Kavar Meeting--Always Crashes.

[STDSkillz]

Hey everyone,

 

I've got a problem with KOTOR 2. First, here are my system specs:

 

System Information:

 

Operating System: Windows Vista

[Darth Exsilum]

That sounds like yet another executable error. There's not a lot that can be done unless you happen to be a C++ programmer. Anyway the only solution I know of is to delete the games and replay through- sad but true sorry!

[STDSkillz]

I was afraid of something like that. I've played through the game a million times before so it's no worry. I have very basic C programming skills...so I'm not going to go through that headache. Thanks for the reply.

[Darth Exsilum]

You're welcome. I'm sorry I couldn't give a more hopeful answer but KotOR as you probably know has been absolutely riddled with executable errors ever since it came out. And you'd be right about the headache- even a skilled C++ programmer probably wouldn't bother it's such a pain in the arse....anyway if when you play through again it crashes at the same point it could be a corrupt file somewhere but I think you should be fine....Good luck-and look on the bright side at least you will know what to do second time round ;-)

[Bass-GameMaster]

Did you also download the new kotor2.exe from SecuRom? You could check gamespy or one of those gaming sites for pc saves.. on onderon..

[STDSkillz]

No, I didn't download anything from SecuRom. Maybe I'll look into that. That still can't explain where the heck all those save games are, though? I'm really confused with that. Where is KOTOR2 reading the save games from? If they're not in the save directory, where could they be (I've tried searching for the files as well and can't find them)?

[STDSkillz]

Also, I have the KSE editor, and IT reads all eight the save games (even though I can only see two in the /save directory). Isn't the /save folder the only place KSE looks for save games? A big WTF is in order here--I'm thoroughly confused as to why there's only two save games in my folder when I have eight of them.

[Darth Exsilum]

Downloading the kotor2.exe file will not help anything. Your issue is an in game executable which is different from an application start up executable which is what that file does. When an in application executable happens there is generally nothing that can be done about it.

 

As for the KSE I'm not sure entirely how the program was constructed but it probably looks for any .SAV files which are how save games are stored the other 6 saves you have have almost certainly been moved or corrupted and that is why your game doesn't pick them up while the KSE does. If I were you I'd delete all your saves and start again that should clear everything up. Don't bother with downloading new .exe files (you can if you want obviously) but they only improve the application start up- not in application events.

[Bass-GameMaster]

You have no idea what your talking about! ( well just a bit) the new kotor2.exe fixes 60% of the buggs and glitches.

[STDSkillz]

As for the KSE I'm not sure entirely how the program was constructed but it probably looks for any .SAV files which are how save games are stored the other 6 saves you have have almost certainly been moved or corrupted and that is why your game doesn't pick them up while the KSE does.

 

That's the kicker, though. The game DOES detect them, and even loads them. But they don't exist in the /save folder?! Weird, weird.

 

But yeah, I'm certain you're right. I'm probably going to have to just start over if I want to truly fix this.

 

You have no idea what your talking about! ( well just a bit) the new kotor2.exe fixes 60% of the buggs and glitches.

 

I've tried multiple .exe's now and have gotten partial success. On the latest "upgrade," I was able to travel to other areas without the game crashing on me. But, no matter what, right after I talk to Dhagon Ghent to go to the Catina, the game crashes. Doesn't matter which .exe I'm using on that one.

Edited August 3, 2008 by STDSkillz

[STDSkillz]

One more thing: I completely uninstalled KOTOR 2. When it asked if I wanted to keep my save games, I said no. I went to reinstall it and, guess what; my old saved games were still there (even though the /save folder was empty). Completely baffling.

Edited August 3, 2008 by STDSkillz

[Darth Exsilum]

You have no idea what your talking about!

 

I'm a C++ programmer for Software Development company. I deal with these sort of issues on an almost daily basis; if I didn't know my stuff I wouldn't have lasted a week at said company.

 

Anyway back to the matter at hand...That is odd indeed what it sounds like is that your save game files have been moved somewhere else. This may work- Open up the file location of KotOR 2 and do a search for all files with the suffix .SAV that way you SHOULD (in theory ;-)) be able to find where all of your save have wandered off- Your situation is most peculiar indeed!

 

 

And for the record...

the new kotor2.exe fixes 60% of the buggs and glitches

 

Guess where these were...In the application boot executable- Patches fix in game errors, not different .exe files

[STDSkillz]

Anyway back to the matter at hand...That is odd indeed what it sounds like is that your save game files have been moved somewhere else. This may work- Open up the file location of KotOR 2 and do a search for all files with the suffix .SAV that way you SHOULD (in theory ;-)) be able to find where all of your save have wandered off- Your situation is most peculiar indeed!

