PFM serious problem

[eschelar]

So yesterday I had a forced reboot with a Win10 update and Win10's stability has decreased... had a crash while using the PFM and ever since then I am unable to run PFM.

4.1.2 throws exception e on start.
1.9 is able to run, but cannot load files due to files missing.

Haven't had time to experiment yet.

Any suggestions on what might be wrong and what I might be able to do to get running again?

[onmy6]

So yesterday I had a forced reboot with a Win10 update and Win10's stability has decreased... had a crash while using the PFM and ever since then I am unable to run PFM.

4.1.2 throws exception e on start.
1.9 is able to run, but cannot load files due to files missing.

Haven't had time to experiment yet.

Any suggestions on what might be wrong and what I might be able to do to get running again?

Oh dude that's bad news.
Have you tried dumping 4.1.2 and running your cleaning programs to clean out all the crap files and temp files loaded and bottlenecked on your PC, then re-unpack 4.1.2 and give the EXE file admin privileges and try also running it in compatibility mode Windows 7 (if you haven't already that is) and try again as raising an exception is a useful way to signal that a routine could not execute normally - for example, when an input argument is invalid (e.g. value is outside of the domain of function)or when a resource it relies on is unavailable (like a missing file, a hard disk error, or out-of-memory errors)

[eschelar]

Yeah I run that machine pretty Spartan. Going home to try some stuff now. Thanks.

[onmy6]

just curious what are the specs of the PC/laptop ie RAM. CPU, GPU that kinda thing?

[eschelar]

This is my lappy. MSI Dominator G 6QD
i7-6820, 16gb DDR4, GTX 970M Dual SSD Crive in RAID1 (software) - total 256gb - Steam and ETW both on C:

I've removed PFM, removed the folder for Pack File Manager in AppData and started it again. Now it is giving me another exception, with less information. It also thinks I'm editing for ATW, but it's not installed. I have a bunch of TW titles in Steam (bought a megapack), but I think Attilla is not part of that.

I spent around 14 hours over 4 days working with 4.1.2 and had zero issues with it prior to this.

I've verified the game files in Steam. I had one file that needed to be re-acquired, but I believe that was merely the Startpos from Empire Total Factions.

Otherwise, it's running fine, just Win10 is junk. ETW runs OK, but a couple of months back, there was an update and ever since then, I get screen blackouts when the frame rate drops. I played ETW for something like 2 or 3 months without any problems though. Annoying.

The error I've got is:
Failed to load DBE: The type initializeer for 'PackFileManager.ModManager' threw an exception.

Then:
Game not found
Currently edited game is ATW, but it does not seem to beinstalled. Make sure to select the proper game in the games menu.

Then (this is the new error):
System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'PackFileManager.ModManager' threw an exception. ---> System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Game directory not found: data at Common.PackLoadSequence.GetPacksLoadedFrom(String Directory)
at packfilemanager.Gamemanager.set_currentGame(Game value)
etc...

I can load the program 4.1.2, but can't do anything in it. Under the Games Menu, it shows that I am currently editing under ATW and all the games in the list are greyed out.

Under PFM 1.9, I am able to open files. However, when I click on the data in the database, it's giving me this error: Failed to download new db type definitions from "http://etw-mod-tools.svn.sourceforge.net/viewc/etw-mod-tools/trunk/DBFileTypes.txt". Editor will use the local copy instead.

Error was:
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array
At packfileManager.DbfileeditorControl.parseTypeMap...........

db data shows as "sorry, this db file isn't supported yet"

Next up, removing all files and combing the registry... whee.

[onmy6]

You"re running it in Atilla TW mode, go up to games in the menu at the top and changed it to ETW

edit: it would throw an exception if the games directory is pointing to the wrong game

[onmy6]

Delete 4.1.2 and then unpack it again from then zip and re-initialize it, click on the exe and it should the give you the options for which games you have installed then point it to the appropriate directory\ies if you don't point it to any directory it will default to Attilla

Edit: Nice PC BTW no probs there then

[eschelar]

I've done that about 7 times already. I've never told it to use ATW and it was pointing fine to ETW. When I can get the PFM running, it's pointing to ATW, but all games are greyed out.

BWAHAHAHA! FIXED!

No idea why the first problem happened, but there was nothing in the registry of any significance. Turns out though that since re-installing it the first time, I had been pointing at ETW\data, not ETW...

Pointed it correctly at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Empire Total War\ and now it's working again.

Feeling a bit dumb... Thanks for staying with me bud!

PS. Yeah, pretty sweet little laptop. First time I've had a laptop that can give a decent PC a run for its money in anything near the same price range. This laptop doesn't sell in my current country of residence, but when they sell something similar, it's almost double the cost of what I paid. The irony is that with the 2.7gb/s measured read speed off that ridiculous C: drive, it still takes 40 seconds to boot, but a cheap 6 year old laptop I built up at work with a Samsung Evo 840 (520MB/s read) boots up in 14s... No idea what they are playing at with Win10... I run around 40 comps on Win7 at the office, 2 in Win10 and we had to "upgrade" the 5 Win8 laptops we run to Win7 because of so many damned problems. W10 at least isn't so terrible for UX, but still loads of problems. Either of two laptops individually experiences more problems than all of the W7 computer put together.

[onmy6]

No probs mate, anyways I'm looking forward to your masterpiece mod with interested and there aren't really many of us left that still dig Empire and in particular the Americas theatre so.....

[eschelar]

Yeah, if only I had been able to get into modding back when I had time. I was very active here a few years ago and I had time, but Steam refused to let me use any payment method without physically traveling back to Canada. Since that's a very expensive trip for me and I only do it around once every 3 years or so, that meant I had no recourse. Not sure why I was able to do it, but I was successful in purchasing a *bunch* of stuff on Steam around a year ago at Chinese New Year. No idea why it suddenly decided to work. Since then, they are right back to their old ridiculous shenanigans of "you will have to return to Canada in order to purchase from our store".

Oh well. If only they had let me through, I would have been modding tons o' stuff since around 2011. I've been modding games since the early 90's... I find it keeps me brain cells sharp.

[onmy6]

Gee modding since the 90's gosh that's a long time eschelar. I've done alittle bit on "Total War" games a number of years back, when there was a team of us building and testing a mod called "Rome Medieval" which was kinda cool, basically turned the original RTW into MTW2 however all I did then was bug and beta testing and I was responsible for building the execute/installer, always have loved "Total War" games however when Rome 2 came out it annoyed me that much that a vowed I'd never touch another TW game, so I went over to my second love, (game wise) that is "Sid Meier's Civilization" games in particular Civ5, so I built a few mods for that that are up on Civfanatics download database and helped out on a couple of other mods there But when Civ6 came out recently I found that it had gotten too far away from it's original premise so I've come back to my first love TW games and ETW in particular as I think it's the best in the series, IMO anyways.

[eschelar]

well, back in the 90's, it was BBS games and muds... kind of different, but also kind of the same...