Since my brother re-installed Windows XP on our computer, I can't play JJ2 anymore. The installation works completely fine, but when I click on "Jazz Jackrabbit 2" in the start menu I get an access violation right after the small purple picture. Normally the Epic logo would appear, but I get this access violation instead. I've tried a lot of things like activating the compatibility mode or running the game in windowed mode, but nothing works. Re-installing doesn't solve the problem either.

Last christmas, we bought a new computer and JJ2 worked fine on it. However, that computer somehow crashed pretty often when starting Windows, until the whole computer died and my brother had to do anything again. He re-installed Windows and made all that stuff like downloading and installing Direct-X, etc. The PC now doesn't crash anymore when starting, but instead from time to time just freezes, and hangs so I have to reboot it (I hate my PC). But while JJ2 worked fine before the big crash, it doesn't since my brother re-installed Windows. I just keep getting Access Violations right at the start, whatever I do.

Like I said, I'm using Windows XP (Home Edition) and a Radeon 9800 graphics card. I have JJ2 1.24 aswell as 1.20, but installed both in the same directory. I have installed Direct X 9.

I have performed a search on the word "access violation", but I found nothing that helped me.

Did anybody face that problem before or does anyone have an idea how to fix it?

Well, I can only guess what is causing it... perhaps one of the Logo.j2v files got corrupt/is missing?

Hm.. possible. Could someone send me the first logo (the Epic Megagames thing) via e-mail?

My address is (e-mail adress)

Done.

I received it and replaced the old files, but that changed hardly anything.

However, instead of an access violation half of the screen is black (I tried getting a screenshot, but failed). I think the black part is just the size of the windowed game.

I remember I had that before though.

Still, thanks for your efforts.

*edit*

I tried it again and this time I just get an access violation again, like before. So the logos are not corrupted it seems.

A guess... Could it be possible that the 1.24 files have been overwritten by 1.20?

Possibly. I'll try to install TSF only, maybe that will work.

*edit*

Didn't fix it.

I also tried opening a level using JCS (save & run), but that doesn't seem to work out either.

Jazz2.exe corrupt? That's the only thing which I can think of right now.

Can you send me yours?

But how could an exe file get corrupted? I'm using the same CD as I always used.

Well maybe the CD you installed from got a lil scratch, and file datas are corrupted..

..

or something.

I don't think it's possible to scratch two CDs (1.20 and TSF) in a way exactly the same files get corrupted.

But thanks anyways.

This is a weird idea, but have you tried running it under an administrator account?

I'm administrator at the moment.

But maybe I should run it under a not-administrator account? =P

I'm guessing you have already tried running levels directly, but I can't tell for sure.

Do you mean using JCS or programms like Captain Cook (or how that one thing was called)? The latter I have yet to try out.

*edit*

With Captain Cook I got until the loading screen of the level, then I got an access violation again. I guess using the bat-files that come with FSP won't work either.

I think there is yet another way to start JJ2, using something called command line. How do I do that?

Command lines are actually what the FSP .bat files are about, I think.

Could you post the JJ2 log file?

Erm.. how to?

1. Open your Jazz folder.
2. Jazz2.log.
3. Post its contains here.

I don't have such a file. I'm guessing I first have to download one of those log problems, right?

Hmm... launch JJ2, and when it crashes look if the .log file is there. Also you could try launching it with the spy window/a log program on.

W00t. A Stack Overflow error. That's something new I guess.

It's pretty much like the access violation error though - a small window with lots of code.

The log file is still not there. I'll try downloading one (I remember such a programm got uploaded not long ago).

*edit*

This is a screenshot of the log after trying to run JJ2 with Captain Cook (this time I got an access violation again instead of a stack overflow):



I used this log programm by the way.

My only other guess is something went wrong with the registry for JJ2.

How to fix that? =l

It's hard to say without knowing what's the exact cause or if it's even the reason at all. What you could do is make some screenshots of the contents of certain JJ2 registry keys (like System or VideoSize) and post them here. Alternatively you could export a registry file of the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 branch.

Edit: It might help to post screenshots of the files in your JJ2 folder in detailed view as well.

If it is the registry, all you need to do is delete everything associated with JJ2 there (unless you've got other Epic games installed) and run JJ2. JJ2 will automatically create new registry settings every time it starts.

WARNING: Do this at your own risk. I know for a fact that JJ2 creates/repairs the registry if there are *missing* things, but I've never ever deleted it all.

When de-installing JJ2, it clearly says that the registry gets deleted.

I'll try to install it yet again now, after deleting everything JJ-related I found. But I doubt that it has any effect.

*edit*

Originally Posted by Blur

It's hard to say without knowing what's the exact cause or if it's even the reason at all. What you could do is make some screenshots of the contents of certain JJ2 registry keys (like System or VideoSize) and post them here. Alternatively you could export a registry file of the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 branch.

Edit: It might help to post screenshots of the files in your JJ2 folder in detailed view as well.

I have no idea how to do any of the above things. I might get those screenshots, if you tell me what detailed view is. Shame on me for my lack of technical abilities.

I had a problem for a while that starting Jazz2 would immediatly crash it with an AV. Big difference is, if I recall it correctly, it also would break my computer if I did it. Breaking, that is, it messed up my registry. I had this problem for a long time, but found that it disappeared by downloading and installing the latest drivers for my NVIDIA graphics card.

This may not be the same situation at all, but parts of the situation are the same and this may help.

Detailed view: go to one of the menus in explorer and click on detailed view.

There is a "select details" option where you can check everything you want to view. Checking everything resulted in nothing useful. I didn't find an option called detailed view.

As for drivers, my brother would have to do that, I'm not allowed to do such things (he fears I'd mess up the computer). We should have the newest drivers though.

Just find your JJ2 folder, right click somewhere in the folder, go to View, then click Details. If it's not exactly that, it's probably something similar.

Found it.

I had to make four screenshots to get the whole folder.

http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...%20folder1.JPG
http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...folder%202.JPG
http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...folder%203.JPG
http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...folder%204.JPG

The files seem to all look normal though.

*edit*

The quality of the pictures is not really high sadly.

Are we looking for missing files or corrupted ones? I they are corrupted, then there's no way we can know, unless there's a really big difference in file size. I can create a PAR2 file using QuickPAR (it checks for differences between supposedly identical files, and can fix minor corruptions) for you, but you'll also need the program yourself: http://www.quickpar.org.uk/

I probably should've asked you to display your JJ2 folder by filetype. Oh well.

Edit: And in the second screenshot, I'm assuming your log file is just above your Jazz2 application (it helps to always display file extensions).

V_V

*goes make screenshots again*

*edit*

http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...folder%205.JPG
http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...folder%206.JPG
http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...folder%207.JPG
http://people.freenet.de/liljulez/ph...folder%208.JPG

Thanks for your efforts and patience by the way.

If you're going to do that, you don't have to make screenshots of the entire folder. You can skip over the levels, tilesets, and music files.

Too late. ;D

Are we looking for missing files?

Not so much as corrupted files, but I like your idea more (although it could get more complicated than expected). I wanted to put an emphasis on a corrupted registry though.

What the...? I wouldn't have posted that if I had found my previous post (which I couldn't 5 mins ago).

So... in case my registry would be corrupted, how would I check that?