potterr on 19/2/2006 at 22:48
Quote Posted by deadman
Yeah, all I really wanted was for GL to make some backup of changed files or otherwise reference whatever files changed, so I could go back to the original install without uninstalling both GL and Thief 3.
It does, it puts them all in a ORIGINAL_BACKUP.ZIP file in teh T3 root folder before starting, and creates a current_install.txt file in teh t3\system folder. Deleting all files found in the current_install.txt file, delete the user.ini file and remove the GLBU extention from the user.ini.glbu file and finally unzipping all the files from the original_backup.zip will restore to a clean install.
Quote Posted by deadman
It should definitely revert back to vanilla T3 if/when FM installation fails
Something I have on my list of things to do, however I needed more info on where the crashes are occuring first.
Quote Posted by deadman
Be that as it may (I know it isn't "fair" to say this), DarkLoader hardly gave me any problems, so I have a much higher opinion of that piece of software. Years of fun and stable FM installations.. Granted, you're still developing and improving GL, so I'm not saying "I'll never like/use GL," I'm just hoping the next version is a lot more stable on my OS.
It should be, masses of bugs are fixed, the flow has improved a lot and there is a lot more error trapping.
Quote Posted by deadman
It actually crashes each time I initially install and open GL, after picking my Thief 3 installation and FM directory, giving me a run-time error 91 or 97, I believe. I'm almost cringing in anticipation of it crashing :p
Its run time error 9, not really a massive fault there, it is due to a missing error check.
Basically when you close the configuration window by saving, the window hides while it processes. The main interface window then runs a bit of code to do a windows API call as you move your mouse over it to determine if it is the active window...However as the config window is still active but not visible for that brief millisecond, the windows API call causes an error as there is no active and visible window...This is fixed in the next version.
Crispy on 20/2/2006 at 06:15
Quote Posted by potterr
It does, it puts them all in a ORIGINAL_BACKUP.ZIP file in teh T3 root folder before starting, and creates a current_install.txt file in teh t3\system folder. Deleting all files found in the current_install.txt file, delete the user.ini file and remove the GLBU extention from the user.ini.glbu file and finally unzipping all the files from the original_backup.zip will restore to a clean install.
Hmm, a suggestion just occurred to me - instead of creating user.ini.glbu, why not put the original user.ini into original_backup.zip? That gets rid of two of the above steps in one stroke. Obviously you have to make sure that you've chosen to overwrite existing files when unzipping before this will work. But then all you need to do to restore the original game is to delete files listed in current_install.txt, and unzip original_backup.zip. Easy.
potterr on 20/2/2006 at 19:16
Quote Posted by Crispy
Hmm, a suggestion just occurred to me - instead of creating user.ini.glbu, why not put the original user.ini into original_backup.zip? That gets rid of two of the above steps in one stroke. Obviously you have to make sure that you've chosen to overwrite existing files when unzipping before this will work. But then all you need to do to restore the original game is to delete files listed in current_install.txt, and unzip original_backup.zip. Easy.
Ah but the problem with that is that you would lose any custom settings you may have done (locale settings, tweaks, etc (think it may affect the minimalist project as well). This is why the patch process was done, so that an overwrite wasn't actually done but an upgrade was.
By backing up in the original_backup.zip it would mean that the current user.ini file gets replaced with the authors one, set up for the authors PC, with the authors language settings, which would in turn cause conflict with some T3 installs.
By backing up as a GLBU (GarrettLoader BackUp) file, and using a known different named user.ini file, GL can scan it and pick out the bits that are different and then add to the user.ini file. Then when the original missions are installed or another FM is installed the user.ini file is deleted and the .GLBU is dropped from the backup file ready for if it needs changing again for the next mission.
The patch process works on all the T3 ini files so if a default.ini file is in an FM zip then it would definately wipe tweaks added by the user.
The other thing is that it shouldn't really bomb out in the first place unless it has had serious problems getting to files. I am hoping that the next version is much more stable for people.
