My name is Nick Soutter, I own a small game development company
(www.aepoxgames.net) making our first game (www.andromedaonline.net) in
java.
I am writing because we are having a very serious problem, and I was hoping
someone might have thoughts.
Our game has 2 main programs- one is an updater, the other is the game
client. The updater (AndromedaOnlin e.jar) checks for updates to the
graphics, sound, client, and of course itself. After applying any updates,
the updater runs the client (AndromedaClien t.jar) for people to play with.
When players install this program on their systems with pre-existing
versions of JAVA, it runs fine. When they try to install it after installing
a fresh, new Java JRE, however, it fails.
I am running Java 1.4.1_05 on my system. This runs fine. After some Alpha
testers reported client problems, we brought up a test computer, installed a
fresh Windows XP, installed Java 1.4.1_05 on the system, then installed the
game. The updater ran fine, but the client failed to run. It threw null
pointer exceptions when it tried to load the graphics from the graphics jar
file (AndromedaGFX.j ar)
Strange as this may sound, this problem SEEMS to only to occur on newly
installed JRE's.
The problem appears to be that the client is not reading graphics from the
associated graphics jar. The updater is small, so we were able to include
its graphics with the updater, instead of in a separate jar, which is
probably why the updater works fine.
If we take the bad Andromeda game folder, copy it to another computer with
Java on it, the game works fine. But copy the folder back to the freshly
installed computer, and it won't work.
We suspected a classpath issue, but there's a classpath info in the client
jar which should prevent this. Further, we've updated all the classpath
information on the new installation, aswel as path, and JAVA_HOME
environmental variables. None of it worked (it is interesting to note that
classpath isn't set on the working machine, it gets that from the client
manifest).
We've had this problem reported on three windows machines and have been
unable to fix it. On at least 5 machines it appears to runs fine. We haven't
a clue what is causing this problem. It does not appear to be the game or
the code, as copying the game folder from a "bad" machine to a "good" one
allows the client within the folder to work.
It's very strange, and ALL of us here are stumped. We go to beta soon, and
obviously this is a serious problem. Again, as strange as it sounds, the
only common thread is new installs of java where none existed. Install java
on your machine (any 1.4.1 or higher), and the client can't load it's own
graphics files (copy of client manifest below).
If you'd like to see the basic files, they can be found at
http://www.aepox.net/andromeda/Downl...omedaBasic.zip. This includes
the updater and client, as well as the libraries. If you run the updater
(AndromedaOnlin e.jar) it will attempt to download the graphics package
(AndromedaGFX.j ar). If you want to download the entire package (graphics and
everything) it's at
http://www.aepox.net/andromeda/Downl...medaOnline.zip
Thank you for your time. Any thoughts as to the cause of this troublesome
problem would be MUCH appreciated.
Nick Soutter
Aepox Games
Manifest-Version: Version 1.0
Specification-Title: Andromeda GameClient Classes
Class-Path: lib/jmf.jar;Androme daGFX.jar;Andro medaSFX.jar;
Main-Class: com.andromeda.g ameclient.PreGa meClient
Implementation-Title: com.andromeda.g ameclient
Specification-Vendor: Aepox Games
Specification-Version: 1.0
Implementation-Version: 40119
Name: com/andromeda/gameclient
Implementation-Vendor: Aepox Games
