Having Issue with Nonato's Missions

[mthrift]

Greetings,

Been loving ETOE and having a blast with it. I really think the team stepped up the immersion factor with this. Many thanks to all involved!

Regarding the mission problems . . .

I have installed two (all?) of Nonato's ETOE missions - "Stukas at Dawn" and "Monte Castelo". I put them in Era 2 and Era 5, respectively. However, whenever I tried to play them, CFS locks up, and when I'm able to swap to the desktop, there is an error window with this message: "Invalid at the top level of the document. Error on line 1, position 1 in ""." Anyone else having this problem? Any ideas as to what's causing it? I've looked at both mission xml files, and the top several lines appear to follow the same syntax/punctuation as other missions that do work.

Not having trouble with the missions that came with the ETOE or others that I've since downloaded.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!


Michael

[loverboy1]

it was for me same until i got this message and it works fine now

Loverboy1, did you install the ETO Expansion Update 1.02? If you didn't, you will have problems with new missions. Also, you must run the Spawn Selector and set it to "2. Disable Random Spawns" when playing missions

[mthrift]

Thanks for your reply, Loverboy.

I have the 1.02 update installed and just confirmed that random spawns are disabled. Still no joy.

Any other ideas out there?


Michael

[Nonato]

Maybe you've got a corrupted .xml file when downloading the missions for some reason. These missions have been extensively tested by the team and worked well under CFS3 ETO Exp 1.02.

Try to delete them, make the spawn change, D/L and install them again. Be sure to have the correct plane model by Jaycee.

Hope you manage to solve this problem. If not, just hang around and I'm sure our gurus will come for the rescue!

Nonato
PS: did my other missions work for you?

[wichner]

What does your reference to 'the correct plane by jaycee" mean? Do these two missions require a plane to be downloaded for them to work? Can't just drop them into ETO 1.2? thanks

[grizzly50]

What does your reference to 'the correct plane by jaycee" mean? Do these two missions require a plane to be downloaded for them to work? Can't just drop them into ETO 1.2? thanks

Wichner, here's the one you need for "Monte Castelo": http://www.sim-outhouse.com/index.ph...o&FileID=12570

"Stukas at Dawn" goes in historical in missions (while set in Era 1).

"Monte Castelo" goes in historical in 1945_missions (while set in Era 1).

Just put the game in Era 1, start, and exit. Then put it in the aircraft folder, close the window, and run the BDP Zapper. Then, for "Monte Castelo", start the game in Era 5.:d

[Nonato]

What does your reference to 'the correct plane by jaycee" mean? Do these two missions require a plane to be downloaded for them to work? Can't just drop them into ETO 1.2? thanks

Sure thing W

As the mission's readme states clearly, you'll need the P-47D4 skinned by JC

and representing a famous plane from the 1st GAvCa, that actually

participated in this operation.

Cheers

N.

[wichner]

Thank you both very much. I was referring to Nonato's last 2 missions (stuka and night patrol) both excellent. They do NOT require external planes. My mistake since this thread was about the castilo mission which as you state DOES require an external plane. Appreciate the explanation/response guys.

[mthrift]

I know it's been some time on this message string, but I haven't had time to dig back into it. Now, I have finally gotten it solved for me, but I have no idea why the fix works.

I had been unable to play any of Nonato's ETOE missions. I could see them on the mission menu, but when I tried to click the Briefing button, CFS would CTD.

I tried manually making minor changes to them using Notepad (like nationality of the player aircraft - since that was a common but different thread on all of the Nonato missions - I had already confirmed in QC that it wasn't an issue with the Brazilian P-47), but that had no impact. Then I tried changing the the nationality via the Mission Builder, and voila, the mission worked. The I thought, why would the nationality be an issue, so I tried just opening the mission in the MB and then saving it without making any changes. That worked too!

So, missions that were previously unusable for me became usable after opening in the MB and saving them - have no idea why. :isadizzy:

Note that I have downloaded and played many other missions with no trouble. So far, this issue has only come up with Nonato's.

Any ideas?

My thanks to Nonato for some great ETOE missions. They are excellent, and I really enjoy the historical aspect!


Happy holidays,
Michael

[rbp71854]

I would have suspected a corrupt xml file (format type corruption) based upon your original error message that you received. During testing of the initial release of the ETO we had a couple of missions that gave the same type of error message and it was corrected by revision to the mission files. I would say that you corrected the problem when you opened the missions in MB and then saved the changes which corrected the problem.

I know it's been some time on this message string, but I haven't had time to dig back into it. Now, I have finally gotten it solved for me, but I have no idea why the fix works.

I had been unable to play any of Nonato's ETOE missions. I could see them on the mission menu, but when I tried to click the Briefing button, CFS would CTD.

I tried manually making minor changes to them using Notepad (like nationality of the player aircraft - since that was a common but different thread on all of the Nonato missions - I had already confirmed in QC that it wasn't an issue with the Brazilian P-47), but that had no impact. Then I tried changing the the nationality via the Mission Builder, and voila, the mission worked. The I thought, why would the nationality be an issue, so I tried just opening the mission in the MB and then saving it without making any changes. That worked too!

