is a baffling issue.

When you were in your BIOS, did you look around for other features that might potentially have an effect?

 
NeoQwerty

NeoQwerty



  8/16/2017

The virtual drive I'm using (Microsoft's own XP Mode) only has a valid key for versions of Windows that support XP Mode officially (so 10 isn't given a working activation key and needs a real XP license key), meaning that after 30 days it just refuses to work.

And I tried just placing it in root (C: ) and SAME THING as everywhere else, sigh.

The documents path itself was this: C : /Users/Laharl/Documents/Creatures/C1GenKit/ to avoid a possible space confusing it, old-school DOS-friendly style, so that one's not the problem, either.

I did NOT go ANYWHERE near my BIOS, ever, I'm properly paranoid about bricking my computer. I only enabled Hyper-V from the Windows Optional Features after querying via command prompt for a program to report if it had the hardware to support it.

That's why I'd like to know if anyone who's reporting it working on Win10 are using the x64 version or not. No one who answered "it works on Windows 10" specified they're using the 64 bit version, so I'm wondering if it's that, specifically, that makes it confused. because I know Win10 removed a lot of legacy support, and 64 bit removed support for 16bit...

At this point it's more that I want to narrow down what went wrong (is it just me somehow?) before I start telling people "set up a virtual machine and run it in there" as a solution that could be a little less full of steps. ...At least in my case, I was going to set up a virtual machine anyway because I wanted to go play Jezzball.

 


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