In the best of all worlds, Realms of Wonder users would never run into unexpected errors while using the application. Sadly, since we live in an imperfect world, this is not the case. So, occasionally (at worst, I hope) you may receive an unexpected error message while using Realms. Here's the story.
First, and most importantly, please keep the following in mind:
If you ever get an error in Realms, either one that pops up the error window, or
one that closes down Realms (very bad programming on my part, if that happens), it
is ALWAYS MY FAULT, NEVER THE USERS FAULT.
So, please don't think you have to figure out some way to work around it. If you can
reproduce the error regularly, then I can probably do the same. If I can reproduce
it, then I can fix it.
When I wrote Realms, and as I continue to update it, my goal was, and still is, to have it 100% bug free, which means, no matter what any user does, Realms can handle it.
As alluded to above, I'll probably never achieve that goal completely. So, whenever an error occurs, it means I missed something, not that you did anything "wrong". Generally, it's some series of events I didn't anticipate, so I didn't make sure Realms would handle it properly.
There are three types of errors that you could run into.
1. The normal, Realms of Wonder error window pops up:
This means I didn't expect the error to occur, but at least Realms could "catch" it if it did. Here's the components of the error window:
- The Caption Bar: in this example, it's blue, and says "ProcessReport Error". This tells me where the error took place, and is repeated in the first line of "The Problem" section. It won't mean anything to you, but it really helps me.
- The Problem: This displays the name of the sub routine (the programming code) where this error occurred, the Visual Basic error number and description, and the name of the file in which the error occurred. This information is probably completely meaningless to you, but it's extremely helpful to me. The text in this field is selectable, as displayed above. It's very helpful if you select all of it and copy everything into an email and send it to me. The ROWDEBUG.LOG file, mentioned below, contains this same information, so if you send that, don't bother copying this text.
- What to do: If I've run into this error before, I'll try to give you some ideas on what to do. If I haven't, you'll just get a generic "Call Customer Support" message.
- Continue Button: If you click this, Realms will try to continue from where it left off when the error occurred. In some cases, this will allow you to keep going. In others, it will simply trigger more error messages. I suggest you always try this first.
- Cancel Button: This will jump to the end of the routine where the error occurred. If you tried Continue, and you just keep getting error messages, this should get you past those, but the program will have skipped some steps, so it probably didn't work correctly.
- Help Button: If there is additional information on the specific error message, this button should be enabled. Click it to bring up a help window with more info.
IMPORTANT: Anytime Realms generates one of these error messages, it writes to a file behind the scenes named ROWDEBUG.LOG with details about the error. If you send me this file, which will be found whereever Realms is installed (the same directory as the REALMS50.EXE file), I can usually get enough info from that to resolve the problem.
2. You get a generic error window, and when you click OK, Realms exits
The second kind of error indicates very bad programming on my part (naughty programmer!!), and should really never occur. So, if it does, please contact me with as much info as possible on how and where this error occurred. This error, because I did not "trap" it properly, does not update the ROWDEBUG.LOG file, so I really need as much specific info as possible to re-create it.
3. General Protection Faults (Ohhhh, I hate 'em)
General Protection Faults (GPFs) are errors in the underlying program in which Realms is written. This is a much more difficult kind of error to fix since often it is machine dependent - either a corrupted DLL file, or a conflict with some other program in memory.
If you get a regular error in Realms (the normal error window pops up as described above), and then a GPF, it's probably a side effect of the first error, and will disappear when the original error is fixed.
The GPFs that occur by themselves are the tough ones. You'll get a generic error window, and when you click OK, you'll get a second window with a file name, and a bunch of hexadecimal numbers. If you can tell me the file name, that may help.
If you consisitently get GPFs in Realms, please contact me with as many specifics as possible as to where in the program it ocuurred.
If I can recreate the error on my machine, I can usually fix it. If I can't, it's extremely difficult to pin down the cause.