 

I did this. I went to the search engine, typed in "*.sav" and had it search both of my disks. And...yup, you guessed it, ONLY found the two saves that I had backed up recently. But KSE and KOTOR2 are still reading the six to eight other saved games! This is madness! And I've got my preferences set so that I can view hidden files. So so strange.

 

Edit: Here's something that might help the situation (or complify it ):

 

As you remember, I uninstalled KOTOR2 completely and reinstalled it. After that, I ran my save game to see if it worked--it didn't. Something I noticed was that at the start up screen (where you have New Game, Load Game, etc.), Darth Nihilus was there! Not Darth Sion. Now why would Nihilus be the one at the beginning of the screen? I'm wondering if something in my registry is not being removed, and hence it "remembers" my last save game (and that may explain where the save games are?).

 

Anyway, when I saw the game didn't work, I exited and ran the update program. It updated fine, everything successful. When I launched the game, it went to the configuration screen (which it should do on the very first time you start the game) and made sure all my hardware passed. I advanced to the start up screen and Darth Sion was now there! And also, my save games were no where to be found, just like they should be! This was short lived, however. As soon as I exited KOTOR2 and reloaded it, Darth Nihilus was back and so were my older save games. Interesting...

 

One thing common about all of this, though, was that whenever Darth Nihilus comes up, and KOTOR2 detects the old saves, the window for it won't be in fullscreen. It will be windowed, albeit still at 1280x1020 (I believe this is a common error, which I have tried to remedy by simply editing the swkotor2.ini file, but it doesn't work). When Darth Sion is there and it can't read the old saves, however, the game WILL be in fullscreen mode.

 

Thanks for taking all the time to read this incoherent mess. It's bad when you uninstall a game and it won't work properly even after the fact!

Edited August 4, 2008 by STDSkillz

[qt3.14159]

Are you running K2 as an administrator? I had problems with my save games saving / loading when I didn't do that. And I'm really not sure that those saved games really do exist... at least, even though they showed up on my saved list, once I'd run it as an administrator they weren't there anymore.

[STDSkillz]

Bravo gt3! Running it as an administrator makes it go to the fullscreen every time AND it detects no saved games. Well done! Something I should have considered before. KOTOR2 must have needed administrative privileges to access the swkotor2.ini file. Interesting that when you don't run it as an admin, it reverts back to the software's older settings...

 

Now if there was only a way to back up the non existent saved games...*sigh*

[qt3.14159]

Well, at least it's running again! It does suck that you can't find the save games, though.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Could thy be inside a hidden file? If so, the search would not have found them and nor would you unless you checked that setting under "folder options."

[STDSkillz]

Could thy be inside a hidden file? If so, the search would not have found them and nor would you unless you checked that setting under "folder options."

 

Yup, I made sure to be able to view hidden files. Crazy thing!

[Darth Exsilum]

Bravo gt3 indeed!!! I didn't think of that (oh the embarrassment) as always the simplest solutions prove to be the best...

[qt3.14159]

that's a q (Q) not a g... but...

 

I kept checking this thread because after reading it on Friday (and having no clue how to help), I had the Onderon cantina music stuck in my head all weekend.

 

Yay.

 

Nasty business, that is...

[STDSkillz]

Whoops, sorry qt3, my mistake. I'm playing through KOTOR 2 again, to see if the same bug will pop up on Onderon. Downloaded the Skip Peragus Mod, and am about halfway done with Telos. I'll be sure to make Dxun my first planet. I should be able to know shortly. I hope it was a one time thing!

[STDSkillz]

Man, I tell you, Onderon really has it out for me. I replayed through it again, making sure I ran it as an administrator every time (at least my saved games are accounted for now). Everything was perfectly smooth until I first got to Onderon. Right after you get your starport visa and the guard asks you questions before going into the city, the game crashes. Same as before--it crashes right when it's loading between the two locations.

 

It's quite irksome! Funny that the freezing is occurring in a different place, though.

[STDSkillz]

Alrighty, sorry for the triple post, but I'll make this one worth it, promise.

 

I finally got to the Kavar meeting and past all these Onderon loading blocks. This was done by disabling the sound, and turning off anti-aliasing in the game. I believe this was a driver conflict with both the 8800 GTS (KOTOR2 doesn't support these new drivers) AND a combination of the sound drivers, which KOTOR 2 has always been sketchy with in terms of Vista. Note that I had to turn BOTH of these things off for the game to work properly. Just one of them off wouldn't get the job done.

 

Thought I'd share with everyone interested on what the heck this thing was. Thanks for everyone who posted in here and tried to help!

[qt3.14159]

It sucks that you had to turn off your sound to get past it... but at least *you* won't have the cantina music stuck in your head for days on end!