technical problem with the game

speedball · Post by **speedball** » Mon Dec 16, 2002 11:17 pm

Help please! I've recently come back to the game after several months away, and I've encountered a technical problem that I have no idea how to solve. I'm hoping that someone here might be able to lend a hand before I brave the official Bethesda forums.

Background - I played Morrowind when it first came out, and never had this problem. I then stopped for a while, and started playing again a couple of months ago. I am running all the official mods, as well as Castle Du'Card, A Nice Place to Live Ver 1.8 w/the Teleportation mod the modder included in his/her mod, and all of the Your Balmora/Vivec/Suran Residence etc mods. I have had all the mods but the Nice Place to Live active in the game since I played it the first time.

In the last week when I started up the game, I have not been getting either the Bethesda or Morrowind start up clips. I have had to hit Esc each time to advance to the menu to load my game. I have also been getting a weird lighting effect problem sometimes when the computer loads from one area to another. However, quicksaving then reloading usually solves that problem. I suspect that the constant effect Night Eye (40 pts) belt I have is causing that problem, but thought I would include that information JIC. Other than that, the game has run fine once I load my saved game.

Tonight, however, I could not even get to the menu. I would either have the initial loading conk out right before the menu would come up, or I would not even be able to start the game from my Desktop short cut. I have received a variety of error messages, the bulk of which are along the lines of "MORROWIND caused an invalid page fault in module <unknown> at 0000:b00db560."

Does anyone have any idea what my problem might be? I'm hoping it is something as simple as my CD going bad, but I am afraid something is either terribly wrong with my copy of Morrowind or my computer in general

. I'm also hoping that it isn't my mods, since months of treasure and other stuff is stored in one of those houses and I don't want to lose it.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

free_fall · Post by **free_fall** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 4:40 am

The invalid page fault could mean your morrowind.exe is corrupted.

First, do some routine maintenance - run scandisk, then defrag your HDD. If scandisk finds any 'lost chains', follow the directions to fix them. If you have Norton Utilities, run System Doctor or Windows Doctor. Clean the game CD. Maybe use a CD-ROM drive cleaner on the drive.

Try running the game. If you're still having problems, then -

1. Copy your save game file to another location, like the desktop. Make sure you also have your original plug-in .zip files in a safe place, and whatever patch(es) you were currently running.

2. Uninstall the game. REBOOT.

3. Using Windows Explorer, go into Program Files and delete the Bethesda Softworks folder.

4. Empty the Recycle Bin. REBOOT.

5. Install the game. REBOOT.

6. Apply the patch(es). REBOOT.

(Remember to disable any anti-virus software while installing or patching.)

7. Install your plug-ins.

8. Now, either: start a new game, play up to the first point where you can save your game, save and quit the game. Copy the contents of your saved save game folder (just the contents, NOT the folder itself) to the newly created "Save" folder in the Morrowind folder. This has the advantage of letting you see if the game is running properly to begin with.

Or you can simply copy the saved save game folder (the folder iself, along with its contents) to the Morrowind folder.

9. Start Morrowind, go to Data and activate your plug-ins.

10. Load a saved game. You should be all set.

This procedure should be perfectly safe but use your judgement.

If the game runs, but you experience strange problems, it may be a bad plug-in. In this case, try deactivating the plug-ins one at a time to see if the problem goes away. As always after deactivating a plug-in, when restarting and loading your last save, immediately make a new save.

I mention this as I experienced massive problems with a plug-in called "Ring o' Teleportation" (NOT "Ring of Teleportation" - that one works perfectly).

Hope this helps.

speedball · Post by **speedball** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 8:55 am

free_fall, thanks for the advice. Once I get home from work today, I will give it a shot.

One point of clarification - As long as I have a copy of a save from my current game, deleting my plug-in house where all my loot is stored in the course of reinstalling the game shouldn't matter, as long as I reinstall the same housing mod before loading my saved game after the reinstall, right? It would be annoying to have to console in all the stuff I have there now...

Thanks.

free_fall · Post by **free_fall** » Tue Dec 17, 2002 7:33 pm

Yes, that's correct.

I would guess that's why the save files grow from around 1 Mb at the start of the game to around 4 Mb by the end - they're remebering all the stuff you've collected and all the things you've done to that point.

