Unbelievable!

[Webwing 0]

I found this in the Troubleshooting FAQ thread in this forum:

Q: When I try to install patch 1.20, I get error message like "Error found in fileDTA\Sound.pbo (2e091cb6!=6c2ebbc9)". I am unable to install patch.

A: The problem is caused by corrupted data already stored on your hard disc. If you have a VIA chipset, this may be caused by bug in VIA drivers / chipset. Disabling DMA for both hard drive and CD ROM often fixes the problem. See al http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....topic=2 for more information about VIA chipset problems. If you have other chipset than VIA, reinstalling game should help. If not, you should probably ask for replacement disc, as your media seems to be corrupted.

-----------------------------

Are they going to insist that the problems whith the patches are actually "our" problem.

And poor VIA! It works fine with all the software I tried but BIS needs a scapegoat...

[Guest]

Why don't I get that problem? I have the VIA chipset. WHy doesn't 99% of people have this problem?

Leave BIS alone and get your act together. If you want some real help, ask for it.

I'm really tired of you people complaining and when given suggestions to try, it's always "like that works" or some other snotty comment. Or, my favorite: "I downloaded it 900 times, and it still doesn't work!" Well, then my downloading freak, you are a fool.

*sigh*

[Mister Frag 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from Webwing on 9:43 am on Dec. 6, 2001

I found this in the Troubleshooting FAQ thread in this forum:

Q: When I try to install patch 1.20, I get error message like "Error found in fileDTA\Sound.pbo (2e091cb6!=6c2ebbc9)". I am unable to install patch.

A: The problem is caused by corrupted data already stored on your hard disc. If you have a VIA chipset, this may be caused by bug in VIA drivers / chipset. Disabling DMA for both hard drive and CD ROM often fixes the problem. See al http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....topic=2 for more information about VIA chipset problems. If you have other chipset than VIA, reinstalling game should help. If not, you should probably ask for replacement disc, as your media seems to be corrupted.

-----------------------------

Are they going to insist that the problems whith the patches are actually "our" problem.

And poor VIA! It works fine with all the software I tried but BIS needs a scapegoat...

<span id='postcolor'>

Webwing, check out the 686B Southbridge Data Corruption FAQ at

<a href="http://www.viahardware.com/686bfaq.shtm

BIS" target="_blank">http://www.viahardware.com/686bfaq.shtm

BIS</a> is not just trying to cover their behinds, this is a serious hardware problem.

[Guest]

But, but....but Mister Frag! It's happening to HIS machine! It MUST be BIS' fault!

It must be! It mu....no! must resist....absolute proof...must...resist....

[Mister Frag 0]

There you go using logic again. Stop that!

[Webwing 0]

OBiJuan,

Lets not get taken away here, please.

How do you know 99% of the people dont have the same problem? Maybe 50%, or 30% or.... ####, we just dont know , do we. How can we know how many people are having the problem? The fact is there is a lot of people having it and the "solutions" to the problem that are being posted just dont work for most people.

I have tried all the possible solutions posted.

When copying files there is sometimes the possibility of data corruption but not always on the same file and even from diferent CDs.

I have this machine for some time and I've been working with  all sorts of programs from Photoshop and 3D Max to games like Flight Sim 2002(that I installed - 1.8 GB - without any problems) plus transfering massive files through a network. I seems strange to me that only now with OFP this curruption issue will show up.

On the other hand I must say that this is one of the best games I ever played without any patches and I'm not going to go on here why I think it is so outstanding. I love it as it is even with some "bugs". And it is a lot less buggy than most games in the market.

I'm not among those who say they wont buy another product from BIS again because of the patch problems. These things happens since the programs are so complex and user machines so different.

All that said I still havent had a logical explanation for the problem. Period.

[theavonlady 2]

I've updated this FAQ item. Is there anything there you haven't tried yet?

[Spitfire 0]

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE VIA DATA CORRUPTION ISSUE

=============================================

Caught your attention? Good

OFP installation can go wrong for plenty of reasons, and VIA 686b southbridge bug is only one of them. That bug causes problems when you transfer files large enough, say, +50MB, between two IDE channels. That means that the other medium must be plugged into IDE0 and the other into IDE1. If you have only one IDE ribbon cable in your computer, and still your OFP installations get corrupted, VIA bug is not the issue then.

Ok, let's say you install any game from your CD (on IDE1) to the hard drive (on IDE0). First of all, the game must have files larger than 50MB that it is copying from the CD to the HD. If so, the VIA bug corrupts only a byte here and a byte there of that large file. Usually the largest files of games are data files containing sound, music, animation, graphics etc. And when those files get corrupted, it very rarely causes ANY symptoms. The game runs just fine.

