Newbie - ETO issue crashing

[canukgtp]

Hi everyone,

Been playing CFS3 for years but just getting back into it a bit and remembered these expansions that people had developed...ETO seems to have loaded correctly, but there must be something missing and figured I would come ask here before doing a full re-install...

I have 1.5 installed...I've also turned down the graphics to lowest just to make sure, but my clean copy of CFS3 works fine at highest settings...

When selecting either attack in the west or phoney war in the spawn, then option 1 or 2 in the ETO start...things load up fine, select campaign, all is good...start flying and when I warp it crashes at random points before I get to the first waypoint...thought maybe a problem with warp, so loaded up, started flying without warping, still after 20 or so miles, crash to desktop, no error message given. I did the full restore, following all the steps with the ORIF re-install cumulative Rev 1.5...but it does exactly the same...so seems like a missing graphic file maybe only in the campaign folders causing the crash, but isn't missing anywhere else...

I can warp in missions in the 2 earlier scenarios, but not in campaign...I can also load up 1943/1944/1945 using allied side ETO campaign for example...and there doesn't appear to be an issue...

Am I loading things up wrong when selecting spawn and the number in the ETO start? Has anyone seen a situation similar to this with a possible solution...or is the campaign not suggested with those 2 earlier scenario...

I also have PTO installed, and that seems to work fine in missions obviously...

Any help is appreciated, would love to get the campaign working to enjoy all the beautiful work that was done over the years.

Thanks

Mike

[Daiwilletti]

Hi canukgtp,

given that the crashing occurs in campaigns, it may be a spawn problem. If you go into the spawns folder, open up the air.spawns file, and then some of the spawn files called by the air.spawns spawn table file. Do they seem right for the era that you are playing the campaign in?

It is possible that somehow the spawn settings are corrupted, and "out of step" with all the other folders that get changed when an era is changed, eg. from 1940 to 1943 (Era 2 to Era 3).

So go to your global layer folder and check which global layer csv is loaded. For example if ETO is set up for Era 1, then the Attack in the West csv will have been renamed "global_layer.csv" and all the other csvs will have their era names.

Then check the spawns and make sure that the spawn files are calling Era 1 spawn sets.

Check the .bat files associated with the spawns folder to make sure that everything is pointed to your install and that you have not overlooked an entry.

(sorry some of the finer details in the foregoing may be incorrect, the main thing is to check for a mismatch - I am not at my CFS3 computer am just going on memory)

[canukgtp]

Yes Sir...looks like you are in the right spot, no matter what era I select, nothing changes in the global layer folder...looking at the spawn selector closely when it runs, since the cmd screen pops up and closes so quickly, I didn't notice it wasn't doing anything, just saying access denied...if I try running as admin, it does nothing at all...but running the spawn selector bat file in the ETO folder seems like it's making changes...now the ETOGLSwapper.bat doesn't seem to do anything when I run that...even if I run it as admin from the folder...

Guess I'll keep checking permissions and seeing why the global layer swapper doesn't seem to want to do it's thing

Thanks

[mongoose]

One thing: you have to check that the directory route in the batch files match where your ETO install is. For instance

I have C:\CFS3 ETO ExpansionC and the masterstartup.bat says

@ECHO OFF
CLS
CALL ETOEraSwapper.bat
CD "C:\CFS3 ETO ExpansionC\global_layer"
CALL ETOGLSwapper.bat
CD "C:\CFS3 ETO ExpansionC\sounds"
CALL ETOMusicSwapper.bat
START cfs3.exe


I also have D:\CFS3 ETO Expansion with bat saying

@ECHO OFF
CLS
CALL ETOEraSwapper.bat
CD "D:\CFS3 ETO Expansion\global_layer"
CALL ETOGLSwapper.bat
CD "D:\CFS3 ETO Expansion\sounds"
CALL ETOMusicSwapper.bat
START cfs3.exe


So always check the batch files to see in any reference to directory locations! ( the ETOEraSwapper.bat does not, BTW)

[canukgtp]

Ok yes paths all look good in my bat files...when I run the spawnselector bat in a admin cmd window to see what is going on, the spawnselector is giving me a bunch of "the system cannot find the file specified" looks like I need to uninstall and start over...something must not have copied properly...guess I'm missing spawn files somehow...I'll install 1.0 and see if campaign works there, then work my way up to see if I can figure out my mistake.

Thanks for the info and the help guys...hopefully I can get this working and get flying instead of troubleshooting hahaha

[canukgtp]

It seems to be some sort of permissions issue, I have figured out that if I run the necessary .bat files from an elevated cmd window, I can get the earlier eras to load...I have flown a few test missions without issues...now the only puzzling thing, and maybe this is normal in the earlier eras, but one mission sent my flight of Hurricanes out to attack a factory...but I can't select bombs, in the armaments section, the only option is clean...lets just say .303 doesn't do much against a factory haha...

Anyway, thanks for the help, at least the campaign isn't crashing on me now...and if I can't figure out the lack of bombs, I'll just stick to intercept/vehicle attack missions in the earlier eras...