Error! Can't run TG2! Wanna hang myself!

[Duga]

Hey, guys. My name is Diego and I'm new to the forum. I was looking forward to experiment with the possibilities of the TG2 Preview Technology for a while, so I decided to give it a try now that I have a decent computer. Not a happy story, I might say 

Everything was working fine (well, besides the usual bugs, no biggie), until yesterday. I was about to render a scene, and when switching from the Terrain layout to the Camera layout, TG2 crashed. OK, I saved the scene just before that, so no problemo. BUT, when I try to open TG2 again, this message appears:

The instruction at "0x009fd27e" refferenced memory at "0x00000010" could not be "read" (or something like that; the original message is in Spanish, so I did my best to translate it)

To be fair, is not the first time an application gives me that kind of message (Quake 4 comes to mind), but never before it would stop me from running the program. I mean, the program would crash, but after running it again, everything was fine, so it was pretty much a random thing.
Now, I uninstalled TG2, cleaned up the registry upside down, re-installed it, but the same thing happens. I'm completely clueless.

Okay, I now it's a very specific problem, and I am aware it could be a memory issue, but if someone knows a way around it, I would love to hear it. I was just getting started with TG, so you can imagine how frustrated I feel 

Thanks in advance, everybody.
Cheers

[rcallicotte]

I'm not sure the original message would have been in Spanish.  This sounds like another problem.  TG2 wouldn't give that message, would it?  Sounds like a memory issue or some other bug.  Might even be a virus, but I don't know enough to say. 

[cyphyr]

A Google search of "0x009fd27e" brings up nothing at all. Are you sure that error code is exactly right? Check that you have up to date Graphics drivers, could be a video driver problem.
richard

[Duga]

Thanks for the replies 

Yep, the code is correct. It keeps giving me the exact same numbers every time. Now, I'm no techie, so I may be making no sense at all, but I think someone told me once that those types of errors mean the application is trying to access an invalid memory position. If that's the case, why is TG2 always trying to access always the same position? (again, I know jack-squat about these things, so ignore that if needed  )
I guess what's confusing me the most is the fact that TG2 worked completely fine for the first week, and then BAM, for no apparent reason. I'm pretty sure is not a virus, 'cause I'm sort of a security maniac, and I have everything up to date in the antivirus-firewall-antispyware-and-such department.

In the meantime, I guess no more TG for me   Anyways, thanks again, guys, and sorry for my English (if I'm not all that clear on something, let me know)

[JimB]

Have you tried re-installing Terragen? Are there lots of svchosts showing up in the Task Manager process list? Does Internet Explorer need re-installing ( http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72549 )

[Volker Harun]

Else you might want to go for Memtest ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memtest86

[rcallicotte]

Sounds like a memory issue, either caused by other resident software or an actual hardware memory RAM problem.  The latter (hardware RAM) is less frequent, but can happen.

TG2 wouldn't always address the same point in memory.  Not always.

If that's the case, why is TG2 always trying to access always the same position?

[Duga]

Hi everybody, thanks again for the replies.

Okay: strange turn of events last night. I managed to get TG2 running by right-clicking the executable and going to "Execute as" and then selecting Current User (wich I find weird, cause there's only one user anyway). So, this got TG2 running. BUT...
As soon as it starts, it gives me some message about not finding the My Documents folder (wich, of course, is exactly where it's supposed to be). This wouldn't be such a problem if... My Documents wasn't the ONLY FOLDER TG2 WOULD LET ME SAVE FILES INTO before all this mess got started. That's right: when TG2 was working fine a week ago, it would only let me save my files (.tgd, .tgc, .bmp, everything) into My Documents. Wich no longer exists as far as TG2 knows. Bummer.

But I got it running, and that's a start. So, until a new solution comes up, I'm gonna settle for this, I think. I'm working with the free version, so my renders go up to 800x600, and I can use the useful PrintScreen key to rescue my images  . I won't be able to save worlds or clips, but that's OK for now.

So, I really, REALLY hope I don't run into some new problems in the future. Thanks everybody for your patience and help (I'll be trying Memtest86 soon, Volker).
Cheers 

[Mohawk20]

That TG can't see your My Documents folder is logical if you run it under 'current user', because win XP has some strange issues about naming that folder. If you would create another user with admin rights and explored the documents and settings of the main user the folder would be labeled "[main user's name]'s Documents".
So that explains you not being able to access that folder now if that was the only folder TG could see.

But not being able to save anywhere, except in the my documents folder is strange in itself...
Can you save files anywhere else on your hard drive now (like a folder labeled "Terragen")?

This problem might be solved if you reinstalled windows itself.

[mogn]

A Google search of "0x009fd27e" brings up nothing at all. Are you sure that error code is exactly right? Check that you have up to date Graphics drivers, could be a video driver problem.
richard

For some time I have had a similar error 0x69709250 when closing TG2. I looked it up in Google, and the suggestion was that it was the Graphical driver.
After downloading the latest NVIDIA driver (181.22), the error was gone 

[dandelO]

It does sound and look like a 'stop error', usually hardware(graphics/sound card/driver) related. Try updating all the hardware drivers in your machine. Other than that, I really don't know.

[Duga]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions and knowledge 

Mohawk20: I can actually save files in other folders, and TG2 will see the files, but they're not there when I look into the folder from outside TG. And as soon as I close TG, they're gone. It's like they're temporary files.

I will definitely try to update my drivers, 'cause I tried Memtest and it doesn't seem to be a memory problem.

Thanks again 

[buzzzzz1]

Sounds like an OS problem to me.  Have you considered repairing XP?  If you have the Install Disk and your Key you can perform a repair without losing all your files and settings. I've done it many times.  Only thing is you will need to re-install many windows updates after doing the repair. Here's a link to the process if you are not already familiar with it.  http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm  Read the instructions carefully and don't do the repair using the repair console. Also if you have Malware, viruses or Trojans the repair won't remove them because all it does is repair any damaged or corrupt system files. Good luck!

[leafspring]

To me it sounds like an OS problem as well.
But everybody is talking about XP and I can't find a hint that you are actually using XP. (if I am mistaken, just ignore the rest of this post )
The point is: When you are using Win Vista and, for example, your mainboard is more tolerated than supported by the OS you can get exactly this kind of behavior. All kind of error messages leading into different directions (driver issue, memory issue... etc.).

Oh, and that a google search for "0x009fd27e" doesn't bring up anything at all is simply because it is not an error code but a memory address from where the bad memory request came.