I bet you can do a fresh install of Windows 2000 from the installation CD and never see any anomalities in the system performance. That's just because there just aren't that many (maybe none?) 50MB+ files that are directly copied from the CD to the HD in Windows installation.

So what's so different about Operation Flashpoint? It's NOT that the guys at BIS are poor programmers and managed to screw up the installation program so bad that it randomly corrupts data. No, it's not that. They are very good programmers: They implemented a file checksum system that checks every important file of the installation, so that you can find out if there is something wrong with your system and you will always be able to play a totally error free Operation Flashpoint!

So don't blame BIS on the data corruption.

What can you do about the corruption bug, then?

Well, Webwing is right. There are plenty of workarounds for the problem and not every trick works on every machine. You'll just have to find out it by yourself. Trial and error method worked best for me, and I finally managed to isolate the problem on my system. It's hard work and needs a very computer literate person to track down the source of the problem.

The Avon Lady's OFP FAQ has now all necessary information / links to solve the problem, so read it!

(Edited by Spitfire at 9:58 pm on Dec. 6, 2001)

[Guest]

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....tart=68

Why even bother? These fools are not going to read or believe your post. They will continue to blame BIS.

[Spitfire 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from Webwing on 3:43 am on Dec. 6, 2001

And poor VIA! It works fine with all the software I tried but BIS needs a scapegoat...

<span id='postcolor'>

That "poor" VIA has admitted a long time ago that the 686b southbridge has a flaw:

-------------------------- Quote begins ----------------------

Official statement from VIA:

The data corruption error, which some web sites and people have reported with the 686b Southbridge, is caused by incorrect bios registry setting to the Northbridge. These bios settings were made by motherboard manufacturers, in an attempt to fix a conflict with the Sound Blaster Live Value cards. Information has been provided to all motherboard manufacturers on how to correctly resolve both the data corruption error and the Sound Blaster Live conflict. The patch released by VIA in the 4in1 4.31 drivers’ replicates the correct bios settings. We provided this patch to make sure as many people got a fix to their Sound Blaster Live problems as soon as possible. Most motherboard manufacturers have now corrected their bios and the patch is not necessarily needed although it will not harm any VIA based system if installed.

------------------------ Quote ends ------------------------

That pretty much wraps this up, don't you think?

That statement has some errors which VIA has corrected later. First of all the data corruption bug is not that closely related to the Soundblaster Live -incompatibility issue as the statement claims.

(Edited by Spitfire at 10:07 pm on Dec. 6, 2001)

[Webwing 0]

First thanks Spitfire for your answer.

Your reasoning makes a lot of sence but the only thing that still puzzles me is that if the problem, like you said, happens with big files then each time I tried to install the game the problem should occur sometimes in other files too not only in the sound.pbo file. Inside the DTA folder you have the data.pbo which is 100 Mgs, the music.pbo 44 Mgs and the voice.pbo 32 Mgs. The sound.pbo is 17 Mgs.

Why is it that it doenst matter how many times I transfer the data.pbo file, for instance, from the CD to my hard disk it never so far had any corruption? It sounds pretty odd to me. I'm using the check instalation utility from BIS.

My conclusion was that the CD media was faulty so I went to the shop and got a new copy and you know what, I still get a sound.pbo file currupted message!!! Now, why is my defective VIA shipset only picking on this specific file? Sorry if I am missing something here but it just doesnt make no sence to me at all.

I'm not saying there isnt a problem with the VIA chipset, I read the posts and the statements from the VIA site. Again it just sound odd that the corruption only occurs with one specific file.

Any sugestions will be welcome since I am genuinely trying to fix and understand this.

Mind you, the only thing I havent tried so far is to install the game in another computer to see what happens ( I'll that tomorrow) and if ok, copy the files to a zip disk and then copy them again to my computer.

I sure know that there are many problems with computer componets and the whole complexity of the thing. I'm also no specialist but I managed to assemble my own computer so I'm not completely iliterate in the matter.

In case you are wondering about the specs:

Motherboard : ASUS A7V with a VIA chipset KT133A( there it is!!!)

Processor ; Athon 1.2 GHz

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Live Gamer - which is blamed to have started this whole process with VIA.

Memory : Kingston 256

Hard Drive: IBM Deskstar 45 GB Ultra ATA 100

3D: Asus V7700 GeForce2 GTS

Thanks again,

[Mister Frag 0]

Webwing, if you try to copy the file manually from the CD using the COPY command (or using drag-and-drop, for that matter), you'll find that it will also get corrupted.

It has nothing to do with the installation programs and patchers for OFP. I'm also not sure what combination of file size and/or file content type causes the problem, but it does happen with files much smaller than 50MB.

[Spitfire 0]

Ok, it seems that VIA bug is not the problem in this case. For me it corrupted the large files randomly, not only one or two specific ones.

And I'm not even sure about that 50MB limit. That was an estimate by the author of the VIAHardware-faq.