Crispy on 23/2/2006 at 09:20
Quote Posted by potterr
By backing up in the original_backup.zip it would mean that the current user.ini file gets replaced with the authors one
I don't see why that has to be the case. All you need to do is:
- Back up user.ini in original_backup.zip, but keep the original copy of user.ini in its current location
- Scan through the user_patch.ini (or whatever it's called) and add all the data from it to user.ini
That way anything that the FM author doesn't include in user_patch.ini will simply stay the same. No locale settings, Minimalist changes, and so on are lost.
Quote:
The other thing is that it shouldn't really bomb out in the first place unless it has had serious problems getting to files. I am hoping that the next version is much more stable for people.
That's good. Whatever works! I was just vaguely wondering why you hadn't done it this way in the first place. :)
potterr on 23/2/2006 at 17:39
Quote Posted by Crispy
I don't see why that has to be the case. All you need to do is:
- Back up user.ini in original_backup.zip, but keep the original copy of user.ini in its current location
- Scan through the user_patch.ini (or whatever it's called) and add all the data from it to user.ini
That way anything that the FM author doesn't include in user_patch.ini will simply stay the same. No locale settings, Minimalist changes, and so on are lost.
Thats effectively whats already happening, however rather than put it in the zip file it creates a backup by creating a copy and giving it an extra GLBU extention. The reason being is that it is more readily accessible should issues occur.
Quote Posted by Crispy
That's good. Whatever works! I was just vaguely wondering why you hadn't done it this way in the first place. :)
It seemed the more logical way to do it due to the flow.
GL backs up matching files from the hard drive that are in the zip via a standard sub. It seemed more logical not to backup the user.ini in the backup zip itself if it was not already in the FM zip. Effectively it results in a smaller amount of code and a more generic process (seeing as with regards to previous comments about custom user settings, the most suitable way of dealing with ini file updates is to patch anyway).
str8g8 on 7/3/2006 at 10:26
I've just tried packaging up my FM for GarretLoader. Objectives etc all show up fine, and the map loads ok, then the game freezes after a couple of seconds :( Ambient sounds carry on playing and I can exit out to the menu, etc.
Anyone else experience anything like this? I'm guessing I'm missing some resource or other but I have inlcuded pretty much everything I can think of. My map has custom textures, smeshes, emitters, but not sounds.
Needless to say, don't have this problem when playing the same ibts through the editor install. Also, I'm using the T3Main from the GL site. Tried a couple of other FMs, and they work fine. Installed on a test machine - same problems.
Any ideas?
Edit: Just did another test by manually unzipping the FM package on a clean install of the editor folder (on a different machine), so that it would have to rely on the resources in the zip, but would hopefully leave some clues as to what was missing, but guess what? It ran no problem! I'm not sure what this means however ...
Edit: Actually, although it ran, the custom emitter's textures were missing - hopefully this is the problem (just have to figure out what I need to include) ...
potterr on 7/3/2006 at 17:32
str8g8, have you included all the correct info in your user_patch.ini file (not just the user.ini file as you are likely to change peoples personal settings by using your user.ini file as is.
str8g8 on 7/3/2006 at 17:40
yeah, I did the ini patch right (I think) ...
I think it's the custom textures for my emitters not getting packaged up in the ibts or something ... if you look at a vanilla install, there are unreal texture packages in the UTX folder, and the particles use these textures, not the ones in the matlib (I think). Have to wait till I get home to check ...
potterr on 7/3/2006 at 19:14
I don't know the full internal workings of T3main.exe however have you tried it with the debug version of t3main.exe and seen what the log files say? They should point out where the error is occuring.
str8g8 on 7/3/2006 at 23:35
cheers porterr :thumb: the log file gave me the clue I needed - it was giving errors looking for a shader file in system\shaders (whatever they are, I'm still guessing something to do with emitters??). Anyway, including the shaders folder in the zip solved my problem.
Nearly there ... :)
