BZ Flag stopped working

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U812
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BZ Flag stopped working

Post by U812 »

Hi,

I've played BZFlag for years. Yesterday, I logged off and when I logged back on all I can see is the "All Chat Server Misc" menu on a black screen. Then, I get a Windows popup that says BZFlag failed. I uninstalled the program and reinstalled it, same thing. I fixed for registry issues, still no help. Any ideas?

Thanks
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blast
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Re: BZ Flag stopped working

Post by blast »

Could you check the contents of your configuration file by using a text editor (such as Notepad on Windows)? If it contains a bunch of readable text, could you remove the password line and send me a copy via a private message? Otherwise, if it's just blank or otherwise unreadable, could you also send me that via a private message? This is an issue we've seen over the years, but have never been able to figure out what causes it.

The location of the configuration file:
Windows: C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local\BZFlag\2.4\config.cfg
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/BZFlag/2.4/config.cfg
Linux: ~/.bzf/2.4/config.cfg
Where ~ is your home directory on macOS and Linux and [user] is your username on Windows. Note that the AppData directory on Windows is hidden by default, but there is a shortcut in the BZFlag start menu group that should take you to the configuration directory.
"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

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U812
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Re: BZ Flag stopped working

Post by U812 »

Thanks for the prompt response! I found the file, it appears to be empty. I'll send it to you via PM.
U812
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Re: BZ Flag stopped working

Post by U812 »

I think I was able to fix things. I uninstalled the program and then manually deleted all of the AppData files, including the empty config.cfg file. I reinstalled and actually remembered my old password (from 15 years ago?) and got logged back on.
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blast
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Re: BZ Flag stopped working

Post by blast »

Weird, it seems to be a 7334 byte file that contains just null bytes (so, not empty, but unprintable characters). Just deleting the config file was enough to fix it.

Was there anything about the last time you played that might have been different than normal? A crash? Running multiple clients at once? Trying to get a hint about what triggers the bug.
"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

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blast
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Re: BZ Flag stopped working

Post by blast »

I guess my other questions would be:
What operating system are you using?
Which version of BZFlag are you running?
"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

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U812
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Re: BZ Flag stopped working

Post by U812 »

Yes - there was an issue when I closed BZFlag right before this. In a hurry, I hit the keys wrong and it sort of glitched as I exited. I'm running version 2.4.24 now, but I had the previous version running when this happened.
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blast
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Re: BZ Flag stopped working

Post by blast »

Could you explain a bit more about how it glitched out? Did you have to forcefully close the game?
"In addition to knowing the secrets of the Universe, I can assure you that I am also quite potty trained." -Koenma (Yu Yu Hakusho)

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