[TOOL] Empyrion Playfield Designer v2.43.0 EXP (Empyrion V1.11.x compatible)

Discussion in 'Planets & Playfields' started by jmcburn, May 5, 2018.

  1. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    Bug Report

    v1.95.0 [build 2713] (2020-01-09)
    v1.94.9 [build 2704] (2020-01-06)

    None of the versions can be started under Windows 10.

    Exception in virus scanner, Admin Start - Not helping. A log file is not even created or written
     
    #821
  2. Ephoie

    Ephoie Captain

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    I am not having an issue.
    Do you have windows defender on?
    Try turning it off, and disable your AVS.
     
    #822
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  3. jmcburn

    jmcburn Rear Admiral

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    As @Ephoie said, most likely an AV software deleted a file during extraction or still blocks some code in EPD.

    Re-extract EPD 1.95 b2713 into a fresh folder and check size of all files:

    This is the exact size EPD 1.95.0 b2713 should have:
    1. Size
    2. Size on disk (may vary depending on your disks cluster size)

    upload_2020-1-28_6-21-49.png

    If it's not exactly the same size, then some file got deleted during extraction. Try to exclude a folder in you AV first, then extract into that excluded folder and see, if all the files are there (and none of them has a size of 0 bytes).
    These are the files that should be there after extraction:

    upload_2020-1-28_6-24-30.png

    Hope that helps.

    /jmc
     
    #823
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2020
    Ephoie and Dietrich like this.
  4. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    I have checked and this is almost exactly the same size and no file is missing.

    EPD_Size_01.jpg

    Added the whole thing to the AV exceptions. Windows Defender is deactivated, so it was probably already removed from the AV.

    So I forgot to write it still won't start
     
    #824
  5. jmcburn

    jmcburn Rear Admiral

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    Hmm, strange, although I still think that it's most likely something on your end, as many people are using it and not having any issues starting it.

    Is there anything happening at all?
    - Splash screen showing the EPD logo
    - A dialog Asking to select Empyrion.exe?

    Or just nothing at all happening after run EPD.exe?

    Are there maybe old (invisble) instances of EPD.exe running in task manager already? If so, close them and try again.

    Hard to tell what could be the cause of this, if nothing at all is happening.

    /jmc
     
    #825
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  6. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    At the very beginning I accidentally loaded a wrong version (EPD_v1361) and immediately asked for the Empyrion root directory - but of course this version was not A11.5 compatible. And the whole thing did not go beyond the selection dialog.

    A security warning from Windows appears - you see the egg timer animation of Windows (I think that calls workload indicator) then nothing more. Nothing is written to the disk.

    There is no process or task running anymore.

    The folder where you unpack EPD doesn't matter at first or ? Is there anything else you need Netframework or something like that in version XY - something Windows doesn't already have ?
     
    #826
  7. jmcburn

    jmcburn Rear Admiral

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    I don't get any security warning at all when I run EPD, which might lead back to a defender thing or something else malware/av related, even if you already excluded it. Sometimes windows can be stubborn when it comes to false positives. :D

    Not to my knowledge, but maybe don't select a 'special' folder like c:\programs\ \windows, ... or something like that as those usually don't have write access enabled for apps.

    But maybe also check, if EPD already created /config subfolder. If so, delete it and try to start EPD again.

    I tried it on the desktop, on a second drive, even in Emyprion folder should be fine, although I don't recommend that because of game updates.

    EPDs .NET target framework is 4.6.1, so anything equal or above that version should be fine. That needs to be installed, but most apps use this, so most likely already installed on your system, but good idea to do a check. That could prevent EPD from starting resp. cause a crash right away.

    /jmc
     
    #827
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2020
  8. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    No, the dialog is completely normal and standard of Windows when running a program whose publisher is unknown. But the "stubborn" part is right.

    Okay then, it's not that.

    Damn the framework was my last hope but it is already installed.
     
    #828
  9. Ephoie

    Ephoie Captain

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    I'd be happy to do a one on one video chat to help isolate the issue.
     
    #829
  10. jmcburn

    jmcburn Rear Admiral

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    I'll check what is happening in what order at early start of EPD. Maybe I can find out at least what the cause COULD be.

    As far as I know, the first thing is show splash screen, then already create logfile. But I don't see how those two things could fail already.

    The folder you extracted EPD into does have write access allowed, I assume. Maybe you can recheck folder properties. :)
    Because if the log already fails, you won't get any information about it, as the log could not be created. Chicken and egg problem. ;)

    EDIT:
    Just checked the code, and basically the first thing EPD is doing is to create a logfile. So my guess is that something is preventing EPD from creating the folder and the logfile. If that fails, you won't get any error and EPD won't continue.

    So please try and create a folder called 'logs' inside EPD folder and in there ctrate a file called 'epg.log'.
    Then try again and see, if EPD continues.

    /jmc
     
    #830
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2020
  11. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    Thanks for the helpfulness but english is not my native language. Texting is good but voice/video chat ...
     
