PBEM battle Alf V Aj test Workaround

[AJ]

At the end of the second days fighting, Alfy's Allies are in a far stronger position than France. Alfy is developing a counter attack on the French right. The French attempt to use numerical superiority in a localised area on the Allies right, is faltering.
One bright spot for France is their influence on the Allies LOP in the SE, can France cut the LOP again and stage an attack while the Allies Moral is affected by the LOP loss?

[AJ]

Battle ended in a valiant draw. Curious thing happened. We started the battle sending unzipped files, all orders obeyed. Later on we started zipping the files with WinRar, slowly orders started to be delayed or ignored. We stopped Zipping and after one turn each, all orders given were once again obeyed in a precise and timely manner? Could this be the cause of the Order memory leak in the Official PBEM Mode. In the official mode all our orders were always obeyed at the beginning as we sent unzipped files. I have to experiment and report back

[Gunner24]

In the official mode all our orders were always obeyed at the beginning as we sent unzipped files

I always noticed games were ok during the early stages, and got worse later on, so it could be the files as they got bigger and needed to be zipped ???????.

[AJ]

I'm no expert, all I know is that when we stopped Zipping the files, all orders returned to normal after one turn each. Could this have some significance with the pbem problem JMM is working on? I don't know

[JMM]

No idea.. that seems very curious...
Only I am sure there was a bug in your version.. and I hope the release 02a will work fine for PBEM, whatever the type of orders... 

JMM

[AJ]

JMM, that's good to know, I sincerely hope so too. I think it must be in the Decompression or Overwrite process, all I know is the workaround plays fine if you don't Zip. As we say in USA, "Go Figure"

The workaround is providing us with a temporary way to fight and battles are in full progress, being enjoyed by all

[Hook]

If zipping a file caused any kind of corruption, the game would never have returned to normal.  Most of the time if there's corruption during the zipping process, the file won't unzip, but give you an error message.

Zipped files do not lose data like JPG images do.  If you zip a file, then upzip it, the new file will be identical to the one you originally zipped.  If there was any problem with the file, it was there before you zipped it.  

If the zip file was corrupted in transit, it wouldn't unzip.  The best you could hope for is to get a message telling you the file is corrupt and the zip utility will attempt to fix it.  I'm not sure if WinRAR does this, but I've seen it in other zip programs in the past.

Hook

[Alfiere]

To me seems that solo mode work well.
Both side it is in practice a solo mode without Gt AI (I think I could be wrong), only question is owervrite the files,se this have no problem should work well .
Ajle have used WinRaR....could be ???

[AJ]

I am gratefully for the input of both JMM and Hook on this subject. I am not and will never claim to be a "Computer Wizard', so I bow to their superior knowledge on this matter.
However if emailing zipping and unzipping files has no effect on them, and considering, as Alfy says, that the game is essentially operating in SOLO mode which is imitating pbem mode; then there must be an order bug in "Command both Sides" SOLO mode, which disappears when an uncompressed file is emailed.
This is precisely why I am no good at Computing/Programming, I can never make sense of the nonsensical and fix it.

[Alfiere]

To make a experiment could be playing for 30 minutes for  side.(for speedy)
Exchanging only file not zipped until at 13.00 hours (half game).
Then keep this file as master.
Take a copy and playing 15 min for side exchanging file zipped until the end.(not with WinRar) at the end change name to file.
then take a copy and playing 15 min for side exchanging file not zipped until the end and see the difference.
(trying to give same orders of previous battle)
or perhaps is better wait vers .2a and stop.(without perhaps)

[AJ]

Alfy, as always good ideas you have but I am happy concentrating on the fighting pbem battles right now.  I am confident Version 0.2 will work, I know JMM is having everything  well tested. So lets battle!!!!!

[Hook]

Ok, let me make sure of one thing.  You aren't putting the .zip file in the save game folder without unzipping it, are you?  If you're doing that, and the game is automatically handling the unzipping process, there may indeed be a bug.  If you are zipping and unzipping totally outside the game, so that the game only sees the original file on each side, then the zip process won't matter.

Hook

[AJ]

Ok, let me make sure of one thing.  You aren't putting the .zip file in the save game folder without unzipping it, are you?  If you're doing that, and the game is automatically handling the unzipping process, there may indeed be a bug.

Hook, I'm saving the Zipped file to Histwar\Save\Battle, then right clicking and selecting "Unzip Here", "YES" to replace existing file, then deleting the original zipped file. Does that work?

[Alfiere]

Thank Hook for clarification.
I unizip out and the move in directory for overwrite , but zip in directory for send file with mail.
Then for zip i must copy sav file in other directory and zip for send to mail.

[Hook]

Hook, I'm saving the Zipped file to Histwar\Save\Battle, then right clicking and selecting "Unzip Here", "YES" to replace existing file, then deleting the original zipped file. Does that work?

That works perfectly. 

I think if I tried it that way, I'd end up sending the wrong files.  Of course, most of my PBEMs have used mIRC's direct file transfer.  The hardest part for me is keeping the files straight.

Hook