More woes with Stiebler4B_Addon_for_V16B1

[GreyBeard]

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

Two days ago.......so I can now enjoy my favorite subsim.

So, if I just sunk a ship and I'm still submerged I can save right then and there, without surfacing? If that's true

I understand what you stated about installing mods and how careful one must be. It's one of the reasons I don't bother with SH5. Way to many mods required from what I can see, increasing the possibility of a conflict, imho.

Originally Posted by GJO

I take on board the comments by BigWalleye above - perhaps I need to re-install, start a new career and then not mess with the installed mods until that career has ended. But, having reached the end of 1943 and survived 21 patrols, I was, sort of, hoping to reach May 1945.

I agree with your positive connotation of BigWalleye. I have been around SubSim longer, but considering postings, he has been more involved than me by a longshot. I too may try reinstalling everything. Perhaps I should try a few saves with no restrictions first and see what happens.

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by GreyBeard

So, if I just sunk a ship and I'm still submerged I can save right then and there, without surfacing? If that's true

I have done that. I wait till the ship stops exploding, although I confess that is just superstition. But I have successfully saved with the sinking wreck still on the surface. And me submerged.

I'm currently in the Humber estuary, well within 50km of Kingston-upon-Hull. Save and reload OK.

Here is the thread recounting my efforts to solve my particular savegame problem. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=205755 (Only nine months ago, not a year.) It's lengthy, but so was the process of finding ALL the problems I saddled myself with.

Since making my reinstallation and rigidly maintaining a sanitary copy of the game, I have found the game saves to be pretty robust. Maybe I've been lucky. If so, I hope I can share it with you.

[GreyBeard]

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

.....Maybe I've been lucky.......

Nice disclaimer. I like that. In today's world it seems it has become a necessity. No different from what I would have done.

I am proceeding henceforth with restriction-less game saves with optimism.

[BigWalleye]

Originally Posted by GreyBeard

Nice disclaimer. I like that. In today's world it seems it has become a necessity. No different from what I would have done.

I am proceeding henceforth with restriction-less game saves with optimism.

Not meant as a disclaimer, except in the sense that I disclaim infallible knowledge of how anybody else's game will behave. With a system as complex as a computer environment running SH3 (and that's obviously not highly complex), I'm not smart enough to know for sure that what works for me will work for you. I know what has worked for me, I think I know why it has worked, and I hope that, if you try it, it will work for you, too. Computers erased any certainty I might have had a long time ago.

From my experience, it is not re-use of names that causes the problem. (This is a problem, BTW, which I have found is common to SH3, SH4, and SH5.) If you call your first save "Save1", then delete that save and call your second save "Save1", there is no problem. But if you call your second save "Save1" and tell the program to overwrite the old Save1, that seems to cause problems sometimes.

[GJO]

This is quite interesting - I haven't abandoned my career but I did a registry check with CCleaner and it identified 768 corrupt registry entries all of which appeared to be connected to SH3 - these have been removed and I have carefully re-installed the game and my mods (without Stiebler's patch - but that doesn't mean that I have given up on it) whilst preserving my career and SH3 Commander files. So far it seems to be working OK - but I haven't yet been brave enough to save and reload in the midst of battle.

I was also in the habit of using the same gamesave file names over and over again - i.e '2 Sunk', '3 Sunk' etc. I did have a suspicion that this may have been problematical so I have adopted a new regime of naming my gamesaves with a simple formula as follows: The game limits save names to 9 characters so my plan was to use the date and time (in game) of the save - my first character indicates the year (i.e. 3 = 1943) the next four characters the date (i.e 1022 = October 22) and my last four, the time (i.e. 1504 = 3:04 pm) that way there should be no duplication of gamesave names . . .

[GreyBeard]

Personally, I never overwrite game saves. My first save on a new career is always Patrol 1. The next is Patrol 1a, then Patrol 1b and so forth and so forth, until I'm back in port. Then it's on to Patrol 2. Nothing complicated, no dates to discern or anything else. Just something to differentiate between each save. I have yet to reach the end of the alphabet.

I use CCleaner on a regular basis. I like to use it to wipe the free space clean too. I also use the Jv16 PowerTools by Macecraft regularly. I have never had a problem occur after using either of those tools.
Yet.

[GJO]

Originally Posted by GreyBeard

Personally, I never overwrite game saves. My first save on a new career is always Patrol 1. The next is Patrol 1a, then Patrol 1b and so forth and so forth, until I'm back in port. Then it's on to Patrol 2. Nothing complicated, no dates to discern or anything else. Just something to differentiate between each save. I have yet to reach the end of the alphabet.

I use CCleaner on a regular basis. I like to use it to wipe the free space clean too. I also use the Jv16 PowerTools by Macecraft regularly. I have never had a problem occur after using either of those tools.
Yet.

Brilliant! That just seems so easy - I may borrow your idea! My system of using the date now seems so complicated in comparison! One of the things I really like about CCleaner and its stablemates is that they are so simple yet so effective . . .

[GJO]

OK - so I have now meticulously removed the game and all of its directories and files, cleaned the registry and removed al unnecessary flotsam that may have been left behind. The game has been carefully reinstalled together with GWX3, SH3 Commander and only those mods that I have decided to install. It is August 1939 and I shall now report to Königsberg to take command of a new Type 7b U-Boot . . .

ETA - I shall also adopt GreyBeard's system of choosing names for when I save the game . . .

[GJO]

It is a long learning curve - at the moment, I seem unable to play Silent Hunter at all because since starting all over again with a squeaky clean install, whenever I try to reload and resume a saved game, I get a CTD. Now I am not blaming the GWX3_Stiebler4B_Addon_for_V16B1 but after 22 enjoyable patrols, my problems didstart after I had downloaded and installed that MOD. So it is clear that I did something during that process that has upset the equilibrium.

Reading the crash reports I note that one of the culprits is a file entitled: msvcr71.dll - that particular dll came with SH3 and is dated 2003 - it may have been corrupted so perhaps I need to download a newer version - any ideas?