You should consider updating or replacing the ASPI layer of your system. That could be the issue here as stated in *THIS* faq item by Avon.

[Webwing 0]

I followed the link and read about the ASPI layer. I downloaded the 2 programs, the one the checks the system end the exe... well, it didnt make any difference.

I also tried some hacker sites and used unsafe disk dumper and rebuilder. it works fine if you dont want to put the cd in all the time but it didnt help me with the patch.

someone else sugested the Clone CD in the system tray as you start the patch...

nothing.

Maybe they could just release a patch that wouldnt check the integrity of the files. They could leave all the security stuff in.

I dont know. I'm getting really fed up with this issue since Im spending more time trying to figure this out than to acutally play the game.

[Spitfire 0]

OK... The final thing to do before hoisting your comp out of the window...

Remove the soundcard, all memory sticks but one, all CD-drives but one (if you have several).

Set the hard drive as primary master, and the CD as secondary master (so that they are on the same ribbon cable).

The try installing a fresh OFP installation and apply patches 1.20 and 1.30.

[Webwing 0]

You dont give up easily do you, Spitfire?

Thats good.

It didnt even cross my mind to through my computer out of the window so far! If you could see how it plays IL-2 Sturmovik, you'd understand... ;)

Well, the thing is I cannot have my hard drive and my Cdrom drive in the same ribbon since my main hard drive(where i have windows) is connected to the Ultra ATA 100 connector(its an IBM Deskstar) and the cd is connected to the "normal" IDE connector. Motherboard is Asus A7V133.

But I'll try to remove the sound card, since the error is always with the sound file and the Sound Blaster Live is one of the culprits in the VIA chipset problem.

thanks.

[IDF Merkava 0]

What i tried :

I disconnected my sound blaster Live card from my PC

1. Format c:

2. Installed Win ME

3. Installed my graphicarddriver  INNO Geforce 2

4. Installed via 4-1 version 4.34

5. Upraged my BIOS

6.Installed OFP

7.made the ofp_check 1.20

7.1 and ?  

STILL ERROR IN FILE SOUND.PBO  !!!!!!  

I dont know what i can do more, i think the problem is the asus board A7V133, nothing else.  

How come i get the error without the soundcard is installed  Can some explain me this !!!!!

Thks

Merk..

(Edited by IDF Merkava at 2:47 pm on Dec. 13, 2001)

[theavonlady 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from IDF Merkava on 3:31 pm on Dec. 13, 2001

4. Installed via 4-1 version 4.34

<span id='postcolor'>

According to this thread, version 4.36 is out.

Furthermore, I never heard from your regarding my reply to your problem, where I suggested looking at your BIOS setting or temporarily modifying RAM speed from 133 to 100.

[IDF Merkava 0]

chamuda,

...trust me, i tried everything... i have really no clue what the problem can be... it s really not logical how my problem appears ! Hmm... maybe an other mainboard will help... but buying a new Mainboard just for OFP ! Sounds a bit crazy , isn't it ?

WHY IT WORKED LAST TIME Is it more a issue that you need luck ??

merk...

[Webwing 0]

The truth is nobody knows exaclty what causes the problem. It is related to VIA chipset motherboards, this much we know but it seems that even some people with motherboards with other chipsets have similar problems.

I tried basicaly everything I read here and in other posts. Nothing worked for me so far. (Yes, I tried to change the RAM speed...)

But for now I gave up the search since I installed the game whith all the patches in another computer that doesnt suffer from this compatibility problem and then copied all the files to my home computer.

So now I'm spending my time playing the game (with the benefits of the 1.3 patch) which in my opinion is a lot more fun than the time I was spending trying to fix the problem.

Of course I'm still curious about the problem...

[Desloc 0]

A7V133 4xagp w/TB 1.33@1.5Ghz (11x136)

512meg Infineon cas2 133

Radeon 7500 Retail (320/260mhz) 7206 drivers ala Humus... Rage3D Tweak v3.0 Beta 4

SB Live 5.1 (pci 3)

Dlink Nic (pci 4)

Win 98 with Via 4.35 and DX 8.1 Final

Not an issue, not a problem

[IDF Merkava 0]

BI !

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE THAT I GETTING THE SOUND.PBO ERROR

MESSAGE,

EVEN I FORMATED MY HDD, REINSTALLED WINDOWS , INSTALLED VIA 4-1 VERSION 4.35 , BIOS UPGADE AND INSTALLED OFP WITHOUT MY SOUNDCARD SB LIVE VALUE !

IM SO WONDERING HOW THIS COME ?

THANKS FOR ANSVERS FROM SOMEONE...

MERK...

[Desloc 0]

Install VIA drivers(4.36) in safe mode. Reboot.

Install DX 8.1 in safe mode. Reboot.