4.2 Player Pic Problem in Win XP?

[ktyama]

Hi-

Just noticed an unusual problem with player pictures in 4.2. While using Killebrew's excellent MLB face pack with OOTP 4.1, all player pics would appear just fine.

After upgrading to 4.2, some pictures still appear fine, but most (i'd say about 80%) player pictures now appear as black boxes with a small 'drop box down arrow' in the top left corner of each picture.

I have done the following...

Restarted.
Toggled off player pictures
Toggled on player pictures

Same results.

I'm using Windows XP Home Edition on a Pentium III laptop running at 1.1 Ghz, with 256 megs ram and screen resolution at 1600x1200.

Anyone have any advice?

[Killebrew]

Weird error that I can't duplicate here, so if nobody else reports this error I'd suggest you unzip the pictures again (you may need to DL the orginal ZIP file again if you don't have it anymore), and overwrite the old ones. It sounds like some of the old pictures got overwritten, maybe with shortcut files using the same file name. Good luck and let us know if that fixes it!

[ktyama]

Hi- Thanks for the help Killebrew, but unfortunately reinstalling the zip did not clear up the problem. I've done some more investigating, and it appears that the photos themselves are fine- the problem appears to be within OOTP.

To test this, here's what I did.

Kevin Brown's photo within the game appears as a black box with a drop down box down arrow in the top left corner.

Alex Cora's in game photo (for some unknown reason) appears just fine.

In the PHOTOS folder, I

1. Verified that Kevin Brown's picture was fine (it was). It is named kevin_brown.bmp

2. Changed the file name kevin_brown.bmp to kevin_brownn.bmp. This should result in no picture displayed for him within the game (as expected).

3. Renamed alex_cora.bmp to kevin_brown.bmp.

Still, for Kevin Brown, I get the 'black box with drop box down arrow in the top left corner' error within the game.

If it was the picture, swtching in the Alex Cora picture should have worked fine.

Just to confirm that there is no problem with the pictures, I renamed the kevin_brown.bmp image to alex_cora.bmp, and on Alex's stat screen, Kevin's picture appears fine.

So, for whatever reason, some player pages are functioning normally, and for other pages (about 80% in all) have this blank picture problem no matter what picture file is attached to it.

Any other avenues to try, or is this looking like a 're-install OOTP4 solution?'

Thanks everyone for any leads you have to offer-

[Killebrew]

Okay, here's where I admit that even though I have made some add-on OOTP graphics sets, I don't actually use any add-ons myself. I just tried them out now though using the latest OOTP4 build and they look fine.

Longshot idea's:
- Is this a new league or an old league? Online? Which roster file is being used? It is remotely possible that a new league file could have slightly different name info if an outside utility was used on the PLAYER.DAT file. Hey, this is under longshot idea's after all.
- Have you used combinations of other photo-packs for the league in question? If yes then it is possible many of these pics were not from my package (though it's highly unlikely 80% of them are new).
- Does your XP OS have some kind of wacky color setting on? All of my pics should be in 256 color mode in case that is causing problems, can't see how that would cause problems though. Damn, I don't think highly of that idea either.
- Any other unusual things occuring with either OOTP/STB or your operatings system graphics, or with other games and programs?
- Finally, maybe there is some kind of graphics glitch in the latest patch that is causing this problem for XP users only. Without others complaining about the same issue though this is an extreme longshot (fortunately).

If you are in an online league let me know, I'll DL the league file then and try the photo's with it. I would not suggest reinstalling OOTP4/STB2003 if the game is working fine besides the pictures.

[ktyama]

Killebrew- Thanks again for helping me out! I just stumbled upon the solution, although I still don't know why the problem occurred.

I fixed the problem by telling Windows XP to run OOTP4.exe in Windows 98/ME Compatability mode. After I did that, suddenly all the pictures appear without a glitch!

But just to be thorough, perhaps it would be good to get all the particulars down if anyone else runs across this problem on their computers:

Problem: Most (about 80%) in-game player's pictures appear as blank rectangles, with a small drop box down arrow in the top leftmost corner.

System: P3 1.1 ghz, 256MB ram, Windows XP Home Edition, OOTP4.2, New league, Not online, 2001 Rosters used, no outside utilities used on OOTP4, only using Killebrew face packs, running at 1600 X 1200 resolution and 32 bit color, no other graphics glitches in other programs, and no problems running under OOTP4.1.

Solution: Run OOTP4.exe in Windows 98/ME compatability mode.

Judging from the lack of other people noting the same problem, I really think that my computer was just wonky. I have a lot of other processes running on this computer (mostly SQL Server, and all of its bizarre tentacles), and I wouldn't doubt if there was some funny business going on behind the scenes in XP.

In any case, thanks a lot for the support and ideas- I really appreciated it!