Intro
I've been sick the past few days, so I thought I have a look at what's happening in the old Renegade Forums. I came across an announcement post by Jerad for ECW and couldn't be more excited!
Many many years ago I remember playing RP2 online. I remember being on a certain beta version for a long time and flying around in the interior universe, exploiting !save/!load server-side commands to slowly gain Z height through terrain. I never did work out how to get into the weed house, but I think I discovered a secret mod/admin area above an interior once. I also never discovered how to get to Halo island. Much sadness.
Then came a major new RP2 release which reset all of my server-side progress and stats. A few days (?) later everything was reverted and the RP2 downloads were pulled due to scripts licensing violations.
During my time in the Rene community I made some particularly poor Renegade Comics and some magic-eye stereoscopic imaging.
I might have actually been on the RP2 forums, but I believe they are long gone. I used to be nicknamed 'Dthdealer'.
It's a shame RenHelp.net isn't around anymore, a lot of community-contributed tutorials were lost when that site died. I had a tutorial there about making generic bbox physics objects and it had a video/gif of me knocking down a giant tower of dominoes with a Nod buggy. I don't think I'll ever see that again.
Somewhere around this point (~10 years ago) I stopped playing Ren. I recall I wasn't able to play the game any longer on my computer, or something along those lines, I used to (and still mostly do) live off old hardware. The last thing I ever remember reading about RP2 was a blog post about optimising the swimming code to require less tests per second.
I remember trying to load up RP2 in LevelEdit once and wondered how the hell you guys managed to put a script zone across the entire map's ocean. Script zones would always bug out when I tried to make them that large.
Anyway, enough with all that. I owe a lot of what I am today to Renegade. I'm really eager to try UCW and see what the community is like here , but unfortunately I'm being held back by technical issues. Apologies if the rest of this post reads a bit harsh, it documents my experiences trying to get this game to work.
Aside: I'll be judging the quality of this project purely by how nice Mount Chiliad is.
No other metric matters.
W3Dhl: Linux+Wine
Background: Renegade (and most games) work great on Wine these days. Renegade itself has worked for years, and I was able to get help from JonWil on renegadeforums with some TT patch issues.
Support for the latest versions of dotnet is another story. [Insert opinion about MS making dotnet intentionally hard to get working on anything but the latest version of Windows]
W3Dhub install
$ wine w3dhub_launcher_0.8.3.1_install.exe
The dotnet461 step fails. Thankfully the people who wrote this installer are kind and let the process continue if this happens Hats off. I've had installers that immediately and automatically delete all progress when any error occurs.
Trying to get W3Dhub running
First attempt:
The entry point method could not be loaded due to Could not load file or assembly 'PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. assembly:PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35 type:<unknown type> member:<none>
It looks like we need dotnet. So let's try installing dotnet 4.5.1.
Now when I try to run W3Dhub I get even scarier errors:
0012:fixme:wer:WerSetFlags (2) stub!
0012:fixme:heap:RtlSetHeapInformation (nil) 1 (nil) 0 stub
0017:fixme:service:svcctl_ChangeServiceConfig2W SERVICE_CONFIG_FAILURE_ACTIONS not implemented: period 86400 msg (null) cmd (null)
0019:fixme:process:SetProcessShutdownParameters (00000380, 00000000): partial stub.
wine: Call from 0x7b44021b to unimplemented function mscoree.dll.CorIsLatestSvc, aborting
wine: Unimplemented function mscoree.dll.CorIsLatestSvc called at address 0x110023:0x7b44021b (thread 0019), starting debugger...
Unhandled Exception:
System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'W3DHub.Launcher.App' threw an exception. ---> System.DllNotFoundException: PresentationNative_v0400.dll
at (wrapper managed-to-native) MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods:IntCreateWindowEx (int,string,string,int,int,int,int,int,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,object)
at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.CreateWindowEx (System.Int32 dwExStyle, System.String lpszClassName, System.String lpszWindowName, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hWndParent, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hMenu, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hInst, System.Object pvParam) [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper..ctor (System.Int32 classStyle, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 exStyle, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.String name, System.IntPtr parent, MS.Win32.HwndWrapperHook[] hooks) [0x00229] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at MS.Win32.MessageOnlyHwndWrapper..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher..ctor () [0x00088] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.get_CurrentDispatcher () [0x0000e] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherObject..ctor () [0x00006] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.DependencyObject..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at W3DHub.Launcher.App..cctor () [0x0000a] in <b986085cc5c84c5392f00b7c9b913618>:0
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
[ERROR] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION: System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'W3DHub.Launcher.App' threw an exception. ---> System.DllNotFoundException: PresentationNative_v0400.dll
at (wrapper managed-to-native) MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods:IntCreateWindowEx (int,string,string,int,int,int,int,int,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,object)
at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.CreateWindowEx (System.Int32 dwExStyle, System.String lpszClassName, System.String lpszWindowName, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hWndParent, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hMenu, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hInst, System.Object pvParam) [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper..ctor (System.Int32 classStyle, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 exStyle, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.String name, System.IntPtr parent, MS.Win32.HwndWrapperHook[] hooks) [0x00229] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at MS.Win32.MessageOnlyHwndWrapper..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher..ctor () [0x00088] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.get_CurrentDispatcher () [0x0000e] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherObject..ctor () [0x00006] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at System.Windows.DependencyObject..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0
at W3DHub.Launcher.App..cctor () [0x0000a] in <b986085cc5c84c5392f00b7c9b913618>:0
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
I have tried dotnet461, but unfortunately it completely fails to install in Wine at the moment. Even running it unattended with /q leads to some fun, such as mscoree.dll going AWOL.
