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form2function
Beginner


Joined: 30 Jun 2011
Posts: 23

PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 9:24 pm   

System Debugger Issue
 
Greetings.

I'm an old user of zMud who recently decided to return to the world of MUDs in general. As I'm running Windows 7, zMud was no longer an option, and while there seem to be plenty of other clients out there for free that get the job done, I figured I'd go with a client I know and trust. I went ahead and tested CMUD 2.x briefly, was happy with the results, and about an hour ago went ahead and purchased CMUD v3 Pro from the website. I was looking forward to diving into the program, but given the subject of my post you can guess what happened. A lovely dialog popped up telling me I need to close any system debuggers running.

Now, doing a quick search on these forums showed me I'm not the first to encounter this problem, though it's certainly the first time I've had a dialog of this sort come up with any program I've used in my life. I don't know how popular this Armadillo is, but regardless it's certainly not popular enough for me to have come across this issue before.

I noted Zugg's response to the issue in this thread and that left me with little hope that I'll be resolving this with his assistance. To be honest, what it did leave me was disappointed with the kind of support being offered. Off the bat, Zugg, it's your responsibility to assist your paying customers and that includes support with whatever software you decide to roll in with your own. Telling a customer to go to Silicon Realm's forums to look for answers is unacceptable to me. Having said that, I did go to their forums. And what I found is that to even post my issue I need to go through a special sign-up process by contacting them via email and requesting access. I'm sorry but I'm not going to jump through those hoops, though I certainly would hope Zugg will since it's his clients experiencing the problem.

This copy protection might be the best available for all I know, I'm not an author on the subject. But what I do know is that most every paid program out there these days has some form of copy protection and none of them cause their users to be unable to use their software because "some" background program happens to be running.

Given what I've said so far I doubt I'll be offered any assistance with my problem. I'll see if I can locate the culprit myself, though after disabling most services running in my system and still having the dialog come up I'm not hopeful. If I can't figure out the culprit, with or without assistance from these forums over the next few days, I'll simply go ahead and accept the 30-day refund offered and move to a client I can actually use even if it has less bells and whistles. I'm not against you protecting your investment, but I do want to use what I paid for.

However, my case aside, I have some suggestions for Zugg:

1) Contact Silicon Realms and inform them you're losing paying customers.
2) Ask them for a full list of incompatible programs that could cause your users issues, and make sure you post that list prominently somewhere on this site.
3) Ask them to update their software so that it locates the culprit and declares it in the dialog which as it stands is more than cryptic for the average user.
4) Decide if those incompatible programs are popular enough for you to lose customers over, and if they are, shop for a new copy protection scheme that won't cause your users problems.

Lastly, if anyone experienced wants to lend a hand in troubleshooting, I'll be happy to list services that are open. I'm not a programmer, just an above-average user, so I can't do too much on my own. But as I said, if my tone in this message offends, I'll understand. I felt it's more important I express my opinion as a (current) customer though than to play along in hopes someone's kind enough to help me fix it.

Thanks for reading.

Edited PS: Zugg, if you're unsure whether I'm a valid customer or not, you can check your purchase orders against the time-stamp of this post. It's unlikely there were other purchases made in that time-frame besides my own.
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Tech
GURU


Joined: 18 Oct 2000
Posts: 2733
Location: Atlanta, USA

PostPosted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:36 pm   
 
First sorry it took so long to give you a reply, when I first glance at your topic, I thought it was about something else altogether.

What antivirus/anti-malware software do you use? Do you use UltraEdit? Does it happen everytime you start CMUD? Can you try having CMUD be the first program you run after your boot up?
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form2function
Beginner


Joined: 30 Jun 2011
Posts: 23

PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:36 pm   
 
Tech, I appreciate the reply and no worries on it being belated, as clearly my own is as well.

The only solution I was able to discover is that the program loads so long as I try to open it first-thing after a reboot. For months I ended up having to keep it open at all times, just in case I needed or wanted to mud without having to restart my system. Clearly there are times when this isn't practical for me.

