[Warhammer Dark Omen Forum]

Warhammer Dark Omen Forum | Warhammer Dark Omen | Help Section
GameRanger Hosting Crash

[JB87]

Hi guys,

I recently started using GameRanger and have gotten off some great FO 9k games with Zoko and Kilowic, but there is a problem with my setup.

Whenever I go to host a game DO goes to a black screen and crashes, the other player also reports a black screen on their end. I can join games with GameRanger just fine but the screen goes black when I try to host. any ideas? my system is Win7 64bit.

[olly]

99% pf the time it is the Windows Firewall Service still running and Anti Virus/Anti Spyware, Defender etc -> Disable their Services from running automatically in Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services -> Stop and Disable each one until u can host. If it still doesn't work, then investigate Port Forwarding in your Router setting.

http://www.gameranger.com/support/network/?i_ip=3232235531&x_ip=1389934141&r_ip=3232235521&rt=3&pp=1

Hope to see on on the battlefield soon and welcome to our Dark Omen community, it's a great time to join in fun!

http://forum.dark-omen.org/introduction/great-time-to-join-t696.0.html

[JB87]

Thanks Olly, glad to be a member of the community!

I forgot to mention I have setup GameRanger on UDP Port 16000 on my router already. I have tried your suggestion of disabling my firewall/defender services but it doesnt seem to work... so I decided to re-install Dark Omen without any Mods and see if I could host a game locally without GameRanger. I now think GameRanger has nothing to do with my problem.

I have discovered that whenever I click 'Create' on the Dark Omen Multiplayer screen DO crashes out to the Desktop instantly and I receive this error message.

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   EngRel.exe
  Application Version:   1.14.1.1
  Application Timestamp:   34ce04ac
  Fault Module Name:   ntdll.dll
  Fault Module Version:   6.1.7600.16695
  Fault Module Timestamp:   4cc7ab86
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Offset:   00033232
  OS Version:   6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   6153
  Additional Information 1:   b680
  Additional Information 2:   b680e32e058b8b46d41f2e8ff24473a8
  Additional Information 3:   1cd9
  Additional Information 4:   1cd91969e6f4f2ca1ab66c5710fd9987

Im running EngRel.exe in compatibility mode with admin rights. any ideas?

here is a quick video showing the problem. video ends when the game crashes

Dark Omen Hosting Crash	powered by Aeva

[JB87]

I was talking with olly last night and here is an update of everything we tried.

change Hardware Selected to 244 (CPU mode).
stop all firewall and anti-virus services.
UAC control panel disabled.
adjust screen to lowest resolution available.
installed new colour cursors from http://darkomen.blitz-art.com/
run in Win XP sp3 compatibility mode.
delete 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Electronic Arts\Dark Omen' (\Electronic Arts\Dark Omen did not exist)
DEP Dark Omen and GameRanger.


After all these tweeks it still crashes on create. As for GameRanger, it almost works there... I can host a game without crashing but my screen is black. I can alt-tab as much as I want but it doesnt bring my screen back, I suffer with the alt-tab problem in single player also if I have to tab down DO for any reason. in GR when I host a game all I can see is my (updated) cursor and hear the sounds of selecting things in the menu. If I join a game though everything works fine...

[Zoko]

Seems unrelated to JB's problem, but i also get a random crash, when i host a game it sometimes crashes instead of going to the game's screen.

Another thing thats been happening is i've been trying to play with Cal Skinner but for some reason the game usually freezes in the middle of the match! Its some problem on his end so i cant really post any specifics but since he doesnt seem to have a forum profile ill just post this for him.

[kilowic]

I play with GameRanger for long time now and I can host and join without any problems.
In single player and in multi player i have always alt+tab bug but no more problems. Thats why i think alt+tab bug isnt your problem at all - it has to be something else.

[JB87]

@Zoko I have also had crash problems with Cal. He is hosting DO extended for FO players, which shouldnt even be possible. I guess it reads the ARM files and hopes for the best so whenever I use FO Grail Knights against Cal the whole thing crashes. If Cal did a fresh install to FO I think it would solve alot of his problems.

I am glad to see im not the only one with alt-tab problems. Are you guys running Win7 or Vista? as I dont believe there is a reliable alt-tab fix for these OS's released yet. The only things I can think of that might be causing issues is my machine is running a Radeon Graphics Card and has a strange resolution at 1366x768.

I have had the chance to do further tweaking with my DO files. Since making the change Hardware Selected to 244 (CPU mode) and DEP Dark Omen fixes I decided to stop running EngRel.exe in compatibility mode and I can now host local LAN games without any crashes! woo! However the hanging blackscreen problem for hosting online matches with GameRanger still stands..... I just cant get to the bottom of it.