PBEM glitches, anyone?

[Glenn Saunders]

Thanks for those hints. I have been known to have same scenario, different games open in two windows. I have just seen elsewhere the suggestion that the pbem.yyy file is at fault and requires periodic deletion.

> I have been known to have same scenario, different games open in two windows.

** you are playing with fire doing this - but it will only affect the replays your opponent sees.

Warren:

The ROOT cause of this issue is Windows memory and how the info is written to file. When the replay is being played by YOUR PC it is just playing back what happen on the other guys side. If there is any hickup - the replay aborts and jumps to the end of the file.

There is a few ways your opponent can prevent this things from happening. Of course the first is do a cold boot before playing and after playing any email turn, without stopiping doing a save as and then reopening the turn to a earlier place and moving foraward again. Yes - this sound drastic, but I can pretty much say for sure you would never see this problem if this is what was done.

Now it is not only doing Save or Save As and opening the fileat an earlier point in time. Hell we all know that WIndows can mess up memory from time to time. But if this is happening more freqently in files you get from your opponent then something is going on. And I am not suggesting that it is all questionable stuff.

Other things could be happening too. I would certainly recommend both players ALWAYS close the game and open the game fresh, load the BTE file - play the turn and close the game completely before moving to the NExt HPS Game, even if the next turn the guy is going to play is from the same game.

Don't open two copies of ONE tile at a time and play the game that way - otherwise both applications are writting to the same file and you can see where the computer would get messed up. Two applications with the same name writting info to memory and then transfering this to a single file in the game folder.

I think between many Saves, Save As and reopening earlier files, playing only one game, one turn at a time and then closing the game as well as rebooting your PC from time to time, will reduce occurance of this to almost zero.

Glenn