For AV programs, I'm running ESET, Anti-Malware and SpyBot. I don't use UltraEdit, but I do use Notepad++. I'm not willing to stop using any of these, though for a while I had removed the anti-malware programs to see if it would make a difference (it did, to the number of malware on my computer).

I love CMUD Pro and don't want to stop using it. But it's also a frustrating experience for me, especially as a paying customer.
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charneus
Wizard


Joined: 19 Jun 2005
Posts: 1876
Location: California

PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 6:34 pm   
 
It wouldn't be ESET nor Notepad++ - I use both of those just fine and never had an issue. I've also used SpyBot in the past and had no issues then, either.

In the post you mentioned, one user suggested it may be an extension in Firefox that is causing problems. Could this be the case for you? Try disabling extensions one by one in Firefox (assuming you're using FF) until you no longer get the error message. This may require you to restart FF after disabling it each time, however.

Upon searching the forums at Silicon Realms (no need to register to search), I've come across a couple of things to look at, though how relevant they are to your problem, I'm not sure:

Quote:
Using Armadillo 4.42, if I protect our programs and run it on a PC with Windows Debugger enabled (/debug switch in boot.ini) then the program fails to start.

The program starts if:
1. I reduce the protection level to "Minimum"
2. I disable SoftIce Detection


There's also mention of programs like DivX and Nero. Another option is to follow the advice here:
Quote:
Please note: These forums are now a user discussion forum and not an official means of support contact. If your problem is related to a possible bug (such as crashes, improper operation, etc.) in our software, please contact us at support@siliconrealms.com where we can better track the problem and provide more timely support.


It appears, however, that this problem is only isolated to a handful of CMUD users, which seems like it'd make tracking the issue down easier by finding out what you have in common. The problem is, you'd have to find those people, first.

Good luck, though, and hopefully what I've provided will help you.
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form2function
Beginner


Joined: 30 Jun 2011
Posts: 23

PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 3:31 pm   
 
Appreciate the feedback.

Problem isn't with FF, as while I do use it, I also use Chrome and there are times when CMUD won't load after a reboot even if FF was never opened. Also kernel debugging isn't enabled on my system nor am I booting in debug mode.

DiVX as a program isn't installed (codecs might be, but I don't see that affecting things). Nero is installed, so I guess I'll see if I can disable its suite. Given how popular the program is though, I'd be surprised if it was the culprit as we'd be seeing problems with a lot more users.

I'll post back after checking the Nero angle, as that's the only lead I've got right now.
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AtriumXP
Beginner


Joined: 02 Feb 2012
Posts: 16

PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:41 pm   
 
I can at least confirm that I use Nero and have never experienced this issue.

I've used CMud with Nero 10, Nero 11, and a custom portable edition built from a Nero 10 base... never experienced this issue.


Good luck!
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form2function
Beginner


Joined: 30 Jun 2011
Posts: 23

PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 10:07 pm   
 
Yep, Nero doesn't seem to be the culprit either...

Up for any other suggestions.
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Moab
Beginner


Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:07 pm   
 
F2f - just wanted to let you know that I've been experiencing this problem for awhile now - and have posted on it in the past. I just installed most recent CMUD on a laptop which does not have any of my development tools on it and I STILL get this error if Chrome is opened before CMUD. CMUD has to be first - which is annoying to say the least.

If there were a better mud client (or slightly worse protection on CMUD) I would drop the product completely despite being a loyal customer for like two decades.

This does need to be addressed.
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Moab
Beginner


Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 12:09 pm   
 
Posting to add that _just now_ with Chrome running it did just start fine. Weird. Most often it will not.
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Rahab
Wizard


Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 2320

PostPosted: Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:40 pm   
 
It is usually not very useful to reopen a thread that is nine months old.
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Moab
Beginner


Joined: 02 Aug 2008
Posts: 25

PostPosted: Mon Nov 12, 2012 8:51 pm   
 
It is if the problem persists.
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