Celestia Forums

hello
im new to celestia and have just downloaded and installed the general add ons and activities , now i cant get celestia to run i have version 1.3 installed and get the error message cannot read star data base can any one help please thanks bennyboy

Just a thought here Bennyboy,

Did you read through Frank's sticky above? Might have something to do
with your problem. The link is HERE.

Hope that helps?

Take care, Bob

thanks bob
for the advise i read the sticky but still no joy , i changed the line in cfig but still wont run
thanks any way
bennyboy

Well, here's another thing you might try...

Rename the directory of your current Celestia installation to something else
like "OldCelestia."

Then, try re-installing the whole package from scratch. This approach should
certainly repair any errors which you may have inadvertently
introduced into your current installation.

If the new installation works, then simply copy the add-ons and things you
wish to keep from the old installation into the new one, going one step at a
time. After each new add-on is installed, you could test the system to see if
it still works.

I know this is a pain in the wazoo approach, but I really am not smart
enough to give you a better answer. You might also try talking to Frank
Gregorio himself at http://www.fsgregs.org/celestia

Maybe that helps?

Sorry, but I'm really not a Celestia expert. I have done as I have
suggested above though, and I have remedied a problem or two
in this manner.

Take care, Bob

Bennyboy:

The sticky referenced earlier really has the fix you need. The educational add-ons do work in 1.3.2 just fine. If the program tells you it cannot find the star database, there are only a few possible reasons:

1. You are actually using version 1.4.0pre 6. My add-on will not work with this version and you ewill get that exact error message, until you change the line in the cfg file to read "stars.dat". Version 1.4.0pre 6 is a beta file that still states it is version 1.3.2. The "about Celestia" menu has not yet been changed. It may be confusing you as to what version you are running.

2. Somehow, the general-add-ons-download was not unzipped into the parent Celestia directory, but into another location. The easist way to tell is to open the "data' folder in Celestia. If there is a file in it called "bigstars.dat", then you unzipped the add-on fine. If the file is not there, then that is your problem. You need to unzip the add-on again, this time into the Celestia main folder only.

3. The bigstar.dat file got corrupted during the download and the add-on needs to be downloaded again.

Let me know if that fixes the problem. Don't worry ... we will get you up and running.