[BlueFlames]

The only game I've ever had to reinstall is FreeSpace 2, and it's always been because of some screwup or another in FRED2.  Typically, the problem has something to do with saving my mission that causes FS2 to hard-lock before even attempting to load the file.

Last time FRED2 borked my save, I went to the trouble of rebuilding the mission, step-by-step, saving, playing, reloading, adding, saving, playing, etc., until it finally died.  There wasn't a single problem until the last step, which was adding the mission music.  *BOOM*  Mission dead.

Well, after letting this growing anger, hatred, and frustration fester for a while, I've finally cracked open VPview to track down this nasty bug.  First thing was checking the Music.tbl file against the actual music files in the VP archive.  No problem there, so one of the music files must be the source of the problem.  Well, I've just gone through the entire set of files associated with the track I picked, and they all play and sound fine.  What else is there?  Compare the mission with one that works in Wordpad...  Absolutely no difference to be found in the music section.

That's left me at a dead end.  Nothing appears to be wrong, though obviously something is, or I'd not be rebuilding another mission for the third time.  Anyone with some help to offer?

[IceFire]

You've added music?  Am I right?

Check the audio codec that you used to save the music files.  There's limitations to that....you can't use Mp3, you can't go over 22khz....etc.

[Lonestar]

I dont know the solution to your problem.

Got a suggestion though. Always save your mission twice in seperate folders. This way when you make a change, and it fubars the mission you can revert to older saved files.

[vadar_1]

just replace the backup mission with the original, then open it and save it, creating a new backup... saves time rebuilding the mission if it "fookes up".

[Vertigo1]

Try saving the music file into the same detail level as the Freespace music itself.  Then see if it still screws up.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by BlueFlames
Last time FRED2 borked my save, I went to the trouble of rebuilding the mission, step-by-step, saving, playing, reloading, adding, saving, playing, etc., until it finally died.  There wasn't a single problem until the last step, which was adding the mission music.  *BOOM*  Mission dead.

Well, after letting this growing anger, hatred, and frustration fester for a while, I've finally cracked open VPview to track down this nasty bug.  First thing was checking the Music.tbl file against the actual music files in the VP archive.  No problem there, so one of the music files must be the source of the problem.  Well, I've just gone through the entire set of files associated with the track I picked, and they all play and sound fine.  What else is there?  Compare the mission with one that works in Wordpad...  Absolutely no difference to be found in the music section.

That's left me at a dead end.  Nothing appears to be wrong, though obviously something is, or I'd not be rebuilding another mission for the third time.  Anyone with some help to offer?

FRED2 automatically saves a previous version of your mission with the same name but .bak extention. All you have to do is rename that file to .fs2 and you can load the version in before you saved any changes.

However that doesn`t appear to be your problem as you say that you have a copy which works (the only change being the music).

Most likely something has gone wrong with the mission elsewhere. You could try making a mission with just alpha 1 and the music you`re trying to play and then cut and paste the music from one to another.

If all else fails you can send both copies to [email protected] I`ll have a look at it but I`m quite busy at the moment so I can`t say that it will get done for a couple of days.

[Kellan]

FRED2 does freakish things sometimes. When you make a change in one area, it makes a change somewhere else. That's the most likely source of your problems, but unless you know exactly what you're looking for in the notepad version, it's hard to find what went wrong and where...

Failing that, use the .bak and Go Comparative! *groans*

[BlueFlames]

You've added music? Am I right?

No and no.  I just picked a track that came with FS2.  It will be a cold day in hell before I get into recording music.  

Anyway, I'm rebuilding the mission again, this time keeping a backup copy...  I'll probably splice the music in using notepad this time, just to make sure that's the only change that gets made by FRED2 or myself.  If that fails, well...  I'll either hurt my brain bug-hunting in the FRED2 source or let the problem win.

[CP5670]

Does the mission work without any music? I haven't heard of any problems due to the default soundtracks yet.

[Sandwich]

Ever hear of the FC command? Open up DOS or CMD or whatever, and FC mission1.fs2 mission1.bak - it'll show you the exact lines that are different between the two.

[EdrickV]

Originally posted by sandwich
Ever hear of the FC command? Open up DOS or CMD or whatever, and FC mission1.fs2 mission1.bak - it'll show you the exact lines that are different between the two.

Dang. That's basically diff for DOS/Windows. That's one command I'd never heard about till now.