Atomic Tanks crashes on startupMichaelWH - August 21, 2009 - 1:06am
I've downloaded and installed Atomic Tanks on several machines now (two virtual, two real). It crashes immediately upon being started in all cases. I've run it from a USB stick or straight from the hard drive. Same effect in either case. I've redownloaded and even confirmed MD5 signatures (using Portable MD5Sum). No changes. I've also tried running the launcher directly (as well as the "atanks.exe" file in the App folder) from the command line to no avail. In all cases where the official startup is used this is what happens (running atanks.exe directly skips the splash screen portions, naturally):
When I run these from the command line I get no feedback of any kind. No text telling me of a failure and/or its reasons. What else is there to do? Where else can I find information that explains the crash with an eye toward the developers fixing it? ( categories: )
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I am having the exact same
I am having the exact same issue!
At both of you, can you
At both of you, can you please tell me what windows version you are running? Off hand, I can't think of any issues, but perhaps we can try to find a common thread.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Windows XP SP3 with all the
Windows XP SP3 with all the latest patches applied.
More data points: I got it running on one computer finally. (One of my students' computer.) Looking over the two computers one thing stood out as a major difference between the two. All the systems I tested this on are either dual-core or have hyperthreading (which presents as two cores but doesn't perform like it). The machine it worked on is single-core and no hyperthreading.
XP SP3 is good
Works on XP SP3 without any issues here
PortableApps.com Advocate
I'm wondering if they are
I'm wondering if they are running a older version.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Me too
I am also having crashing issues - although I sometimes make it to the first shot before it happens.
I am running XP Professional Version 2002 SP2.
I did try deleting and reinstalling, but it didn't help. I am running AT off a USB stick.
Yep, I had it crash after the
Yep, I had it crash after the first shot. I'm not sure, its a fresh install. I'll have to poke around.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Just got upgraded to XP
Just got upgraded to XP Professional Version 2002 SP3 and Atomic Tanks now works fine. No other changes were made.
hope that gives you a clue as to what is going on......
Well...
It might be the service pack 2... Ill pass it on to the dev - maybe he can figure it out.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
nope, the computer I tested
nope, the computer I tested on was sp3
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Clarification
I didn't try shooting or that just did an open, run game computer fired a hot and closed. This worked on my pc which is Duo Core. Not sure how much that helps.
PortableApps.com Advocate
Please Right click on
Please Right click on AtanksPortable, then properties and tell me if the folder is read-only.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Please Right click on
No, it isn't. The only attribute checked is 'Archive'
Huh . . . Try unarchiving
Huh . . . Try unarchiving it.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
No difference, still
No difference, still crashes.....
It was marked read-only, but
It was marked read-only, but unchecking that changed nothing in the behaviour. It's still doing the crash-on-startup thing.
Further, the directory had to have been read-only on the machine that the game did work on (c.f. above for details) and it worked fine there.
It crashes for me
Running XP SP3
PortableApps is on an external hard drive
It usually crashes after the weapon selection screen before entering the game or right after the first shot.
It doesn't crash if it is run from the EXE in the folder, only when run from the Portable Apps menu
Vista
I tried it on Vista Home and it works fine there, but I still have the same problem on XP
Works fine
on xp vista business and xp proffesional
Only problems i've had is an occasional freezing of the screen but I think that's just because my flash drive is slow.
[username] [at] gmx [dot] us
I have an idea
Maybe its the compression that breaks it. I'll do an uncompressed test version soon and would like everyone who has had problems with the official release test it.
Stay tuned
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
New try:
Could you all who have experiences this bug please try this version and tell me if it still crashes?
I compressed the normal release like all Apps here (xcept Mozilla's) but sometimes it causes trouble. This new version is uncompressed to test if thats where the problem lies.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Tried with quad core- fire first shot, then crash
Downloaded the development version. Windows XP SP3 w/ quad core Intel.
Any other ideas?
oops
I linked to the wrong version. Here is the right link:
http://patrickpatience.com/nascent-project/simeon/AtomicTanksPortable_3....
Couold you try it agaon please?
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
WinXP SP3. I downloaded and
WinXP SP3. I downloaded and installed to the desktop and it crashed. It crashed.
The folder was read-only, so I changed that and it still crashed. Side note:Why no defualtdata folder?
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
side note:
It creates its settings on first launch so there is no need for a defaultdata folder.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
GetParameters?
I don't know, but maybe the function GetParameters causes the crashes. Is that possible? The ATanks Portable launcher has the lines
instead of
!include FileFunc.nsh !insertmacro GetParameters ${GetParameters} $0Well, ATanks Portable is working like a charm here, but maybe that's the reason.
That might
be a solution for the original poster.
not for the person where it crashes after selecting the weapons. I'll take a look.
Thanks for all your suggestions Bart.S. It really helps!
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Sorry, Simeon. No dice on
Sorry, Simeon. No dice on the changes. Still pops up the splash screen, pops up the window for a vanishingly small amount of time, closes the window, closes the splash screen in that order.
I just did a test by
I just did a test by downloading the original Atomic Tanks straight off of Sourceforge. It, too, has the crash-on-start behaviour. It looks like it's not the Portable Apps version that's the problem, but rather the upstream version.
Yes
I posted this problem in their forum and the dev was and is very helpfl. He tried my portable version and had the error too. He told me that he fixed some bugs in the weapons choice screen and that hopefully in version 3.9 this will be resolved.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
I'm getting the error in the
I'm getting the error in the non-Portable version 3.8, so I'm assuming it isn't the Portable wrapper causing problems. Also, I don't think this has anything to do with weapons selection since I don't even get to the point of displaying the first menu, not to mention down to weapons selection.
According to my testing it
According to my testing it only works flawlessly in 95/98 and Windows 7.