I hope you have more than one save in your save folder (some people don't save very often, I'm aware) to choose from, as it is possible that individual save files can get corrupted, also.

speedball · Post by **speedball** » Wed Dec 18, 2002 1:55 pm

This has taken a turn for the worse...

After following free_fall's steps, I am now getting a message that a .DLL file or two is missing when I try to reinstall.

* Before I go any further with my tale of woe, I want to be clear on something: I am not mad at or blaming free_fall for this. His advice sounded perfectly logical to me, and I also appreciate the quick response. I'm starting to think the problem is bigger than just the game anyway

*

Anyways, the nice tech support people at Bethesda suggested downloading and reinstalling DirectX 8.1b to see if that replaced the missing .DLL file. I will try that at home tonight.

If that doesn't work, then I'm not sure what to do from there...

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Wed Dec 18, 2002 2:00 pm

If .dll files belonging to DirectX processes are missing, then that's a probable cause for all your Morrowind errors...

free_fall · Post by **free_fall** » Wed Dec 18, 2002 7:21 pm

Oh, man, sorry you're still having problems.

D'oh! It should have occurred to me to suggest reinstalling DirectX. DirectX can get corrupted and, if that's the case, simply reinstalling it should do the trick. Reinstalling your vid card drivers might not be a bad idea, either - check to see if there may not be newer drivers available first.

Also, if reinstalling Dx doesn't help, mark down the names of the missing DLLs in the error messages and go to http://www.dll-files.com to download replacements. You can also use the System File Checker tool for this if you're running Win98.

On a more somber note - how long has it been since you last installed Windows?

Most powerusers recommend that Win9x should be reinstalled on an annual basis, or at the first signs of major system problems. Personal experience has certainly shown me the wisdom in this. (I just did a clean reinstall back in September, in fact.)

Yes, this a major hassle and, invariably, you forget to backup something you wish you had. It's an all-day affair and may stretch into two with getting all the loose ends tidied up. Of course, I'm talking 'clean' reinstall here - formatting the HDD and installing Windows on a clean drive. This is an extreme step but, boy, does she run smoooooth afterwards.

Fortunately, you can first try a 'dirty' reinstall - simply reinstall Windows over your existing installation. This will replace any missing or corrupted system files while preserving your settings and data - no backups to make - and you'll only have to then update the Windows components, like IE, Outlook Express, etc.

There's nothing worse than having to deal with all this when you're in the middle of a game, that's for sure.

Keep us updated.

Edit: I didn't mean for the above advice to sound glib. I am certainly NOT advocating just rushing in willy-nilly and reinstalling Windows - that should always remain your last resort, when everything else you've tried has failed to correct the problems.

I was just trying to point out that, sad but true, Win9x can get so screwed up that the only way to fix it is to just start fresh. If people just keep this in mind, a little preparation can lessen the pain such an eventuallity entails.

For example: Don't have a burner to backup all your stuff? Or you do, but it's such a tedious chore? Get PartitionMagic and create a new partition (say, D:\ ) and copy all your important stuff - mp3s, game patches, pRon, e-mails from Grandma, whatever - into folders on this partition. Put all your device drivers on there, too! Now, if you NEED to format C:\, all your important stuff is safe and right there at your fingertips. If you make it big enough, you can just point all your future downloads to folders there, to lessen to amount of stuff you have to copy over from C:\.

speedball · Post by **speedball** » Thu Dec 19, 2002 10:50 am

Well, there is a happy ending to all of this... sort of.

A friend of mine came over yesterday and took a look and was able to nail the problem. My CR-RW drive had gone bad, and was causing all the other problems. Once we took out the bad drive, I was able to use my DVD-ROM just fine. Games were auto-loading when I inserted the CD, etc. The final test will be when I reinstall Morrowind today, but I am not anticipating any problems.

So, I don't have to reinstall Windows (thank God), but I have to shell out $ for a new CD-RW. Could have been worse.

free_fall and Kameleon, thank you for your help with this. Even though I've been around for a while, I continue to be amazed by how nice and friendly this board is compared to others I've been to.

free_fall · Post by **free_fall** » Thu Dec 19, 2002 6:41 pm

Whew! Glad to hear that that's all it was.

The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago, when the 6 mo old Kenwood 72X CD drive I'd put in my first DIY box went bad. As soon as I pulled it out, the probs went away.

BTW, I like your sig.