Ep 6 won't start. Access violation error

[Ilrahan]

I have already re-downloaded the game a few times and installed it to different drives, but it keeps happening. The error I get is in the attachment to this post.

[Emily]

Did you have trouble with any of the other episodes? Could you launch one of the other episodes (preferably Abe Lincoln or Reality 2.0) and see if you get the same error? That'll tell us if it's due to a change on your computer.

When exactly do you get the error?

Try disabling DEP as described here - does that fix it?

[Ilrahan]

Hmm tried Reality 2.0 and it does indeed give the same error. Never had any problems up till now.

Nothing has changed in my computer hardware wise and I can't think of any software changes that could be the cause. Installed some old games, but that's it. Been booting in Linux mostly.

DEP was already disabled, but I tried specifically disabling it for Bright side of the moon, but it didn't help.

I don't even get to the launch screen. I see the outline, but then immediately get the error. When I click 'ok' it's gone.

I also disabled Mcafee to see if that was the trouble, but no. Same with Daemon tools.

I'm going to do a spyware check to see if that turns up anything. you never know.

[Emily]

I'll check with the activation software guys and see if they know of any recent updates that could have caused this.

[Ilrahan]

Just tried the rest of the episodes. All give the same error now accept for culture shock which said it couldn't validate my key. I re-entered it and now it works. The others still don't.

[protista]

I have the same problem as well, episode start window is displayed but when I click launch game, the access violation error pops out with varying numbers.

[Emily]

Hi guys,

We don't have a solution right now. It's got to be some conflict between Windows and Software Passport since obviously the games have not changed, but we don't know what it is and the Software Passport guys don't either.

The disk version of the games won't use Software Passport, so that's one solution. There is also a new version of Software Passport coming out at the end of the month.

I'll let you know if we get any new updates from them.

[Bikedude]

I click the "Play the trial version" button and get this:

---------------------------
Error
---------------------------
Error: Access violation at 0x004F03D0 (tried to read from 0xFFFFFFFC), program terminated.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

or

---------------------------
Error
---------------------------
Error: Access violation at 0x004F03D2 (tried to write to 0x00000000), program terminated.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

or

---------------------------
Error
---------------------------
Error: Access violation at 0x004F03D9 (tried to write to 0x952C45A3), program terminated.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------

(slightly different addresses)

DEP exceptions usually manifest themselves a bit differently. This looks like a good old fashioned dangling pointer.

BTW: I find it ill-advised telling people to disable DEP. If your code really needs to modify itself (certainly has its uses, but not in this case I suspect), it is fairly simple to mark the code page in question as writable, do the write, and then mark it as executable again. Five minute change! DEP is nothing new, the relevant API has been part of Windows NT since the first version in 1993. (granted, it was only enabled recently on x86 CPUs, but other CPU architectures previously supported by Windows NT did provide DEP support)

[Ilrahan]

Well I installed it on my vista laptop and it didn't give me any problems. Still, I would prefer to play it on my desktop.

Hope you'll have a fix soon.

[Ace_McDunk]

Hi.

I don't know if this will help, but you never know.

I had a similar access violation issue, with all S & M episodes except Culture Shock refusing to work.

I have an up to date version of Norton Internet Security on the PC, but it said my computer was fully healthy.

On an unrelated matter, I installed a free trial of a spyware checking program (Spydoctor), which picked up a number of trojans lurking on my laptop. These were, apparently, sending my passwords to their creator (eek).

I bought the full version of the spyware program and removed the trojans. As if by magic, S & M started working.

I hope this helps - downloading a free trial of a spyware program may turn up something interesting. I reccommend Spydoctor, but I'm certain there are other programs out there.

[Emily]

Thanks for the info, Ace.