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Newbie Joined: 18 Oct 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Houston, TX

I've recently gotten back in to MUD'ing, and when I did so, I immediately bought CMUD...I mean, I was a ZMud addict, buying CMUD makes perfect sense, right?

Well, it's a great client, but I am having all kinds of database/SQL errors on Vista x64. The most common currently is that I can't use the package tool, I get a SQL error every time I try and look at the package repository.

Also, my session database was wrong from the day I installed it. I didn't even realize this until I installed it on XP x86 at work this morning and noticed that it already had a nicely setup session for Materia Magica, that my Vista x64 install never had. This makes sense, as when I started CMUD for the first time on Vista x64 I got a database error right off. I eventually switched it to run in XP SP2 compatibility mode, and have it set to always run as administrator (even though I have LUA off and I login as an admin, who knows).

Basically using CMUD on x64 is a very "brittle" experience right now. At any time, I could get a SQL error trying to save my settings, or look at a map, or any number of things. None of these problems seem to be happening on XP x86. Is this a Vista problem, or a 64-bit problem? I am guessing it's a Vista issue, as the 64-bit environment should have little to no bearing on a 32-bit program (at least it doesn't on any other 32-bit piece of software I run).

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 4:57 pm

It's a 64-bit Vista problem unfortunately. The 64-bit code in Vista has a *lot* of compatibility problems, and we currently don't officially support the 64-bit version until Microsoft can get it working better.

Maybe someone else who is using the 64-bit version can give some advice on how to set the compatibility options, but it sounds like you have already tried this. This might also improve later this year when I rewrite the Mapper to use SQLite as the database instead of the buggy Microsoft ADO/MDAC database that the mapper currently uses.

Newbie Joined: 18 Oct 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Houston, TX

I see. Strangely, I haven't had any other issues with any other 32-bit software, but I don't know of any software I run that uses MDAC either.

In any case, good choice on SQLite, we use it quite extensively at work.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:26 pm

Well, consider yourself pretty lucky. If you Google search problems on Vista-64, you will find that a lot of people have trouble with it. Actually, even the 64-bit version of WinXP has some problems. So part of it is their 64-bit code, and part of it is Vista I think. I don't know if Vista SP1 will address any of these issues or not. I don't think it's just MDAC, but since MDAC was buggy even before Vista, it wouldn't surprise me. Using ADO/MDAC was one of the biggest mistakes that I made in zMUD and it's taking a while to get rid of all traces of it.

Edited: Oh, but I should mention that I don't have Vista 64 here, so there isn't any way for me to test CMUD directly with it. So it *might* still be a problem in CMUD, but there isn't much I can do until I remove MDAC and see if it still happens.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:34 pm

I didn't think the character database used MDAC any more but uses SQLite instead. If that is the case it seems a bit odd that the character database would be messed up from the offset. It could just be down to that weird separate program files directory the 64bit OS has.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:54 pm

Taz, that is true. But since CMUD still uses MDAC for the mapper, I believe it still tries to check your ADO/MDAC version when you start CMUD. I'll look into that. It's possible that I can postpone this check until you actually try to open the mapper. But since the ADO/MDAC stuff is still linked into CMUD, it's still very possible that it will cause startup errors if Windows is trying to load the DLLs and there is some problem.

Edited: Btw, I have also seen problems even in regular Vista with SQLITE.DLL sometimes not getting loaded. But after rebooting Vista the problem went away and I was never able to reproduce it again. I think that somehow the SQLITE.DLL was still active in memory but corrupted or something. So certainly it's also a good idea to reboot Windows and try it again just in case.