    #831
  12. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    Yes, it's really strange that nothing appears at all. In the meantime I have started the whole thing in a virtual VmWare environment (win7) and it runs fine. But of course this is not an elegant solution

    Yes, the tool is on a separate disk with no writing restrictions - but you can't really exclude weird things in Windows 10 :-(

    Unfortunately, that doesn't help either. Something really seems to be blocking it.
     
    #832
  13. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    I turned off this UAC of Windows for a test. And either I didn't notice it before or... The exe file is actually executed shortly.

    prozExp01.jpg

    Besides, I didn't even think to look at the Windows problem report since there is the following:

    WinProBer01.jpg

    Maybe this tells someone more like me - I'm typing that something with direct x is not ok or something like that ?
     
    #833
  14. jmcburn

    jmcburn Rear Admiral

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    Hmm, hard to tell. Obviously the DirectX 9 3D dll crashed. WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation, the UI framework EPD uses) makes use of DirectX to render the controls.

    But I honestly I have no clue, why it crashes. That's nothing I can control or debug on my end, sadly.
    That's all just pure internal Windows/.NET framework code.

    What graphics card do you have? Maybe a driver update can help.

    /jmc
     
    #834
  15. jmcburn

    jmcburn Rear Admiral

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    Here is something you can try.

    EPD Test version:
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/ox4fjmy7fsti0be/EPD_v1953b2788_public_exp_test.zip?dl=1

    I added a very early error try/catch clause. This can and should catch all early errors and throw you a messagebox with an exception message.

    If it does, please paste a screenshot of it here.

    This is also a new version of EPD, but not really tested yet. This is just to see, if an error message comes up.

    Maybe this sheds a little more light into the issue and gives a little more detail, why D3D crashed. :)

    /jmc
     
    #835
  16. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    Yes, it's very strange, especially because the older version is running (EPD_v1361_public) - so until the directory selection and that the exe is not in the root directory, the old version doesn't like it.

    Well it doesn't help to edit 11.5+

    Graka is an GF GTX 1060 - Try the driver update - If there is one available
     
    #836
  17. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    Thanks to you for your persistence and help - I'm almost uncomfortable to say that there is again no issue.

    The epd.exe appears for a moment as a task and then starts the Windows problem reporting.

    prozExp02.jpg

    The Windows recording seems to be the same. Driver is uptodate

    Quelle
    EPD

    Zusammenfassung
    Nicht mehr funktionsfähig

    Datum
    ‎30.‎01.‎2020 23:11

    Status
    Der Bericht wurde gesendet.

    Beschreibung
    Pfad der fehlerhaften Anwendung: D:\Spiele\Tools\Empyrion Galactic Survival\Editing\EPD_v1953b2788_public_exp_test\EPD.exe

    Problemsignatur
    Problemereignisame: APPCRASH
    Anwendungsname: EPD.exe
    Anwendungsversion: 1.95.3.2788
    Anwendungszeitstempel: 5e3315e1
    Fehlermodulname: d3d9.dll
    Fehlermodulversion: 10.0.18362.387
    Fehlermodulzeitstempel: c808fce5
    Ausnahmecode: c0000005
    Ausnahmeoffset: 00000000000ac416
    Betriebsystemversion: 10.0.18363.2.0.0.256.48
    Gebietsschema-ID: 1031
    Zusatzinformation 1: ba60
    Zusatzinformation 2: ba609e097c16d0410a395b78dbc00d72
    Zusatzinformation 3: 6df5
    Zusatzinformation 4: 6df5e24f7fc09853d518f6323ad7cd6b

    Weitere Informationen über das Problem
    Bucket-ID: bc8e5175fb413f842199bf7c12c61c8e (1268255309693328526)
     
    #837
  18. jmcburn

    jmcburn Rear Admiral

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    Well, I guess I'm out of ideas now. Still possible that something (AV, or other software) blocks a dll that EPD uses or somthing like that. then all kinds of stuff can happen, like the error you got.

    One last thing I read about WPF apps and d3d errors is though, that it's possible that they crash if you run them over a remote desktop connection. You did not do that, did you?

    That error catch I added in the latest update is placed now as the first line of code in EPD. Anything before that is out of my reach code-wise.

    If you ever happen to find out, what caused it, it would be nice to let me know. :)

    Sorry I could not have been more of a help.

    /jmc
     
    #838
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  19. Germanicus

    Germanicus Rear Admiral

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    #839
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  20. Daimonicon

    Daimonicon Lieutenant

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    @germanicus It wasn't exactly what helped but the direction...

    This can't be true it was apparently a background app which blocked d3d9.dll.

    In my case MSI Afterburner including its server app.

    I got the idea from the tip from @germanicus which didn't quite work. But through a further search on goggle I found a forum entry that writes about such problems.

    Now EPD is running and as I hope without further problems - thanks to all for the help and tips. :)
     
    #840
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