Slitherine

If you run the game and you see nothing on screen, except maybe a flash of a DOS box then it could be that your settings file is corrupt.

1. The good news is that this issue is easily fixed by deleting the settings.txt file located in "*:\My Documents\CEaW\" in the vanilla game and in "*:\My Documents\CEAW Grand Strategy" in our mod and then restarting the game.

2. The bad news is that is took me well over 2 hours to figure out that this was the problem and implement this simple fix. This "figuring out" included restoring my C drive to two different restore epochs including 24 hours earlier. While that cost me 24 hours of email, which was a price I was willing to pay, that didn't fix my issue with the corrupted file. Why? Because I had moved the location on My Documents from its default windows location on my C drive to another location on my D drive. My D drive was unaffected (intentionally) by the restore; thus, the restore had no impact on fixing this issue.

3. What was really baffling me before I figured this all out was that the vanilla game started up ok but our mod wouldn't even with a restore to a time where it was working previously (see 2). After the fact that's easily explained because the settings.txt for the vanilla game is located in "D:\My Documents\CEaW\" and for our in "D:\My Documents\CEAW Grand Strategy" on my machine. Only the setting.txt file for our mod got corrupted. It was after inserting some debug prints in a couple of files that I was able to trace the no start to where it was reading the user settings.

4. The symptom of the no start due to the corrupted settings.txt file was that the DOS prompt would pop up and then almost immediately go away. Or, when I tried to run the commander.exe file directly (which is only included in versions prior to MH gold v1.12) nothing appeared to happen.

5. Why did I post this? Hopefully to captured this lesson learned and pass it along to others. What was the lesson? Next time, if there is a next time, if I have problems with the game starting I will first delete the settings.txt file and for good measure all scenario files in "D:\My Documents\CEAW Grand Strategy\data\scenario\*.data" or "D:\My Documents\CEaW\data\scenario\*.data" and restart the game before I spend hours going down other rabbit trails.

Thanks for posting this. What exactly did you see on screen when the error occured? Nothing other than the command prompt pop up and disappear?

Once I'm clear what the symptom is we'll sticky this so others can benefit from it.

iainmcneil wrote:Thanks for posting this. What exactly did you see on screen when the error occured? Nothing other than the command prompt pop up and disappear?

Once I'm clear what the symptom is we'll sticky this so others can benefit from it.

Iain, nothing appeared on the screen. I ran it two different ways under DOS. The first was with a bat file that used the command

"C:\Program Files\Slitherine\Commander - Europe At War\CEaW - Grand Strategy\jre\bin\java.exe" -Xss20m -Xms400m -Xmx800m -classpath . CEAW 14100

to start the game. When I double clicked on the bat file (actually it was a desktop shortcut to the bat file) a DOS prompt flashed up showing this command and quickly went away.

Next, I opened a DOS window and changed directory to "C:\Program Files\Slitherine\Commander - Europe At War\CEaW - Grand Strategy". I then manually entered the above command in that window and nothing happen. Of course the DOS window stayed up but I didn't get anything in that window or elsewhere that CEaW had tried to start. It was only after I put some debug writes in a couple of files that I saw it was trying to start but died quickly when it got to loading the settings.

Bottom line is that for most users, including me, if you try to start CEaW and have a corrupted settings.txt file then it appears that nothing happened with the exception that a DOS window briefly pops up and then goes away.

I have this problem. Running Win7 64bit.
After launcher just get flash of dos screen then nothing. some disk activity but nothing shows up in task manager.
looked in my documents, but no setting file there, just in main folder in programsX86
any help would be appreciated!

simplesimon wrote:I have this problem. Running Win7 64bit.
After launcher just get flash of dos screen then nothing. some disk activity but nothing shows up in task manager.
looked in my documents, but no setting file there, just in main folder in programsX86
any help would be appreciated!

Which version of CEAW are you trying to run?

Also, since you're running Windows 7, have you looked at this too? viewtopic.php?p=110391#110391

MH CEAW 1.12
just going through the uninstall/reinstall route

no joy... same problem

Ok! Third time lucky....
Uninstall everything and deleted folders left behind.
Install CEAW 1.12, works ok
Install GS 1.05, no good same problem...

Uninstall everything and reinstall, this time GS 1.02, all works ok! yay
Install incremental upgrades from other threads, all works ok! now have GS1.05

Dunno what was up, just one of those computer type things, but all happy now

I had a problem looking exactly like this, I deleted the setting files but now when I start the game it does not run and the files do not get recreated... when I run from command line I get the following error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: CEAW

For all having similiar problem - you can can't install 12.1 patch without starting the game first. So the order is - install game up to 12.0, run the game once, install patch 12.1. Then it should work just fine.

