errors in PBEM files

[bwv]

running into a problem with the PBEM files for M44 - advanced the turn & sent to my opponent. when he tries to open it, it asks for my key but If I try to open it is asks for his key

anyone experienced this before? Its alot of work to reenter a russian turn in the campaign game :)

[Glenn Saunders]

running into a problem with the PBEM files for M44 - advanced the turn & sent to my opponent. when he tries to open it, it asks for my key but If I try to open it is asks for his key

Can't be the same file.
I mean when you think about it the file - being encrypted - requires a password to open. This is not related to the PC.

I think if you sent the file to me or a third party we would find the files are different. Or if I had one file and two passwords - only one password would work - right??

Anyway - I think you guys need to sort out the file name, file date and file size. If your turn was last than the file he opens should match the one you sent.

Glenn

[FLG]

running into a problem with the PBEM files for M44 - advanced the turn & sent to my opponent. when he tries to open it, it asks for my key but If I try to open it is asks for his key

anyone experienced this before? Its alot of work to reenter a russian turn in the campaign game :)

A common cause of this is someone saving the file to the wrong location and then opening what they think is the new file but is in fact an old one

[bwv]

I hope you all are right, its not the case on my end.

have been plagued with other issues of PBEM files getting corrupted - for example saving an incomplete turn then going back and opening it to find it asks for my opponents password.

[Mr Grumpy]

Sorry to read about your issues, i have been lucky in that i never have problems with PBEM files, the only rare issue i had was when i have sent files unzipped. ;)

[KG_RangerBooBoo]

Sorry to read about your issues, i have been lucky in that i never have problems with PBEM files, the only rare issue i had was when i have sent files unzipped. ;)

If you are using zipped files make sure you actually zipped the new file before sending. I don't know how many times I've inserted the zip file from the previous turn as I forgot to zip my file.

[Ricky B]

I have had that problem both with incoming messages and ones I send out. Whenever I have problems like this with the turns, I always check the file datestamp and make sure it is "correct" - meaning it must be after the date I sent my last turn back, and before the current date/time generally, although depends on where it came from and when I opened it, a turn from the UK might be a later date stamp than my current time, depending on how everything worked on it.

But as Glenn stated, there is no way the 2 of you are opening the same file but being asked for opposite side passwords, so someone has an earlier file than the other.

Rick
Rick

[bwv]

don't get the rationale for using zip files, the PBEM files are not big enough to be worth compressing and anti-virus software does not like them.

[Ricky B]

2 good reasons for zipping files, not always applicable to everyone. First, some email clients don't handle the attached scenario files properly, a known bug in some versions of Outlook Express at a minimum. I ran into this both with scenario files and in other situations, where the attachment didn't show up as an attachment but with the text from the saved game embedded in the email instead, so totally unusable, at least without a lof of work.

There was also an issue some have had where the extension on the save game would be changed automagically to .dat I think it is, making the save unusable until it was changed back to the correct extension.

Others have reported corruption of the saved games, but I can't attribute that to anything specific.

A third reason I like is it makes managing the files very slightly easier, mostly when I unzip a a turn I receive, as I can open a list of recent unzip locations and dump it in the game, as opposed to saving it and having to maneuver to the correct location, which takes more work, although not as hard as shovelling rock would be :).

Anyway, definitely not done to save on file size. I have never had an AV issue with zip files, interesting to hear that you do.

Rick

[FM WarB]

When I zip up a pbem game file, I add a turn number to the zip filename. This helps prevent me from sending the wrong file.