In XP you have to set the compatibility mode of atanks.exe (right click the file once you have found it. There is a compatibility tab on XP and higher.) to '95' or '98'.
Atomic Tanks ( both portable and non-portable) refuse to run on 2000 and NT.
Hm
It works for me and a couple people I know on XP.
But they did a couple of fixes in the 4.1 release which I is due any day now so I hope it works then.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Bring up the icon properties
Editing the icon properties for atanks.exe and setting compatability mode to 95 or 98 does not work for me at all.
This indicates that it is some other problem.
All I get is a green or purple coloured box that flashes on screen for less than a second then the game exists, i.e. the game doesn't even start...
Spec's I tested the game under:
Win XP
Service pack 3 with all updates and security patches
Intel N270 processor
2 gig ram
This should be marked as beta software
Best regards
- amigajunkie
Bugged as hell !
Atomic Tanks portable app release does not work for me either. I downloaded from the sourceforge link.
Symptoms:
Green screen briefly flickers on screen then disappears and no game starts. Doesn't even reach the intro screen on starting the game!
My system Specs:
Atom N270 processor
Win XP with Service Pack 3 (with all latest updates).
2 gig RAM
Can the author not fix this? It's driving me nuts. I loved playing scorched tanks on the Amiga and am eager to play this on my pendrive. Somebody please help fix the crashing issue please (and provide a new link on the portable app page to a fix version)...
Best regards
- amigajunkie
OK
I posted your problem in the Atanks forums and got this answer:
I read through the bug reports on the page you linked to. I think this is an issue with 64-bit multi-core machines. The same problem has been reported from some Linux users too. I'm going to try a work around for this in the next version. Hopefully around the end of the year.
Try asking your users to run Atanks with the --nobackground flag set. This has helped some people. If it doesn't work, then ask them to try again with the next release. We're working on it.
Does that help?
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
How do I set the
Well my little Intel Atom N270 in my netbook is hardly 64 bit or multicore, so I fail to see how this is the cause of the problem of the game failing to start...
Nonetheless, I shall test with --nobackground flag.
... But how do I set the --nobackground flag in the Atomic Tanks startup script? I ask as I don't want to launch it from dos shell everytime
Will let you know if this fixes the problem with regard to running the game successfully on my machine...
Best regards
- amigajunkie
AtomicTanksPortable.ini
Set "AdditionalParameters=--nobackground" in AtomicTanksPortable.ini.
More info could be found at AtomicTanksPortable\Other\Source\Readme.txt.
Okay, I added edited
Hi Bart S,
Okay, I added edited AtomicTanksPortable.ini as per your suggestion:-
... Then I added to AtomicTanksPortable.ini
AdditionalParameters=--nobackground
Result:
Quick flicker of purple screen on startup (about half a second) and the game doesn't even start. I suggest the beta testers start looking at other ideas as to what the problem is, as this does not fix the problem
I'm running Win XP (SP 3 + security updates) and Intel N270 processor
Best regards
- amigajunkie
Hm
I have no idea what could cause your trouble
If you really want to help, you could register in the Atomic Tanks forum and post your problem in the bug section.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
[AtomicTanksPortable]
Just to be sure, have you added the line above to your ini too? Your *.ini should look like this:
Otherwise, maybe AtomicTanks 4.2 (has been released today) fixes your problem. I guess Simeon and John are working hard to get the portable version done.
this is annoying...
i just tried out atomictanks 4.2, and come up with the exact same problem. tried ini fix, but still no luck.
What's your system?
Try maybe "AdditionalParameters=--nothreads"
or "AdditionalParameters=--depth 16".Edit: Sorry, "--depth 16" was a bad idea. Tested that switch and AtomicTanks crashes
i figured...
I was wondering where you got that switch
I am lost here. Too bad the windows version cant be debugged easily.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Lol, README is the magic word :)
I thought about wrong screen resolution, so the switches "--width <number>", "--tall <number>", "--depth <number>" came to mind.
Maybe AtomicTanks needs more windows developers, cause the portable version is very popular:
Downloads non-portable AtomicTanks (version 2.4-4.2) : ~36000
Downloads AtomicTanks Portable (version 3.8-4.2): ~74000
Sourceforge.net statistics
screen resulution...
tried atomic tanks on my Acer Aspire One (screen res. 1024x600), did not work... but on my HP Pavilion Desktop (screen res. 1680x1050), and worked like a charm... maybe it has something to do with screen resolution?
atanks-config.txt
Alright, you could try to edit the screen resolution by hand.
where is it?
i looked in the folder you specified, but found the folder empty. maybe you could post the contents of atanks-config.txt, so that i could create the file?
Created on first launch
The file will be created on first launch. So either run AtomicTanks Portable on your HP Pavilion Desktop once and copy it to you Acer Aspire One or create the file manually and put the following in:
Good news :)
Quote from the dev of ATanks:
I think I've found the problem. We should have this fixed for 4.3.
Lets all hope he is right. Its such a cool App, isn't it?
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
thanks!
the proposed fix is much appreciated. lets hope it works this time!
Atomic Tanks 4.3 is out :)
Well, at least the source
Edit: Yay, great release. Binaries are available now!
The german weapons file is broken now. Simeon, please have a look at it before releasing the portable version. Thanks for your great work on this.
:(
well, i just tested atanks 4.3, but to no avail.
Graphics Settings
IMHO it's still the screen resolution causing your problems. All bug reports I've read deal with netbooks and screen resolutions something*600 pixels.
If that doesn't work, you could try to launch Atomic Tanks fullscreen.
Set your AtomicTanksPortable.ini like below:
Hope that helps.
Thanks
for helping out here so much!
You posted ~twice as many posts here as I did
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate