Sprite Candy Tools Failing
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Userlibs/Sprite Candy Tools Failing
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| I`ve just started to use Sprite Candy again but the tools that accompany the program, like the Image Packer and Collision Shapes Editor, no longer seem to function properly. When I try to load something in either of these programs they both hang and I have to shut them down. They used to work on this computer and the Font Tool works fine still. Anyone else having this problem? The only thing that I have installed recently is SP3, could this be the problem? This is really puzzling. Are the tools written in a language other than Blitz? I`ve never had any problems with them before. Thanks for any help, Jason. |
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| SP3 here, and yes, they both fire up nicely (the font one works fine), but hang when you try to load. I'll try leaving one go and seeing if it ever gets on with it. I can test them when I get back to work on my SP2 machine, but given that's still *calculates* 11 hours away or so, it might be quicker to email info@... with your query - he (Mike) usually responds fairly quickly. If you'd be so kind as to post your findings back to this thread for posterity that'd be sweet too. :) [edit] Tried boomboom's "root directory" trick, but it didn't work here. |
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| I had a problem with the font one, try putting the programs in the root of your c:\ and running from there....worked for me |
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| I have already emailed Mike so when he responds I`ll let you know the outcome. In the meantime I`ll try what boomboom suggests and see if that works. If you could try it on your SP2 machine LineOf7s that would be good too. Jason. |
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| Not a problem. I have this nagging feeling that I've had this happen before (with the v1.0.9 utilities) and I managed (with help) to fix it. Can't think of it though... and yet, it nags. OH IT NAGS SO! I'm sure I'll remember at about 3am or thereabouts. |
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| SHOCK! They work perfectly in SP2. This is the second thing now I've found that's been made non-functional by SP3 (which is why I'm on SP2 at work in the first place). I hope Mike can tweak them easily and re-release. |
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| Still waiting for an official reply from Mike. I hope that he can sort the problem too. Thanks for testing LineOf7s. boomboom, I tried what you suggested and sadly it didn`t work for me :( Jason. |
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| Has anyone else managed to find out what could be the cause of this strange problem? Or even better a workaround? Jason. |
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| Actually I'm on XP service pack two and I also experience a frequent lock up when browsing for a file and changing the directory. Doesn't happen all the time though. |
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| Yeah, this one's not "frequent", it's every time you hit the "Load" button. Probably "Save" too, but I haven't tried that. :o) |
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| I got a reply back from Mike saying that if you place the tools in C:\SpriteCandy\ then that should cure the problem but sadly it doesn`t for me. How about you guys? I`ve also tried updating the libs like FreeImage.dll but still no luck. This is a real pain for me as Sprite Candy is one of my favourite B3D add-ons :( I hope that someone can find the cause of this problem. Does anyone know what language the tools are programmed in? Are they still Blitz? Strange how the Font Tool still works perfectly and the others do not. Jason. |
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| Hrmm... that's odd. I haven't tried putting them in C:\SpriteCandy\ but * I moved them to C:\ per boomboom's suggestion, and it didn't make a difference * The programs I tried here (on my SP2 machine) aren't in C:\SpriteCandy\ and work perfectly * The programs on the SP3 machine weren't in C:\SpriteCandy\ and worked perfectly well... until SP3 was installed I'll try it when I get home, but I'm not hopeful. |
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| Wonder if it's some background prog (file scanner?) causing a prob? |
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| You mean something that's part of WinXP SP3, or something else? [edit] Specifically, because I have no reason to believe there's any 3rd-party program interfering with the operation of these, but clearly (to me) there's something installed with SP3 that does. I thought you might have some insight into an SP3 "enhancement" that might be interfering, like the new "indexing" thingy for example. |
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| LineOf7s, do you have Tortoise SVN running on your system as I have just uninstalled it from mine and now the Sprite Candy tools work again. It was the only software that I could think of that was recently installed (apart from SP3) so I thought that I would give it a shot and it worked! I would be interested to see if you have it installed too. Jason. |
