BIG bug in PM08

Bug so severe that I had to wipe my computer

from Stardock Forums

As I was in the character editor, I loaded a previous design I made to tweak it a little. I decided that I didn't like the changes and tried to load the previous design.

Above my first design was a new design that was blank but had the same name. I tried to click on the one below this and the computer went blank. After rebooting my computer, I was on the desktop for about half a minute and the screen went black as it did before when it crashed.

I repeatedly tried to do different things in the thirty second window during this reboot - it certainly wasn't enough time to uninstall.

In desperation, I opened the game to see what would it happen. It was strange. The computer wouldn't black out as long as the game on. The odd glitch is that all of the character's heads were missing- they were just floating hair, ears, and a neck.

There was nothing I could do in-game to stop the crashes - I tried toying with all the options. I eventually had to wipe my computer blank and reinstall all my programs - a very annoying procedure.

I hope this message helps someone in fixing the bug. The game was very cool, but there is no way I'm playing it again until a patch comes out.

 

4,150 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from PolMach Forums Top

You had to wipe your computer?!  What did you do to this poor computer, Political Machine?!?

Do you know any of your system specs?  This is a weird one (but a doozy that needs to be fixed).

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm not sure if this is what you need, I got it off a diagnostics program...



Computer Type ACPI Multiprocessor PC
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180 (IE 6.0 SP2)
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Date / Time 2008-06-26 / 13:22

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 3200 MHz (16 x 200)
Motherboard Name Asus P4P800-E Deluxe (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 WiFi, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Springdale i865PE
DIMM1: Corsair XMS CMX1024-3200C2 1 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz)
BIOS Type AMI (08/04/05)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM2)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter RADEON X800 Series - Secondary (256 MB)
Video Adapter RADEON X800 Series (256 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon X800 XL (R430)
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (16211)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Realtek ALC850 @ Intel 82801EB ICH5 - AC'97 Audio Controller [A-2/A-3]

Storage:
IDE Controller Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 24D1
IDE Controller Intel(R) 82801EB Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 24DB
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive HP USB Device
Disk Drive ST3808110AS (80 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
Optical Drive _NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A (DVD+R9:8x, DVD-R9:4x, DVD+RW:16x/8x, DVD-RW:16x/6x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:48x/32x/48x DVD+RW/DVD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from PolMach Forums Top

the_great_loblo, 

I am unable to reproduce this on my end.

Could you please post the contents of your debug.err file here?

This file can be found in /My Documents/My Games/PolMachine2008/

You can open it with any text editor, and then copy/paste the contents here.

This will give us a little more diagnostic information.

Thanks in advance!

Reply #4 from PolMach Forums Top

I don't think the debug.err is going to be around after wiping his machine ;) 

1. Can you think of any reason a blank candidate would be created when editing an existing one?

2. What could have possibly have gone so wrong as to cause his machine (not while running PM) to crash after PM crashed?  I dont think it's a hardware problem, cause everything seems to work fine now :\

I'm at a loss...this is a really weird one.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
It appeared after I edited my character in slight ways. I just changed a few things, changed my mind, and went to the load menu.

There was a new character file with no image, but my name was next to it. I tried to load my old one that DID have a profile image - not this mysterious new one. It wouldn't render the character and then the screen went black ( except for my mouse cursor. )

Because the computer would only work with PM08 running but without the characters fully loaded, it had to have been some problem loading that character. Maybe it was some error looping over and over again, although I don't know why it would persist after rebooting.

Thanks for the feedback.