[NumNuts]

Hi guys, one question? How many ways can you crash FRED?? Is there a thread which lists them? Obviously it would be version specific but is there any rules of thumb like the limit of background nebs? (I remember reading the limit was 80, I could be wrong)
I'm not a total noob to FRED but my experience was only with FS1, and that was a long time ago. Now I've been making a mission for about a week....editing/playing/testing/editing etc..... and I'm about 98% complete...BUT, last night I was adding some reference url's to the Mission Specs/Designer notes field and when I tried to save it, it gave me this error:

Error: C:\Games\FreeSpace2\data\missions\LongHaul.fs2(14):
Error: Required token = [#Command Briefing] or [#Briefing], found [//www.hard-light.net/forums/inde] .

File:C:\projects\fs2_open\code\Parse\PARSELO.CPP
Line: 543
[This filename points to the location of a file on the computer that built this executable]

Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
    fred2_open_r.exe 004f5891()
    fred2_open_r.exe 00490f21()
    fred2_open_r.exe 00497aac()
    fred2_open_r.exe 004987dc()
    fred2_open_r.exe 0041ee2f()
    fred2_open_r.exe 0041e9d2()
    MFC42.DLL 73e30d1d()
    MFC42.DLL 73e30bdd()
    MFC42.DLL 73dd23bf()
    MFC42.DLL 73dd2b5b()
    MFC42.DLL 73dd2b1e()
    fred2_open_r.exe 00427510()
    MFC42.DLL 73dd2a69()
    MFC42.DLL 73dd3244()
    MFC42.DLL 73dd32f7()
------------------------------------------------------------------

If I press OK to use debugger, it comes up with more errors, if I press CANCEL it totally spits saying "The instruction at "0x73dd11c7" referenced memory at "0x00000004". The memory could not be "read". Click on OK to terminate the program."

Now, if I revert to the save I had prior to adding the last link in the Designers notes, it will load into FRED, but I cant save it. I've tryed loading it and taking all the text out of the Designers notes and saving it again, but it just comes up with another error similar to the first but at a different location/variable. ([#voice] instead of [#Briefing] for example). It appears to me that I have somehow screwed the formating of the text but have no idea how that can happen when I hadn't used a text editor to alter the mission file.
Would any of you expert FREDers care to hazard a guess to what I have done, or possibly suggest a way to fix it if thats at all possible? 
Thanks in advance.
[I'm using fred2_open_r_08282005]

[karajorma]

Open the mission in notepad and clear anything between

$Notes: and $End Notes:  and anything between $Mission Desc: and $end_multi_text

If that doesn't work I don't mind taking a look at it.

[NumNuts]

Thanks AGAIN for your help. I've sent you a PM with details to grab the mission.
Cheers.

[karajorma]

Fixed.

I'll explain what went wrong here rather than in the PM cause I feel it's good to explain pitfalls where everyone can see them.

The problem was not the inclusion of the URL but the line directly proceeding it where you had entered the name of Singh's mission in speech morks. You should never use speech marks in FRED as it is one of the symbols used by the mission parser. (something I only discovered when I made a very similar mistake to yours).
The parser will immediately go to the next line in the life (the URL) thinking that it came after the text had ended. That was why it was telling you that it was expecting to find the mission briefing. 

In addition to this saving the mission had also caused an error in the mission around line 400 or so. Several newline characters had been appended to one of your messages and this was also breaking the mission. Quite why FRED had choosen to add them there is something a coder may care about but seeing as it was almost certainly caused by the original error I simply removed them and now the mission works


So in short, don't use speech marks in any of the text boxes in FRED.

To be honest I'm surprised I don't see this one much more often

[NumNuts]

Man, thanks a billion for that. I noticed some problems when writing briefing/debriefing text when I tryed to use quotation marks but didnt think they would effect the mission hidden away in Designer Notes.
From the two versions you provided only the -fixed one worked in my FRED.
Is there a thread dedicated to little things like this that can cause harm to FRED? Or does it change too rapidly to keep up?
Thanks again! 

[StratComm]

Isn't there something like $quote for the briefing text that will render a quotation mark?  I'm fairly sure it's possible to get them in there, it's just not as easy as typing " on your keyboard.

[karajorma]

It's possible that there is. If someone spots a mission which uses quote marks in it I'm more than happy to report it. I doubt it would have helped in this case though as the notes section would probably show the unparsed entry anyway. Might be useful in debriefings etc.

@NumNuts : There isn't a thread but if you look at my FAQ I have mentioned a closely related problem here. I'll update the FAQ with this problem too.

[CP5670]

Yeah, the SCP added in $quote and $semicolon flags at some point (along with $rank and $callsign). Quotes can be used even in retail FS2 by using two apostrophes though, which look exactly like a quote.

I am running into some strange FRED2 crashes myself. One mission only crashes when I select a particular ship in the ship editor, while another mission crashes when I try to add in new two ships of any kind and frequently (but not always) gets saved by FRED2 in a weird non-DOS format. These things only occur in these two missions, but they aren't really causing any problems for me so I am not going to worry about them.

[karajorma]

I'll have to remember that

[Taristin]

Stuff

Surprised no one else reg'd as this name yet.

I remember I got banned from the VBB for regging as "Waste of sperm"