With a bit of playing in a few fresh wineprefixes I manage to get as far as getting some form of W3Dhub GUI, but only in the form of an error message:
Unresolvable hostnames would be all and good, but I've never heard of hostname parsing problems :D
In all of these tests: no errors.log or diagnostics.log files were created anywhere.
W3Dhl: Windows XP VM
As you probably know: no longer supported by W3Dhub. The installer runs fine (apart from dotnet461 failing) but the final W3Dhub executable is in a format XP cannot understand.
W3Dhl: Windows 7 VM
The dotnet 461 installer failed again, claiming my OS is 'not supported'. All other mixtures of no dotnet, dotnet40 and dotnet45 lead to error messages like these:
As it turns out: dotnet461 was refusing to install because my Windows 7 install was an old (pre-SP1) version. After a few hours of Windows update I was able to install dotnet461 and launch W3Dhub.
Huzzah!
Or so I thought.
The files for ECW all download, but then nothing further happens. A little "installation failed" message appears at the top of the window:
This time W3Dhub has loaded far enough to create an errors.txt file. Three types of message are repeated inside of it (full log attached):
--------------------------------------------------
2018/01/31 19:01:47
Application version: 0.8.4.0 W3D Hub Launcher.exe
--------------------------------------------------
An exception of type System.Net.WebException occurred
Message The operation has timed out
Stack Trace;
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream(TransportContext& context)
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream()
at W3DHub.Backend.BackendWebClient.CreatePostRequest(Uri uri, Byte[] postData, String contentType, String encoding)
--------------------------------------------------
2018/01/31 19:01:47
Application version: 0.8.4.0 W3D Hub Launcher.exe
--------------------------------------------------
An exception of type System.Exception occurred
Message Error whilst calling https://secure.w3dhub.com/apis/w3dhub/1/get-news
Stack Trace;
Inner Exception (System.Exception) Failed to create request
Stack Trace;
--------------------------------------------------
2018/01/31 19:37:22
Application version: 0.8.4.0 W3D Hub Launcher.exe
--------------------------------------------------
An exception of type System.Exception occurred
Message A game installation of type INSTALL failed. Reason: One or more packages failed to download
Stack Trace;
From my uninformed perspective they don't look useful.
Restarting the W3Dhub program and trying to download ECW again through it: same error. The 'download' process is much faster, however, so I suspect it is just re-hashing the already downloaded files.
Installing ECW directly: Linux + Wine
ECW's website has a directly downloaded installer. Unfortunately I'm also heavily out of luck here.
On Linux+Wine the install succeeds. I can't run ECW.exe (likely due to the dotnet problems) but I can try and run one of the game[drawdist].exe's directly.
Unfortunately I get this when I try:
I wanted to ask for help on the ECW forums, but I think it might be better to ask here, given what they currently look like:
(Although for all I know this might just be the metagame of ECW. I don't know )
Installing ECW directly: Windows 7 VM
Installer completes successfully. I try and open the game launcher:
Hmm, update process does not seem to work. I'll try selecting 'No' and continuing:
Hmm, servers must be down. Nice transparency, however.
I'll try playing a LAN game.
Eek.
How about launching game100.exe directly?
A new window border briefly flashes, then disappears. Then the exe terminates and I'm left back at the prompt. I cannot see any log files apart from log.txt, which has a mod date of 2014 and does not get written to during this process.
Re-installing the game does not fix any of these issues.
Questions
(1) Is this the best place to ask for help regarding the bhs.dll error, or should I ask over on renegadeforums.com?
(2) Should I use the http://expansivecivilianwarfare.com/ forums at all?
(3) Does anyone here have this game working on Windows 7 or Wine?
(4) Any tips for what else I can try on any of my operating systems?
