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Question for Vod - Launcher log; Trying to get past .exe crash
Topic Started: Jan 16 2015, 09:28 PM (966 Views)
MetalMania
Rookie
Sorry this is sort of a double post, but I wanted to make sure Vod saw it. It's a continuation of my post titled "Maybe I should try this again". The short version is I'm taking another shot at getting NHL 2004 with the rebuilt mod working on my Alienware laptop, Win 7 64 with ATI mobile 4870 graphics card. I have the base game on discs, but every time I've tried installing it (C:\NHL2004) I can't get any further than an immediate desktop switch to 800x600 resolution and the "NHL2004.exe has stopped working" error. I have the .exe as run as administrator and I've tried running in every XP compatibility mode it offers.

This most recent time around I installed the game from discs, and after the installation finished it actually started itself to the main menu (in a small low res window), but I couldn't do anything else - the menu was unresponsive and I couldn't even close the program from within - I had to go to task manager and end it. This was before I even set run as admin and compatibility mode on the .exe. So following trent's suggestion from my other post, I downloaded the rebuilt interface, unblocked the .rar before extracting - extracted per the instructions, and set the admin and XP compatibility on NHL.EXE. I tried running the game, but still immediately got the NHL2004.EXE has stopped working error. I registered the browser engine and becontrols dlls manually (tried a batch file but they gave errors, so I opened a command prompt window, navigated to the main NHL2004 directory, and manually ran the regsvr32 commands for each - which said they were successful). Tried running the game again but it still gave the error.

Next I tried the launcher, initially the launcher.ini only had a few entries for some graphics settings. I looked up the launcher thread on the site, I don't know if the other parameters are optional or if I should add everything so I tried adding:

DisableIntro = 1
DeviceType = 1
MyDocsPath = C:\Users\Chris\My Documents (the NHL 2004 documents folder is located in this path). I also extended this entry to end with \NHL 2004 but the results were no different

I ran the launcher, but still immediately get the NHL2004.EXE has stopped working error. I also tried changing the launcher.exe to run as admin. Here is what the last launcher log contains:

Launcher.ini loaded
Retrieving VTable
Window 1639780 created
Direct3D 8 initialized
Direct3D Device created
CreateDevice (0x10001289) hooked
V-Table retrieved (0xB01CA0)
Direct3D device released
iDirect3D prototype released
Release (0x61995C50) hooked
Reset (0x619983E0) hooked
NHL2004.exe MD5 fingerprint retrieved: 72fb38ac359b97102c192dc3793fb9b4
NHL 2004 resolution subroutine (0x406C10) hooked
SHGetSpecialFolderPathA (0x755801AE) hooked
Antialiasing set to 2x
BackBufferCount set to 2
Retrieved device caps
VSync disabled
Refresh rate set to 60hz
Anisotropic filtering set to 1x
Hardware vertex processing enabled
Puredevice enabled
Direct3D device created

Trent said you (Vod) might be able to help interpret the launcher log. I'm not sure what to look for from here. I tried the things in the error solutions thread, but my computer is really stubborn about running this game for some reason. I'd hope that since it briefly ran (by itself apparently) after the base installer finished, that somehow there is a way to get it going and I know several people have no problem with Win 7. Thanks for any other suggestions you might have.
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Vod
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Development Team
Unfortunately, there's not enough information in that log to determine the problem. If it crashes right away if you run the game from both nhl2004.exe and launcher.exe and you're sure the .dll files are registered, then it sounds like it might be a driver problem. Make sure your GPU driver and DirectX is up to date, and if it still crashes check to see if there's a setting related to scaling in the control panel for your GPU and try different settings if it is there. I may be able to tell you a bit more if you share the Windows event log entry for the crash.

As a side note, "MyDocsPath" should only be used if you change the path from the default. Otherwise, it's best to leave that blank since it's still an experimental feature. Also, setting a compatibility mode should have no affect in Windows 7.
NHL 2004 Launcher | My Changelog | NHL 2004 Preservation | NHL 2004 Debugger
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MetalMania
Rookie
Of course (slaps forehead), I keep thinking I would need a log directly from NHL I didn't think of looking in the event viewer.

