Greetings All -
I'm teaching this program to 5 high schoolers and we just hit this error and none of them can run their game.

here's the history:
last week - 5 kids came, no problems what-so-ever. the came, built their games, ran them flawlessly throughout the whole week.

HOWEVER- this week.
new kids, come, they all add a house, hollow it, save, build and run and they all at the same exact time hit the "Error 1242".

i have no idea what happened. nothing was changed.

I've searched through these forums for the last hour, directX was at 9c, and still is. it's not ram nor nexus size.

here's my log file, anyone have any ideas:


Log of A6 engine 6.40.5 run at Mon Aug 07 11:09:21 2006
rgaskamp on Windows NT/2000/XP version 5.1 Build 2600
Options untitled.wmb -nx 30 -diag

App C:\Program Files\GStudio6\acknex.exe in C:\Documents and Settings\rgaskamp\Desktop\
MM mixer opened
CD audio device opened
DSOUND device opened
DI interface opened
Start Window opened
GameStudio © Conitec . Dieburg . San Diego . www.3dgamestudio.com
A6 engine - Commercial Edition V6.40.5 - May 5 2006
Development version - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION
Registered to: PLANET BRAVO - A6 COMMERCIAL ED.

Mouse found
SoundMAX Digital Audio opened
D3D device 256MB ATI RADEON X600 1ff9 selected
Loading UNTITLED.WMB.....
2 objects
D3D_Init Window: 640x480x32 failed
D3D_Init Window: 800x600x32 failed
Error E1242: Can't open video device. Try -W3D command line option
Program aborted...cmap,0 ents,0 verts,lmaps,0 tex,ptls,hull...ok
Main started
Main loop.........ok
Close level,DLL,objects
Free input,path,funcs,panels,defs,syns,views,strings,vars..ok
Free sounds,bmaps,fonts,hash,defs1,script..ok
Close dx,multimedia,D3D,engine,physics,nexus..ok
A6 engine - Commercial Edition V6.40.5 - May 5 2006
GameStudio © Conitec . Dieburg . San Diego . www.3dgamestudio.com
Registered to: PLANET BRAVO - A6 COMMERCIAL ED.
Close window

thanks all!
Russ

There is a known problem when levels are saved as "untitled". Save the level as another name besides that then try again. If it still happens, please provide additional information.

Thanks for the quick response - however i wish this was the case.

No matter what I save it as, this happens.

No matter what I have on it, even if I just place a simple cube, save it as ‘trouble’ and run it, this happens.

More history that might be relevant:
Last week, when my 5 kids logged in for the first time, the ‘Video Out’ pref. was set to gxlbas32.dll – however we soon figured out that we couldn’t display 3d objects w/ textures in the ‘3d view’. So we changed it to gxlbase.dll.

Now my new kids log in w/ their new username and account and it doesn’t work due to the error – could it be something about previous settings and multiple accounts that has anything to do with it?

Thanks for your help – what other info could I provide?

Edit:
we're 90% sure that it's something to do with the gamestudio always trying to access the old information, even when it's someone new logged in. reasons for this conclusion:
when a 2nd week user goes to save his game for the first time, it tries to save it in the first week users folder. which he doesn't have access to. we think that somewhere in doing this it corrupts the file, because even if we log back into the 1st week campers folder, we still get the 'error 1242'.

is this possible?
and if so, why doesn't uninstalling and reinstalling fix it?

D3D_Init Window: 640x480x32 failed
D3D_Init Window: 800x600x32 failed
Error E1242: Can't open video device. Try -W3D command line option


that is what is says in your log.
i guess it is a directx error. try like it said with -w3d command line. and maybe also try to reinstall your directX could help...

tried with the -w3d command line, didn't work.

but if it is directX, i don't see what would have changed from last week to this week...

From the manual:

Quote:

---

Error E1241: D3D device open failure
Error E1242: Video device open failure
Error: missing export xxxxx.DLL
DirectX is not properly installed on your PC. Install DirectX 9.0c or above, and the correct driver for your video card.

---

Try either reinstalling DirectX or updating the driver for the video card.

tried both - nothing changed.

I have one last idea that I can think of. Try reinstalling Gamestudio. Perhaps a file went corrupt.

was all over that, reinstalled it. nothing changed.

OK - so, after 5 hours of reinstalling, moving computers, troubleshooting and dealing w/ unhappy kids, WE FIXED IT!

i'm pretty sure no one else will have this issue ever again, but the least i can do is contribute to the knowledge base.

we're a technology summer camp, and sometimes we use 'NetSupport School' to control the screens of all of our computers to teach our lessons. last week we didn't do this at all. however, over the weekend, we taught a class in which we did. for whatever the reason, this either changed a driver or whatever the heck it did, to give us such a hard time today.

we fixed it by rolling back the drivers to last week before we had controlled all the screens.

i sure hope no one else runs into this issue, but if they do - good luck!

Thanks to ulillillia and Dutchie666 for all the support that they provided along the way.