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| Whilst I've looked at it with an interested eye, I've never installed Tortoise SVN (or any other), and it's not currently on my system. This is an interesting development though: I wonder what else could be around that - perhaps combined with SP3 - is causing problems? And... why? Curiouser and curiouser. |
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| I`ve just reinstalled Tortoise SVN and it was definitely the cause as the Sprite Candy tools no longer work. I wonder what the problem is? Annoying as I would like to have both installed on my system. Jason. |
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| Last night I had a bit of a play with this, and started killing off processes in the Task Manager one by one to see if their absence would enable the Image Packer to work. Pared it down quite significantly, and managed to discover... bupkis. Hardly a scientific test, but I was hoping to get lucky. Hey, it was Saturday night, after all. I wasn't even using these tools until you mentioned they don't work anymore, and now there's not a single application on the planet I want to get working more. |
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| It`s funny, I hadn`t used these tools in ages either but it was beginning to annoy me too :) I`ve got a feeling it is something to do with the scrrun.dll as when I uninstall Tortoise SVN it seems to have trouble ending that. Puzzling... Jason. |
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| Just to be sure (in case it was some sort of Magic Speshul Uninstaller), I tried installing TortoiseSVN just so I could uninstall it - to see if it would make things work. Thankfully, it didn't make any difference at all, because if it had I think I would have gone bananas. |
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| At great personal risk, I uninstalled the SP3 this machine came from the store installed with. The SpriteCandy tools worked perfectly first time. Bugger. |
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| "Alrighty, you POS computer," I said. "Bring it." With that, I started reinstalling all the updates I'd lost with the removal of SP3 (there were approximately 92 of them). I deftly avoided Windows Update trying to thrust SP3 down my throat again, and began my descent into Reboot Hell. First up was IE7 and a few hotfixes. Reboot. As a quick check (a fortuitous moment of clarity as it turns out), I checked to see if the SpriteCandy tools still worked. NO! Okay, so it was down to one of the three hotfixes that had been installed, and IE7. I started with the hotfixes, uninstalling them one at a time and rebooting after each. [20 minutes later] No, of course it wasn't one of the hotfixes; it was the accursed IE7. Immediately after uninstalling IE7, the SpriteCandy tools worked again. Bloody IE7. I knew I disliked it for a reason. Now I'm going to install every update I can lay my hands on, EXCEPT IE7. Let's see what happens. |
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| Please keep us informed. It`s quite exciting really ;) Jason. |
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| Okay, I've now re-installed every high-priority update (97, there were) it thought I needed, including Service Pack 3, but not Internet Explorer 7. Everything SpriteCandy-esque appears to be working "just like a bought one". Everything else seems to be hunky and/or dory. I hereby shake my fist at IE7, and will now - at the risk of catastrophic naivete - consider the culplrit identified. Given I think IE7 smells of wee anyway, and I don't use it, this will likely end my investigation (just as my Sunday night turns into Monday morning). I hope, Mr Quicksilva, that if you leave TortoiseSVN in place but give IE7 a good kicking, things work for you as they have me. If not? TAG - you're It. [edit] Oh, and I forgot to say, if you wanna follow up your email to Mike with a link to this thread and/or our findings, that might be handy too. |
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| Right, I`ll uninstall IE7 and reinstall Tortoise SVN and see if you`re correct. Wish me luck... Jason. |
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| IE7 doesn`t appear in my add\remove list and I can find no other way to uninstall it. Any suggestions? Jason. |
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| Quicksilva: Try one of these: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927177 |
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| Way to go LO7 ;-) I think I have IE6 installed from mem - so maybe that's the cause of SC's intermittant filebrowsing lock up on my PC. Indeed I was using IE5 for years and the SC problem only appeared after 'upgrading' the IE version. Thanks for the tip! |
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| Thankyou, thankyou - this has, of course, seriously eaten into my Tank Universal time. Not happy. :) Of course, the question now is: Why? What is it about IE7 that these two utilities dislike so very much? That's one for Mr Mike "SpriteCandy" Dogan. |
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| OK I`ve uninstalled IE7 and all works well, even with Tortoise SVN installed (Yipee!). Well done for finding this out LineOf7s I am most greatful :) I`ve emailed Mike to see if he can shed some light on why this happens, hopefully he`ll post here. Cheers again. Jason. |
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| Hi, I just thought I'd let you know that I get 'invalid stream handle' when trying to save anything from the shape and image tools on Vista, but starting/loading appears to work fine deep into my \users folder. Cheers, LW. |