Regards, a lost, sick and confused dave's arrow.
errors.log
Intro I've been sick the past few days, so I thought I have a look at what's happening in the old Renegade Forums. I came across an announcement post by Jerad for ECW and couldn't be more excited! Many many years ago I remember playing RP2 online. I remember being on a certain beta version for a long time and flying around in the interior universe, exploiting !save/!load server-side commands to slowly gain Z height through terrain. I never did work out how to get into the weed house, but I think I discovered a secret mod/admin area above an interior once. I also never discovered how to get to Halo island. Much sadness. Then came a major new RP2 release which reset all of my server-side progress and stats. A few days (?) later everything was reverted and the RP2 downloads were pulled due to scripts licensing violations. During my time in the Rene community I made some particularly poor Renegade Comics and some magic-eye stereoscopic imaging. I might have actually been on the RP2 forums, but I believe they are long gone. I used to be nicknamed 'Dthdealer'. It's a shame RenHelp.net isn't around anymore, a lot of community-contributed tutorials were lost when that site died. I had a tutorial there about making generic bbox physics objects and it had a video/gif of me knocking down a giant tower of dominoes with a Nod buggy. I don't think I'll ever see that again. Somewhere around this point (~10 years ago) I stopped playing Ren. I recall I wasn't able to play the game any longer on my computer, or something along those lines, I used to (and still mostly do) live off old hardware. The last thing I ever remember reading about RP2 was a blog post about optimising the swimming code to require less tests per second. I remember trying to load up RP2 in LevelEdit once and wondered how the hell you guys managed to put a script zone across the entire map's ocean. Script zones would always bug out when I tried to make them that large. Anyway, enough with all that. I owe a lot of what I am today to Renegade. I'm really eager to try UCW and see what the community is like here , but unfortunately I'm being held back by technical issues. Apologies if the rest of this post reads a bit harsh, it documents my experiences trying to get this game to work. Aside: I'll be judging the quality of this project purely by how nice Mount Chiliad is. No other metric matters. W3Dhl: Linux+Wine Background: Renegade (and most games) work great on Wine these days. Renegade itself has worked for years, and I was able to get help from JonWil on renegadeforums with some TT patch issues. Support for the latest versions of dotnet is another story. [Insert opinion about MS making dotnet intentionally hard to get working on anything but the latest version of Windows] W3Dhub install $ wine w3dhub_launcher_0.8.3.1_install.exe The dotnet461 step fails. Thankfully the people who wrote this installer are kind and let the process continue if this happens Hats off. I've had installers that immediately and automatically delete all progress when any error occurs. Trying to get W3Dhub running First attempt: The entry point method could not be loaded due to Could not load file or assembly 'PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. assembly:PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35 type:<unknown type> member:<none> It looks like we need dotnet. So let's try installing dotnet 4.5.1. Now when I try to run W3Dhub I get even scarier errors: 0012:fixme:wer:WerSetFlags (2) stub! 0012:fixme:heap:RtlSetHeapInformation (nil) 1 (nil) 0 stub 0017:fixme:service:svcctl_ChangeServiceConfig2W SERVICE_CONFIG_FAILURE_ACTIONS not implemented: period 86400 msg (null) cmd (null) 0019:fixme:process:SetProcessShutdownParameters (00000380, 00000000): partial stub. wine: Call from 0x7b44021b to unimplemented function mscoree.dll.CorIsLatestSvc, aborting wine: Unimplemented function mscoree.dll.CorIsLatestSvc called at address 0x110023:0x7b44021b (thread 0019), starting debugger... Unhandled Exception: System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'W3DHub.Launcher.App' threw an exception. ---> System.DllNotFoundException: PresentationNative_v0400.dll at (wrapper managed-to-native) MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods:IntCreateWindowEx (int,string,string,int,int,int,int,int,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,object) at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.CreateWindowEx (System.Int32 dwExStyle, System.String lpszClassName, System.String lpszWindowName, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hWndParent, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hMenu, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hInst, System.Object pvParam) [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper..ctor (System.Int32 classStyle, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 exStyle, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.String name, System.IntPtr parent, MS.Win32.HwndWrapperHook[] hooks) [0x00229] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at MS.Win32.MessageOnlyHwndWrapper..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher..ctor () [0x00088] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.get_CurrentDispatcher () [0x0000e] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherObject..ctor () [0x00006] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.DependencyObject..