Error Accessing Game in Windows 10

[Kensai]

I reinstalled PON on my new Windows 10 game rig hoping to blast through turns. Indeed, turn processing is really fast, but the game is rather unstable. Every few turns, sometimes in a row, it simply crashes giving me this obscure error message. I am obviously the administrator of my PC and the game runs with full privileges.

What really bugs me is the apparent randomness of the error. If I reload, it might process the turn, crashing in the next one. Or two after. But it is so frustrating, I stopped it.





Oh, Philippes, after so many years replaying my favorite AGEOD game... there is only one hope from my side. That you somehow work secretly on PON2 with all these nuisances dealt with.

[Nikel]

And the UAC?

http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-turn-off ... indows-10/

[Kensai]

There are three issues here.

1) If it was the UAC, I should be getting this error every single time. I take it randomly.

2) It is not UAC, because I launch the game with all privileges as I am the administrator, not some kind of delegated user.

3) I really don't want to mess with UAC for the reasons your mentioned article cites: "I always keep UAC enabled and do not recommend you to disable it. Having UAC enabled is additional protection from dangerous apps and viruses which can elevate silently if it is disabled and do anything malicious on your PC."

--
I understand the game was developed for a previous version of Windows, but I am really curious why this happens.

[Nikel]

Well, of course is up to you.


But the first screenshot you posted is telling the problem : your user account has not write access to the program directory.

PON is trying to do something that windows considers potentially harmful, evidently windows is not right.

You think that you control your computer being the administrator, but with UAC activated it is not true.

If you do not want to deactivate it, try installing PON in another directory, is it installed in /Program files?

Years with UAC deactivated here in several computers and never had a problem, of course I have antivirus and I am careful with what to install or not.

It it not related with the Windows version, UAC has been incorporated by Microsoft since Windows Vista.


Just my opinion

[Kensai]

Will try your solution. Still, it does not explain the randomness of the issue. Thanks.

[loki100]

Will try your solution. Still, it does not explain the randomness of the issue. Thanks.

I realise that different set ups of hardware and software matter but I have had no crashes from the latest patches and use W10 as my operating system.

So I don't think the latest builds are normally unstable - yours is the first set of posts I've seen on this. Which of course doesn't make it any less frustrating when its happening to you

[Kensai]

It is frustrating because it is a new machine. So everything is the latest. More frustrating is that the instability is totally random. I might process 3-4 or even more turns and then, boom, crash. I might reprocess the same turn and it might go on, but it might also block completely.

Some more information. Yes, I installed from Steam, but no problems with the folder which is just out of root. Even when I launch the game out of Steam, and "as Administrator" (just in case the UAC is not seeing it automatically), I still get the problem. Something curious though: I noticed that my save games are saved on my OneDrive, not locally. Mm, could this be the case?

Wow, I also found something very close to my actual error in the Matrix forums! Could it be this?!

[Kensai]

This is much more common than I/we probably thought. Happens in different AGEOD games. I wonder if the culprit has ever been found. Advising to disable the UAC or the antivirus is a little bit extreme, I feel. The game should run normally even without such customization, as all other games.

[Nikel]

Yes, problems like this or similar have been reported with all Ageod games.

Usually Pocus recommends contacting support at support@slitherine.co.uk

But you bought from steam, they support the games they sell I suppose.

Or wait for Pocus answer, though he and PhilThib seem to be very busy with the new game/engine and post little lately.

Again, disabling the UAC is my personal recommendation, never had this kind of problems in any Ageod game, it is the first thing I would do if I bought a new computer right now and before installing anything. I did not mention to disable the antivirus.

[Kensai]

Guys, yes, I am an old dog in these forums and I don't want to bug the Philippes for a game that has been loved and supported way more than its natural expected life. But please, don't suggest me to deactivate the UAC. I have done this (momentarily; also others in the other games as you see in the threads) and it did not help. Deactivating the UAC should not be suggested to anyone. It's like suggesting someone who's feeling warm in his home to ventilate his place by leaving the front doors open and unlocked, while living on the ground floor in a busy city.

I post here to gather information from other users that may have had a similar issue and what did they do. UAC did not help, in this case. I don't know where the AGE engine is trying to write and I get this Profiler.DLog error in this totally random way, as the other dudes have reported.

[Nikel]

OK, where did you install the game?

This issue can happens, even in admin rights, if you installed the game on C:, for Vista/Seven system.

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 11&t=37924


Also

http://steamcommunity.com/app/306630/di ... 342829526/


There are more threads similar to this in steam:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/306630/d ... 453323465/

[Pocus]

The most recent versions of Windows literally hate when applications at run time write in their own program files, a thing PON does. I don't know why sometime it works and sometime it don't, sorry.

Have you tried installing PON in a USB hard disk or at least a disk which is not the main disk, perhaps Windows will be more lenient about what is happening in the game directory.

Oh, and also. Disable the UAC!

[Kensai]

Understood. Nonetheless, games should follow OSes idiosyncrasies and not the other way around. This is for our security after all. Please take my comment as a suggestion for all future releases, I am pretty aware PON is a 2013 game and Windows 10 is not officially supported. However, this is a unique error that seems to happen in various AGE games from Windows 7 up, as the links I provide show. I have searched extensively for the error code in the screenshots of my first post and they only lead me back to AGE engine games.

Now, I have tried all (except of disabling the UAC itself). Installed from Steam in a secondary HDD, in C:, copied out of Steam directory. I have explicitily run the game with administrator privileges. I still get this random error every now for no apparent reason. Why sometimes it can write where it "should not" and sometimes not is beyond me. And I don't even know where to start looking as the error logs don't provide any hint.

The only two special things for my system I can report are the following:

• My user account is not a local account, it is a Microsoft live account.
• By default my Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music folders are OneDrive folders.

Anyway, if there is ever an update to the AGE engine, please make it so it follows precisely the current security practices of the OS you want to support. Disabling my UAC just to run a game is simply bad practice.

[vaalen]

Kensai,

I run Windows 8.1. I had crashing problems with PON until I ran it under compatibility mode, using windows xp service pack 2.

It stopped crashing. Since then, the game has been completely stable and never crashed or locked up.

I do not know if this will work with windows ten, but maybe it might?

[Calvert]

Hell, I'd just be happy if it didn't crash when trying to start a new game. Admittedly my purchased copy is ancient (bought through GamersGate and only has a forum code, not a serial) so I realize that the likelihood of getting any support is pretty slim, but still...

[loki100]

would help if you supplied more details. Mine is a version from GG etc, and is perfectly stable.

Your best option is to open a help ticket on the matrix forums with the data they ask for

[Calvert]

would help if you supplied more details. Mine is a version from GG etc, and is perfectly stable.

Your best option is to open a help ticket on the matrix forums with the data they ask for

I did. They're not supporting the GG purchased version anymore. Had to plunk down for a new copy through Matrix/Slitherine/Steam.

[Taillebois]

would help if you supplied more details. Mine is a version from GG etc, and is perfectly stable.

Your best option is to open a help ticket on the matrix forums with the data they ask for

I did. They're not supporting the GG purchased version anymore. Had to plunk down for a new copy through Matrix/Slitherine/Steam.

I've found this too now - why the change? Was this the "little bit of code" that Pocus said was introduced in the 1.04.5 patch?

[Pocus]

No, I don't do anything but gameplay/AI on AGE...