DEFCON crashing on any attempt to enter new game

[ChrisTomalty]

I am running WinXP SP3 and have tried DEFCON both on friends computers and my Ubuntu 9.10 laptop (where it works excellently). However, when I try to run DEFCON on Windows it won't really work.

I've tried this both through Steam and the standalone.

Basically, I get a crash to desktop whenever I press Join Game, New Game, or Tutorial. No error messages. There were no errors on installation (though whenever I downloaded it on this computer it said that the file was corrupted, so I grabbed it from my Ubuntu computer and it works just fine).

What's weird is that I can access all the tools and settings dialogues.

Help?

[bert_the_turtle]

Hmm, the crash happens at the time networking gets engaged the first time. Do you have a special network card, by chance? Like the BigFoot thing? You'll know when you have one, it's exorbitantly expensive for a network card

[ChrisTomalty]

Definitely not. This is a Frankenstein computer, but it has a Linksys USB dongle for wifi. It's (generally) stable enough, this just strikes me as weird.

Any logs I could give you?

[bert_the_turtle]

I'm not good at reading them, but there's a debug.txt in your defcon installation folder you can post. Beware, it contains your full authentication key, you'll want to edit that out.

The other source of potential trouble when the network code goes up is, of course, any personal firewall software. The Windows included ones are usually fine, but anything of the Norton brand has been known to cause trouble here and for other games.

[Montyphy]

Beware, it contains your full authentication key, you'll want to edit that out.

I thought the forums censored authentication keys if you posted them.

[bert_the_turtle]

If it does so, it doesn't show in preview, and we had some people accidentally post their keys in the past.

[ChrisTomalty]

[spoiler]

Code: Select all

Defcon 1.43 built Jul  3 2007
Parsing archive main.dat...DONE
WinSock started
Client listening on port 5011
Parsing Coastline data (1776 islands) : 56ms
Parsing International data (2753 islands) : 26ms
Parsing City data (2745 cities) : 58ms
Parsing archive sounds.dat...DONE
Authentication key set : 'DEMOFD-ZCITSQ-CZUJDB-DSUYHX-CJH'
WinSock started
Connection established to MetaServer, listening on Port 5009
Host address resolution failed for metaserver.introversion.co.uk (No such host is known. )
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
Received Authentication : DEMOFD-ZCITSQ-CZUJDB-DSUYHX-CJH : (keyID -1) : Accepted
Auth Key accepted as DEMOKEY : DEMOFD-ZCITSQ-CZUJDB-DSUYHX-CJH
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : LatestVersion
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : MOTD
NetSocketSession::WriteData invalid socket
Requesting data from MetaServer : DemoLimits
CLIENT : Disconnected
EclRemoveWindow failed on window LOBBY


[/spoiler]

The codes are demo keys

[bert_the_turtle]

All that 'invalid socket' messages do indeed indicate that some personal firewall software is blocking Defcon in a strange way. Look for Norton, if you have it, kill it, uninstall it, launch your copy into space. Into the sun, rather. We don't want any aliens to judge our civilization based on Norton. Run Defcon as admin in windowed mode and answer all firewall questions that pop up with 'Allow'.