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at W3DHub.Launcher.App..cctor () [0x0000a] in <b986085cc5c84c5392f00b7c9b913618>:0 --- End of inner exception stack trace --- [ERROR] FATAL UNHANDLED EXCEPTION: System.TypeInitializationException: The type initializer for 'W3DHub.Launcher.App' threw an exception. ---> System.DllNotFoundException: PresentationNative_v0400.dll at (wrapper managed-to-native) MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods:IntCreateWindowEx (int,string,string,int,int,int,int,int,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef,object) at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.CreateWindowEx (System.Int32 dwExStyle, System.String lpszClassName, System.String lpszWindowName, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hWndParent, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hMenu, System.Runtime.InteropServices.HandleRef hInst, System.Object pvParam) [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper..ctor (System.Int32 classStyle, System.Int32 style, System.Int32 exStyle, System.Int32 x, System.Int32 y, System.Int32 width, System.Int32 height, System.String name, System.IntPtr parent, MS.Win32.HwndWrapperHook[] hooks) [0x00229] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at MS.Win32.MessageOnlyHwndWrapper..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher..ctor () [0x00088] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.get_CurrentDispatcher () [0x0000e] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherObject..ctor () [0x00006] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at System.Windows.DependencyObject..ctor () [0x00000] in <962683128112448d94373b4d97ac4577>:0 at W3DHub.Launcher.App..cctor () [0x0000a] in <b986085cc5c84c5392f00b7c9b913618>:0 --- End of inner exception stack trace --- I have tried dotnet461, but unfortunately it completely fails to install in Wine at the moment. Even running it unattended with /q leads to some fun, such as mscoree.dll going AWOL. With a bit of playing in a few fresh wineprefixes I manage to get as far as getting some form of W3Dhub GUI, but only in the form of an error message: Unresolvable hostnames would be all and good, but I've never heard of hostname parsing problems :D In all of these tests: no errors.log or diagnostics.log files were created anywhere. W3Dhl: Windows XP VM As you probably know: no longer supported by W3Dhub. The installer runs fine (apart from dotnet461 failing) but the final W3Dhub executable is in a format XP cannot understand. W3Dhl: Windows 7 VM The dotnet 461 installer failed again, claiming my OS is 'not supported'. All other mixtures of no dotnet, dotnet40 and dotnet45 lead to error messages like these: As it turns out: dotnet461 was refusing to install because my Windows 7 install was an old (pre-SP1) version. After a few hours of Windows update I was able to install dotnet461 and launch W3Dhub. Huzzah! Or so I thought. The files for ECW all download, but then nothing further happens. A little "installation failed" message appears at the top of the window: This time W3Dhub has loaded far enough to create an errors.txt file. Three types of message are repeated inside of it (full log attached): -------------------------------------------------- 2018/01/31 19:01:47 Application version: 0.8.4.0 W3D Hub Launcher.exe -------------------------------------------------- An exception of type System.Net.WebException occurred Message The operation has timed out Stack Trace; at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream(TransportContext& context) at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream() at W3DHub.Backend.BackendWebClient.CreatePostRequest(Uri uri, Byte[] postData, String contentType, String encoding) -------------------------------------------------- 2018/01/31 19:01:47 Application version: 0.8.4.0 W3D Hub Launcher.exe -------------------------------------------------- An exception of type System.Exception occurred Message Error whilst calling https://secure.w3dhub.com/apis/w3dhub/1/get-news Stack Trace; Inner Exception (System.Exception) Failed to create request Stack Trace; -------------------------------------------------- 2018/01/31 19:37:22 Application version: 0.8.4.0 W3D Hub Launcher.exe -------------------------------------------------- An exception of type System.Exception occurred Message A game installation of type INSTALL failed. Reason: One or more packages failed to download Stack Trace; From my uninformed perspective they don't look useful. Restarting the W3Dhub program and trying to download ECW again through it: same error. The 'download' process is much faster, however, so I suspect it is just re-hashing the already downloaded files. Installing ECW directly: Linux + Wine ECW's website has a directly downloaded installer. Unfortunately I'm also heavily out of luck here. On Linux+Wine the install succeeds. I can't run ECW.exe (likely due to the dotnet problems) but I can try and run one of the game[drawdist].exe's directly. Unfortunately I get this when I try: I wanted to ask for help on the ECW forums, but I think it might be better to ask here, given what they currently look like: (Although for all I know this might just be the metagame of ECW. I don't know ) Installing ECW directly: Windows 7 VM Installer completes successfully. I try and open the game launcher: Hmm, update process does not seem to work. I'll try selecting 'No' and continuing: Hmm, servers must be down. Nice transparency, however. I'll try playing a LAN game. Eek. How about launching game100.exe directly? A new window border briefly flashes, then disappears. Then the exe terminates and I'm left back at the prompt. I cannot see any log files apart from log.txt, which has a mod date of 2014 and does not get written to during this process. Re-installing the game does not fix any of these issues. Questions (1) Is this the best place to ask for help regarding the bhs.dll error, or should I ask over on renegadeforums.com? (2) Should I use the http://expansivecivilianwarfare.com/ forums at all? (3) Does anyone here have this game working on Windows 7 or Wine? (4) Any tips for what else I can try on any of my operating systems? Regards, a lost, sick and confused dave's arrow. errors.log
