Air Combat Fatal Error

[Omnius]

I was trying to send a German ground strike against Moscow in the Sep/Oct 1941 turn. I was able to send my two German bombers which were intercepted by 3 Soviet fighters and escorted by 4 German fighters. This is in version 1.07. I get to say I'm ready for both sides and get to the first roll for the Allies. I can apply the loss if there is one and then when it goes to the German die roll it executes but then just doesn't do anything. I waited quite a few minutes and even looked at the Task Manager which says the program is running.

I tried several times to do the same air battle and each time it hangs right after the first German die roll, never giving me the result or being able to apply it. I recall doing a successful air battle before, though not with as many air units.

Omnius

[Centuur]

The only thing I can think about is that perhaps there is a form which doesn't appear on top of your screen. Can you try pressing in the Windows task bar on the MWIF Icon. This might be the solution of the problem, since the form might appear on top and you can continue from there. Otherwise we need a saved game...

[Omnius]

Centaur,
It's not a problem with a missing window, I saw that thread and tried the Alt-F4 trick suggested in that thread and the Tab one too to no avail. While the Task Manager says the program is running I found that the Air Combat screen is dead, you can't move it by clicking and dragging like you normally can.

I did some more testing so read my next post to see there is some kind of odd problem.

Omnius

[Omnius]

I went back into my game in version 1.07 and decided to test out why that particular big air combat didn't work. When I tried one German fighter versus one Soviet fighter and two each I didn't have any problems.

Only when I went to 3 fighters on each side did I have problems, nor were they consistent. Sometimes it would freeze right after the Axis player's first die roll that caused a casualty. On one test I killed a German fighter the 1st combat then missed as the German and got to the second round. I got to the third round a few times either aborting both German bombers or two Soviet fighters and then the routine froze.

I couldn't figure out a consistent pattern of when it froze, sometimes I'd get through a few rounds before freezing and sometimes it froze on the first round. I couldn't pin down if causing casualties was the culprit or not, but mainly that was when it would freeze.

I did save the game as a special file in case Steve wants it. My final solution was to fly my original German ground strike with 2 bombers and 4 fighters with the Soviets throwing up three fighters. I rolled no effects on both sides so that I could stay as the Germans and abort as the Soviets. That allowed me to move the Soviet fighters to a safer city as originally planned.

Omnius

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Omnius

I went back into my game in version 1.07 and decided to test out why that particular big air combat didn't work. When I tried one German fighter versus one Soviet fighter and two each I didn't have any problems.

Only when I went to 3 fighters on each side did I have problems, nor were they consistent. Sometimes it would freeze right after the Axis player's first die roll that caused a casualty. On one test I killed a German fighter the 1st combat then missed as the German and got to the second round. I got to the third round a few times either aborting both German bombers or two Soviet fighters and then the routine froze.

I couldn't figure out a consistent pattern of when it froze, sometimes I'd get through a few rounds before freezing and sometimes it froze on the first round. I couldn't pin down if causing casualties was the culprit or not, but mainly that was when it would freeze.

I did save the game as a special file in case Steve wants it. My final solution was to fly my original German ground strike with 2 bombers and 4 fighters with the Soviets throwing up three fighters. I rolled no effects on both sides so that I could stay as the Germans and abort as the Soviets. That allowed me to move the Soviet fighters to a safer city as originally planned.

Omnius

I would like to have the saved game with instructions on how to reproduce the problem (zipped and uploaded to a post in this thread). I understand that it doesn't occur all the time and that I may have to run through the instructions several times before encountering the error. Thanks.

[cdebasso]

I have been experiencing the same problem MANY times and tried also many times to draw attention to it in several threads.
The problem is definitely that a dialogue window is stuck behind the frozen air-to-air combat window.
When there is such a dialogue window, the main window is frozen, but the form should appear on top, and sometimes it is behind and irretrievable.
The alt-TAB/alt-F4 method works sometimes, but only if all you have to do with the dialogue window is to click on "OK".
Currently I am stuck again because the hidden window is the one to return CV-based aircraft to their carriers, which the program won't allow me to close without designating carriers on which to land.
The main air-to-air combat window is so "frozen" that even when I alt-TAB to other applications, it stays on top of the screen!
This is clearly a major bug that needs a solution, but in general I think the program needs a system for the user to see a list of open windows and manually move the focus from one to the other.
Currently to see a window that is behind another you have to move or resize the one that is on top.
If the one on top is frozen, like in AtA combat, you are stuck. Why not a menu item "windows" with the possibility to bring any window to the front?

[Centuur]

I have seen this problem also, however not many times. It happens, but only a very few times and almost always I'm able to correct this using the windows task bar (switch to another program and than switch back).

If you are using one monitor, try to put in a screen lay out as I have, since that prevents a lot of problems with windows disappearing. Note the placement of the Main Form. This is important to have at that place, with the gap on the left upper corner of the screen.

If you are using multiple monitors, Paulderynk has put his screen layout in another part of this forum. Both of these screen layouts are working fine at the moment with only a very few disappearances of windows.

So I think this might be the solution of this problem. It won't go away for ever, but reduces this problem to about once in a whole turn.

I know Steve is still investigating this problem, because he also doesn't know why at this moment the placement of the Main Form on the screen is so very important. However, it is manageable as it is at the moment, so I don't think this is going to be fixed soon.

If the placement of the Main Form on your screen doesn't do the trick, please inform us.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I believe that sometime in January or February I fixed the problem with the Air-to-air combat form requesting the player to respond to a 'hidden' form.

If anyone still has this problem, could they please post that fact to this thread? Otherwise I have this problem down as 'fixed'.

[AllenK]

Yes I am still getting this problem. Seems to occur with die rolls around 9 to 11

[AllenK]

An update to the above. I have done some testing using the attached file. Set up a ground strike using the Whitley, escorted by the Spitfire and intercept with the ME109.
Manually enter the die rolls and keep typing 11.
After clearing the bomber through to make it the Spitfire vs the ME109, continued entry of an 11 (DC result) pretty reliably produces the freeze.

Fortunately, I have been able to bring back the hidden form by either opening the 'Partisans' form or 'Production Planning' but the freeze seems to be happening with a DC result when there are no bombers left to clear through.

Hope this helps

[AllenK]

Sorry, file now attached