So, missions that were previously unusable for me became usable after opening in the MB and saving them - have no idea why. :isadizzy:

Note that I have downloaded and played many other missions with no trouble. So far, this issue has only come up with Nonato's.

Any ideas?

My thanks to Nonato for some great ETOE missions. They are excellent, and I really enjoy the historical aspect!


Happy holidays,
Michael

[loverboy1]

i to add confusuion until grizzly posted this ion an earlier thread ..it works 101% - print it out and stick on your wall -its your bible for eto set up and all imho


i copied his post :


Rule # 1 = Always start ETO to Era 1 and then exit before installing anything, especially self-installers.

1. Era 1 = missions (folder name reads as 1936_missions while in any other Era).

2. Era 2 = bob_missions (folder name reads as missions while in Era 2, and reads as bob_missions while in any other Era).

3. Era 3 = 1943_missions (folder name reads as missions while in Era 3, and reads as 1943_missions while in any other Era).

4. Era 4 = 1944_missions (folder name reads as missions while in Era 4, and reads as 1944_missions while in any other Era).

5. Era 5 = 1945_missions (folder name reads as missions while in Era 5, and reads as 1945_missions while in any other Era).

Note: Each of these five folders contains a blank_mission.xml, a frontend.xml, and three folders: historical, training, and whatif.

The builder of an ETO mission will call for a specific Era for the mission in question. It is an absolute fact that the mission in question must be placed in the required Era, or problems may well occur, ranging from the mission not loading to a CTD. However, it not absolutely required to be absolutely correct with regards to historical, training, and whatif.

Historical refers to actual events, training refers to missions created for player training purposes, and whatif is events that never happened, but are of interest.

Note: Missions created for ETO probably will not work in Stock CFS3 with out crashing the sim.

Note: Missions created for Stock CFS3 may or may not work in ETO. Some can actually be edited to fit, but care must be taken.

[Nonato]

I had been unable to play any of Nonato's ETOE missions. I could see them on the mission menu, but when I tried to click the Briefing button, CFS would CTD.

Then I tried changing the the nationality via the Mission Builder, and voila, the mission worked. The I thought, why would the nationality be an issue, so I tried just opening the mission in the MB and then saving it without making any changes. That worked too!

So, missions that were previously unusable for me became usable after opening in the MB and saving them - have no idea why. :isadizzy:

Note that I have downloaded and played many other missions with no trouble. So far, this issue has only come up with Nonato's.

Any ideas?

My thanks to Nonato for some great ETOE missions. They are excellent, and I really enjoy the historical aspect!


Happy holidays,
Michael

M

I'm glad you liked the missions.
Concerning the nationality, I've been systematically including planes in "Other Allied Nations" when they don't belong to the major nationalities showed on the menu. Don't know if it plays any role on this problem.
About the Mission Builder. I myself, when building a mission, have noticed that some alterations made via notepad have to be confirmed by opening the mission on MB and saving it (simply, without changing a thing) or the Mission will freeze the game screen, stating some error in line x,y,z, etc...
I'm not sure if it is a problem on my end only or some bug on ETO MB. I'd like some one to clarify it for me.
All I can say is that I only upload after submitting every mission to a peer-testing (as all of us do, I believe).

Sorry for any trouble they may have caused.

Happy Hollidays

Nonato

[rbp71854]

N

When editing in Notepad, you just have to be careful of making sure the formating is correct. i.e that you don't get any spaces, i.e white spaces introduced into the file, or making sure you get all the proper formatting characters set up correctly. i.e."/>" versus ">" Best to use xmlwrench to check your work after editing in notepad. When you edit or use notepad to set up absolute coordinate takeoffs for player aircraft, ie. land vehicles, aircraft carrier takeoffs, or takeoffs from a location where there isn't an airbase, then when you open the mission in MB and save you will mess up the waypoints.

One thing to look for is weird formatting when you open a mission in notepad. If that mission looks good in wordpad, but garbled in notepad then you will probably have problems with the mission.

Hope that helps

M

I'm glad you liked the missions.
Concerning the nationality, I've been systematically including planes in "Other Allied Nations" when they don't belong to the major nationalities showed on the menu. Don't know if it plays any role on this problem.
About the Mission Builder. I myself, when building a mission, have noticed that some alterations made via notepad have to be confirmed by opening the mission on MB and saving it (simply, without changing a thing) or the Mission will freeze the game screen, stating some error in line x,y,z, etc...
I'm not sure if it is a problem on my end only or some bug on ETO MB. I'd like some one to clarify it for me.
All I can say is that I only upload after submitting every mission to a peer-testing (as all of us do, I believe).

Sorry for any trouble they may have caused.

Happy Hollidays

Nonato

[mthrift]

No trouble at all Nonato! Thanks for your response, and again for all that you and the other designers/makers/builders do for us.


Michael