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| Guys, if you get problems like this then simply e-mail email Mike - he is fantastic at support (normally) and has helped me with lots of things over the years. His email is in the docs somewhere - I dont have it at work currently or I'd provide it for you. IPete2. |
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| 3 weeks ago (Quicksilva): I have already emailed Mike so when he responds I`ll let you know the outcome. A few days later (Quicksilva): I got a reply back from Mike saying that if you place the tools in C:\SpriteCandy\ then that should cure the problem but sadly it doesn`t for me. 2 weeks ago (Quicksilva): I`ve emailed Mike to see if he can shed some light on why this happens, hopefully he`ll post here. 49 minutes ago (IPete2): if you get problems like this then simply ... email Mike ... What an excellent bloody idea. Thankyou. |
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| :) |
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| Crap Forgot about this and upgraded to IE7. Now SC Imagepacker freezes when it tries to open a file browser window. Also, Avast has started pinging both Imagepacker and Font Candy Studio as containing Win32:Kavos [Trj] trojan. I think this is a false positive though as there's no sign of infection/payload. I've also reinstalled from the source zipfile with the same warning popping up. |
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| "Also, Avast has started pinging both Imagepacker and Font Candy Studio as containing Win32:Kavos [Trj] trojan. I think this is a false positive though as there's no sign of infection/payload. I've also reinstalled from the source zipfile with the same warning popping up." I've seen the same thing in McAfee VirusScan - but I'd be very surprised if these were true positives. |
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| miez Agreed. Guess I'll have to uninstall IE7 as I need Imagepacker more than that. |
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| Wonderful. MS tells me that if I installed SP3 after IE7 then I'll need to roll back to SP2 before being allowed to uninstall IE7. But XP wouldn't let me install SP3 until I had installed IE7 first. I thought I'd 'upgrade' to IE8 on the chance that would fix the issue, but it hasn't. Think I'll need to email Mike. Only other alternative is to manually work out image slice dimensions. Font Candy appears to be working ok though. |
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| I forgot about these apps and foolishly thought "I wonder what IE8 is like", and now - as you've discovered - it's gone all poo-shaped again. I'm having the same experiences as you (only Font Candy Studio works properly). I think we're running out of workarounds, though. I'm sure we'd all appreciate it if you could add to this thread with Mike's reponse. Even point him to it, if you like. :o) |
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| Just been browing the web - apparently IE7 caused a fair few problems on launch, with programs being 'not IE7 compatible' after the fact. Thanks MS. The only workaround I can think of is to compose the packed images in Photoshop and work out the imageclip dimensions manually - which will be time consuming. Perhaps there's another app out there that does the same job? http://homepage.ntlworld.com/config/imagepacker/index.htm <edit> not as straight forward as SC Imagepacker> Interesting that Font Studio doesn't have the file browser freeze issue - wonder what's different. Will post here if/when Mike responds. |
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| How about this for a workaround: I uninstalled IE8 (and IE8 only) through the standard Windows "Add/Remove Programs" control panel... ...and the tools now work again. YAY! So it appears to be an "IE7+" issue. (well DUH) |
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| So have you gone back to IE6 or 7? |
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| I removed IE8, and it went back to IE6. |
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| Unfortunately I never had IE6 installed, going from IE5 -> IE7/8 (firefox was my browser of choice). Have sent an email to Mike. Never realised how handy his utilities were... |
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| I was going to suggest just installing IE6... but the problem is you can't easily uninstall IE7/8, can you? Uninstalling/reinstalling SP3 would work... but ugh. Fingers crossed for a proper fix. |
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| My AntiVirus (Symantec Endpoint Protection) attacked the tools from Sprite Candy and quarantined them due to false positives. I bought Sprite Candy a few years ago but unfortunately I never got around to releasing anything based on it. Very nice lib though :) |
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| Imphenzia Same here but with Avast (when running imagepacker) I emailed Mike but there's not much he can do regards the false match. Unfortunately, I can't seem to set Avast to ignore it either. Regards IE causing a file open/save freeze, if I copy and rename an existing Imagepacker project and save to that, I get less freezes. But IE's going to have to go. |
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