I see 4 events when I try to run the game in event viewer:

1st is an information message: "A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (NHL2004.exe)

2nd is an information message: "The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because composition was disabled by a running application"

3rd is the error:

Faulting application name: NHL2004.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x72454562
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18247, time stamp: 0x521ea8e7
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00033ac3
Faulting process id: 0x195c
Faulting application start time: 0x01d032697c4b8482
Faulting application path: C:\NHL2004\NHL2004.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll
Report Id: bbd67f1b-9e5c-11e4-b0bd-0026b9fef895

4th is the appcrash information message:

Log Name: Application
Source: Windows Error Reporting
Date: 1/17/2015 10:23:19 AM
Event ID: 1001
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Chris-M17X
Description:
Fault bucket 3897499223, type 1
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: NHL2004.exe
P2: 0.0.0.0
P3: 72454562
P4: ntdll.dll
P5: 6.1.7601.18247
P6: 521ea8e7
P7: c0000005
P8: 00033ac3
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Local\Temp\WER677A.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml

These files may be available here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_NHL2004.exe_9f4b0eb7af822fe93fb4f54189faa5db62c6_1c6e9a8b

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: bbd67f1b-9e5c-11e4-b0bd-0026b9fef895
Report Status: 0


I have the latest drivers available for my graphics card and DirectX is not the latest, but is fairly recent. My card only supports up to DX10, but should be more than enough for NHL2004. I've run Dx7 and Dx8 stuff before with no trouble.
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MetalMania
Rookie
Ok, something else really weird just happened. I tried adding NHL2004.exe directly as an exclusion in my anti-virus, even though I've already added the whole game folder as an exclusion. The #@!& game actually started! BUT it was in a small 800x600 window. I could go through menus, I enabled my gamepad controller and entered a "play now" game and it was working. However, when I went back to the main menu I could not exit the game, the button wouldn't respond and I had to ctrl+alt+del to task manager.

Good progress though, right? Maybe not. Now I can't run the game again... I'm back at the .exe error right away. But I would think that since it ran this one time, it can't be my graphics drivers, right? I tried turning off my anti-virus completely and it's still failing. I tried removing the .exe exclusion and re-adding it, but it still won't launch again. I don't know if I feel better that it actually ran at all, or worse since I can't seem to repeat it!
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Vod
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Development Team
When you say it opened in an 800x600 window, do you mean an actual window you can move, or did the screen go black and you had a 800x600 viewport in the middle? Did you check for a scaling setting in your GPU control panel? Also, make sure your antivirus didn't make any changes to the NHL 2004 folder.

Here is DirectX updater: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35
NHL 2004 Launcher | My Changelog | NHL 2004 Preservation | NHL 2004 Debugger
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MetalMania
Rookie
Sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean a movable window. The screen goes black and there's a white viewport in the middle where the nhl2004.exe error appears, and my bottom toolbar icons show at the bottom of it. So it's like the desktop gets switched into this small "viewport" when the error occurs, and returns back to normal resolution when I click out of the error.

I'm not sure what you mean by a scaling option in the gpu settings? My GPU control panel has settings for AA, "adaptive" AA, anisotropic filtering, and mip map detail. Then I have the regular windows option for screen resolution setting and monitor designation. If you mean literally an option titled "scaling", then no - I don't see that. I updated directX, no change with the error unfortunately.

As far as I can tell, my AV (it's just Windows Security Essentials) hasn't changed anything. I have the main game folder entered as an exclusion, and individually excluded Launcher.exe, nhl2004.exe, Project1.exe, and RusPatch.exe. I haven't run a scan since I've reinstalled NHL, but the "realtime" protection is normally on. It was actually running the one time that the game launched from the .exe. I have since tried it again with it completely off but it still failed.

I set full permissions for all users to the main game folder as well.
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Vod
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Development Team
There should be a display/monitor setting in the catalyst control panel (not a 3d setting) which allows you to control how the driver scales the 800 x 600 image. Since it's just a small rectangle in the center of your screen, it sounds like your drivers is not doing any scaling. What you want is for it to scale the image while preserving the aspect ratio, and there should be an option for that somewhere.

What antivirus software are you using?
NHL 2004 Launcher | My Changelog | NHL 2004 Preservation | NHL 2004 Debugger
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MetalMania
Rookie
Ok, found it - sort of (wow, they really didn't put it in a place where it was quick to find...). I may be out of luck with the scaling. There is no option for preserving the aspect ratio, only "full screen" and "centered" (which itself is greyed out and inaccessible). I looked it up in the catalyst control center help file and it says that the preserve aspect ratio option is only available when using wide screen display panels on Windows XP. I guess it's literally not an option with Windows 7.

Antivirus is just Windows Security Essentials. I run an occasional Malwarebytes scan, but don't use it for any real time monitoring.
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Gimmpy666
Junior League
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I'm having this same issue with my new Alienware I just recently purchased! The game just will not run! No matter what I do.

Have you had any progress? I've spent every free minute I've had for the last 2 days to try and get this thing running and can't solve it.
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