Celestia Forums

I sent this email to Chris but no reply as of yet, so I thought I would post it:

I recieve an error message every time I try to start Celestia stating that the file:

C:\DOCUME~1\RYANAN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERA.tmp.dir00\appcompat.txt

is the file causing the problem.

I am running Windows XP with SP1, 512MB DDR, a GeForce 4 Ti 4400. Do you have any suggestions?

I tried Celestia 1.24 and the latest beta.. same error message.

Thank you for your wonderful program and your help.

The wierd thing is, it worked before I had to reformat the Hard Drive.


Well, that is it guys, any ideas why it is giving me an error? I have uninstalled/reinstalled and still the same error.

appcompat.txt is created when XP generates a crash dump when a program dies.

Since other people aren't having this problem, and since it effects all versions of Celestia, it sounds to me like you have a corrupted dll (dynamically loaded shared library) that probably was damaged when it was created while you reinstalled everything. The contents of appcompat.txt may help figure out which library (or libraries) is involved.

Unfortunately, this suggests to me that you may be having problems due to flakey hardware.

Sorry.

I'm not sure what you mean by "updated drivers". There are so many of them. I doubt it's a driver version problem. I suspect one or more of those currently on your system is damaged. The question is how did it get damaged. Updating them again *might* fix your problem.

Computer hardware maintenance is a very large topic.

first, I'd suggest making sure all of your cards (e.g. PCI, graphics and memory), socketed chips and cables are seated firmly. Be sure to take anti-static precautions. If you don't know what that means, get a friend to help who does.

Also make sure the fans are all working and the air flow is not blocked. Everything should run as cool as possible.

You also should get some hardware diagnostics and run them.
Most computer manufacturers have bootable diagnostic discs that you can download. There are some generic sets available on the 'net, too.

Memory is the most common culprit. If your system supports ECC memory, that's what you should use -- and make sure that feature is enabled in the BIOS. Too often non-parity simms & dimms are made from lesser quality chips than ECC. Your system will tell you immediately when there's a problem with ECC but it can't when you're using non-parity memory. Manufacturers have been known to take advantage of this when unloading chips.

I hope this helps a little.

that was me.
sigh.

i think it might be SP1 for windows xp.

fwiw,

I'm running various versions of Celestia, including 1.2.5pre4 under XP Pro SP1 with no problems. I've been running XP for several months and I have not had to do a reinstall from scratch. On the other hand, I've lost track of how many times I've restored the system disk from a Ghost image backup to recover from poorly designed software (like Nvidia's beta Detonator 40 drivers).