I am having the same issue of GS not starting at all. 1.12 gold starts just fine. I have tried the deletion of settings and even reinstalled but still the same issue. Anyone can help?

I'm having the same problem on 2.0.

Same prob with GS 2.0

GS 1.06 worked fine.

GS 2.0 pops up asking about full screen and sound OK.

Asks language OK.

The three title screens come up and then a DOS box flicks up and everything disappears.

windows 7.

If you installed GSv2.00 over the top of GSv1.06 (i.e., without unistalling GSv1.06 first) then check this out:

viewtopic.php?p=228286#228286

Let me know if that works or not.

Where do you find this General.txt file to delete? Please be specific as I have little knowlegde of computer stuff, but can follow directions quite well. Thanks

harlow wrote:Where do you find this General.txt file to delete? Please be specific as I have little knowlegde of computer stuff, but can follow directions quite well. Thanks

Are you having problems running GSv2.00?

If yes, did you previously have GSv1.06 installed?

If yes, did you uninstall GSv1.06 before installing GSv2.00?

If no, then check out viewtopic.php?p=228286#228286

Otherwise; which version are you having trouble running?

rkr1958 wrote:

harlow wrote:Where do you find this General.txt file to delete? Please be specific as I have little knowlegde of computer stuff, but can follow directions quite well. Thanks

Are you having problems running GSv2.00?

If yes, did you previously have GSv1.06 installed?

If yes, did you uninstall GSv1.06 before installing GSv2.00?

If no, then check out viewtopic.php?p=228286#228286

Otherwise; which version are you having trouble running?

I have the 1.12 version only, no previous GS installed. I deleted the scenarion info from a earlier post I read from the data/scenario and left only the 1939scn-1944scn and the war2map. When I open the game and click ok it disappears and nothing happens.

harlow wrote:I have the 1.12 version only, no previous GS installed. I deleted the scenarion info from a earlier post I read from the data/scenario and left only the 1939scn-1944scn and the war2map. When I open the game and click ok it disappears and nothing happens.

If you've never installed GS then you shouldn't have to delete any files. So, is CEaW 1.12 gold (or MH) not running for you? Or, are you having problems installing GSv2.00 over that version and getting that to run? And, by the way, have you created or customized any scenario (scn) files?

rkr1958 wrote:

harlow wrote:I have the 1.12 version only, no previous GS installed. I deleted the scenarion info from a earlier post I read from the data/scenario and left only the 1939scn-1944scn and the war2map. When I open the game and click ok it disappears and nothing happens.

If you've never installed GS then you shouldn't have to delete any files. So, is CEaW 1.12 gold (or MH) not running for you? Or, are you having problems installing GSv2.00 over that version and getting that to run? And, by the way, have you created or customized any scenario (scn) files?

My 1.12 gold is working as normal. I have not installed any GS prior to GSv2.00. I have not changed or modified any thing. I have uninstalled everything. Than installed the CEAW game, updated to 1.12 Gold, and than downloaded the GSv2.00. Still won't start. I have looked in my files and there is an error listed among all the downloaded stuff. When I open it it says "Kernel Memory checked off". Don't know what that is. I was looking forward to this upgrade but I guess it's not to be.

harlow wrote:

rkr1958 wrote:

harlow wrote:I have the 1.12 version only, no previous GS installed. I deleted the scenarion info from a earlier post I read from the data/scenario and left only the 1939scn-1944scn and the war2map. When I open the game and click ok it disappears and nothing happens.

If you've never installed GS then you shouldn't have to delete any files. So, is CEaW 1.12 gold (or MH) not running for you? Or, are you having problems installing GSv2.00 over that version and getting that to run? And, by the way, have you created or customized any scenario (scn) files?

My 1.12 gold is working as normal. I have not installed any GS prior to GSv2.00. I have not changed or modified any thing. I have uninstalled everything. Than installed the CEAW game, updated to 1.12 Gold, and than downloaded the GSv2.00. Still won't start. I have looked in my files and there is an error listed among all the downloaded stuff. When I open it it says "Kernel Memory checked off". Don't know what that is. I was looking forward to this upgrade but I guess it's not to be.

Check the following to see if that applies to you: viewtopic.php?p=228570#228570