Unspecified Error battle crash

**ilooklikelurch** · May 21, 2009, 09:56 AM

Okay. First, my problem. My copy of Medieval II worked for a good 6 months since i bought it, then all of a sudden... Unspecified Errors!!!
This would happen when i tried to enter any battle, on either my existing campaign as the British, or any new campaigns I started.
It would load slowly, show a brief flash of the battlefield (which looked like it was in negative colours or something, or like in a FPS game, if its ever glitched and youve fallen into the map... it looked like that) and then crash to desktop with the unspecified error messages.

So, I looked on the internets and found dozens of similar threads all with similar problems. None with a solution that worked. Clean uninstalls, reinstalls, nothing fixed it. My computers up to date. This was all on v1.0, no addons, mods, expansions or patches.

Then I tried installing patch v1.2 (I downloaded it from one of the sites listed on the total war website), thinking that would be my saviour, but alas, no. Upon installation I tried playing it, but it only got as far as the first loading screen with the knights in the town before crashing with another unspecified error message...
I didnt unpack any files so the 2 batch files "desc_geography" or whatever shouldnt need deleted.

Seriously I need an answer. Whats the problem, and how do I fix it?!
Is it a problem with my machine? Which I doubt, as it worked for months after purchase.
Or is it just a case of a bad product being released? Which again is unlikely as it worked for a good few months.
I dont want to buy a new copy to get the same problem, nor do i want to buy Empires, if its likely to happen with it too. Does anyone have any ideas?

PS sorry for the masses of writing, but all the threads i've looked at were very vague, and I really hope someone with better know-how than me can solve it so I wanted to give as much info as possible.

Cheers

**irishron** · May 21, 2009, 10:12 AM

After six months many things can happen and none of them good.

It's a known fact that 1.0 battles were bugged bad and play them at your own risk. 1.2 battles were about 50% better. It was never fixed when Kingdoms or Kingdoms Update were released. I am still fixing them in my mod along with the ones my predecessor introduced.

Now along with all the other problems that shown up in the last six months, what are your computer specs, your operating system, are all your drivers up to date including Windows, directx 9, .Net framework, and video drivers, and what programs have you installed since you first installed Medievl2?

There is a reason. We just have to find it.

**ilooklikelurch** · May 21, 2009, 11:29 AM

ummm dont know much about my computer specs... how do you get full details?
I do know its a Dell Vostro 1710 Laptop, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T8100 @ 2.1GHz. Something like 3GB RAM and DirectX 10. It's got Windows Vista Business, fully updated with all the service packs and everything. It did a .Net update not too long ago, I think its on 3 or 3.5 or something...
Its also NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS, and ive no idea about video drivers.

Programs (well most of them):
Any DVD Converter
AoA audio extractor
CDisplayEx
Daemon Tools Lite
Google earth
Limewire
Firefox
Rainmeter
RocketDock
Roxio Creator
VLC media player
Vuze
Winamp
WinRAR

As for other games I have Dawn of War, Age of Mythology (with Titans expansion), Sims 2 and Rise of Nations on the computer. Any ideas?

**irishron** · May 21, 2009, 12:07 PM

There are two for sure that won't let you go any further with this game. They are Daemon Tools and Limewire. Sega's version of Securom considers these possible tools for illegal activity and will not let the game play as long as you have any trace of them on your harddrive. If you have any others that fit in these categories, it will find those , too, with the same results.

For the copy protection your other games have, you can Google them. That's how I find out.

**ilooklikelurch** · May 21, 2009, 01:38 PM

I looked up secuROM and unspecified errors and found this on their website:
"In game crash - game can be started but crashes somewhere during playing the game.
This failure is not caused by SecuROM™. Please contact the software publisher for technical support"

So could this mean the unspecified errors arent connected to secuROM?
If they are would uninstallation of limewire, daemon tools, vuze and those kinds of programs, along with a clean installation of Medieval 2 make the game work again?
Its rather frustrating that I cant play a game I paid for just because of what else is on my hard drive...

**irishron** · May 21, 2009, 03:09 PM

Securom is shrugging its responsibility. "It's not my fault you have that stuff on there while I crash your game" mentality. You seachr this forumgoing all the way back to when the game was released and it's the same thing. Ive been looking at them long enough I know more than a few of Securom's moves.

Players can't play. Players remove offending software. Player can install, update and play. Yes, it is Securom because it's the only thing Sega installs that can do something like that.

**ilooklikelurch** · May 21, 2009, 06:17 PM

YES!!!!

Finally got it working. After all this time and wondering what was wrong... Turns out I hadnt done a REAL clean uninstall. Im an idiot!

I found a step by step guide (http://shoguntotalwar.yuku.com/topic...Total-War.html) and I hadnt been uninstalling everything. I had been uninstalling and then deleting the SEGA folder in program files, but I hadnt been cleaning the registry (Run, then "regedit") or appdata in users. There was a whole wealth of Medieval 2 data in:

"c:users/warren/appdata/local/virtualstore/programfiles/SEGA" as im on vista.

Didnt even know this thing existed. Full of files from games I thought i'd uninstalled.
Like 12GB or something of data from Medieval 2, even after I uninstalled!!! Getting rid of this and doing a clean uninstall let me run the game AND the v1.2 patch with none of the usual troubles.

So seems whatever was causing my crashes and unspecific errors was contained in here. Maybe a corrupt file, or something installed by secuROM? Who knows...

Anyways thanks a lot for the trouble mate

Really appreciate it. I hope this maybe helps anyone else with "unspecified errors".
I can finally get back to playing the game!!!