Larry 3 crashes...what am I doing wrong?

Cerebus1 · Post by **Cerebus1** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:18 pm

I've had great success getting my old PC games to run with ScummVM, but I'm having trouble with one game. I have the "Leisure Suit Larry's Greatest Hit and Misses" CD, which has all the Larry games that run with ScummVM, including both versions of Larry 1. All work great, except for Larry 3.

I copied the LSL3 file off the CD and ScummVM recognizes it. It seems to start ok, as the music plays and I see the opening title screen animation. There is the Sierra logo and the title of the game next to two pairs of legs. Then it goes to the beach scene with all the text. If I don't do anything, this will eventually loop back to the title screen and continue indefinitely.

The problem is, if I do anything (and I mean anything at all...click the mouse, press any key), ScummVM closes. I tried deleting and re-copying the files off the CD. I removed the game from ScummVM and re-added it, but the same thing happened. Anyone have a full list of required files? I copied the whole LSL3 file, but maybe I'm missing something from somewhere else on the CD? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:23 pm

I have no idea what would cause that, but just to rule out the simplest explanation... Which version of ScummVM is this, and what operating system are you running it on?

Cerebus1 · Post by **Cerebus1** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:27 pm

ScummVM version 1.4.0
Windows Vista Home Premium

tsoliman · Post by **tsoliman** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:53 am

ScummVM spits out stuff to the console when it crashes like this. Can you start it from the command line (cmd.exe) and post what is output there?

Cerebus1 · Post by **Cerebus1** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:29 am

OK, I started ScummVM from the command prompt, started Larry 3 and let it crash. Unfortunately, not much happened in the command prompt when it crashed (it just went back to the ScummVM directory), so I don't know if this is helpful...Here's everything from the command prompt after I started the game:

C:\Program Files\ScummVM>scummvm.exe
User picked target 'lsl3' <gameid 'sci'>...
Looking for a plugin supporting this gameid... SCI [SCI0, SCI01, SCI10, SCI11]

Starting 'Sierra SCI Game'

C:\Program Files\ScummVM>

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:25 pm

Cerebus1 wrote: C:\Program Files\ScummVM>scummvm.exe
User picked target 'lsl3' <gameid 'sci'>...
Looking for a plugin supporting this gameid... SCI [SCI0, SCI01, SCI10, SCI11]

Starting 'Sierra SCI Game'

C:\Program Files\ScummVM>

Not helpful at all, unfortunately.

One thing I did notice was that when you abort the intro, for whatever reason it tries to open a file in the save path which, at least in my case, was called lsl3-LARRY3.DRV. (I don't think it's a savegame, it's probably just using the same mechanism because that's a folder where it assumes it will be able to read and write files. If the file isn't there to begin with, it will be created.)

Now, I can get it to crash to ScummVM's debug console if I deliberately substitute that file for an empty one, so perhaps it's possible to get the entire program to crash if something else is wrong about that file, or the save path itself? I don't run Windows myself, and the file handling code is one area where ScummVM uses platform-specific code. Perhaps someone more familiar with the SCI engine has further ideas?

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:46 pm

I don't recall LSL3 doing it, but LSL5 stores passwords in a fake DRV file.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:47 pm

LSL3 stores the age quiz questions in a fake driver file (called LARRY3.DRV), so that it doesn't ask the same questions again. LSL5 has a similar fake driver file, MEMORY.DRV, where it stores the game password.

Make sure that you don't have a corrupted LARRY3.DRV file, and that you have set ScummVM's save path to a folder that ScummVM has access to. If you do have a LARRY3.DRV in the game's data files, make sure that it is writeable, otherwise delete it completely and it'll be recreated in your save folder.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:16 am

Does ScummVM redirect where this file is written since Virtual Store does not allow *.DRV files?

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:12 am

I've been asked by a fellow ScummVM developer without a forum account to say that if nothing else helps you should file a bug report, and that including the MD5 checksums for the LSL3 data files would be helpful. (He suggested using MD5summer or similar, but I've never used that one myself.)

Cerebus1 · Post by **Cerebus1** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 3:51 am

Thanks to all that commented and for the tip about the save path. I was able to figure out the problem and now Larry 3 is running fine!

I changed the save path to the lsl3 file that I copied from the disc and started the game. This created the lsl3-LARRY3.DRV file and after the opening scene it went right to the age quiz. A few outdated questions later, I was playing Larry 3. I hadn't thought of this, as I have never had to change the save path for any ScummVM game before.

On a side note, I did the same thing with Larry 5 and it worked there, too. That game had seemed to run fine with the default save path and I had been able to save my game. However, it never asked me to set a password (or opt out). I don't know if this would have been an issue at some point, but at first it was only a problem if I hit the "Skip" button. It would ask for a password that I never had the opportunity to set.

After setting the save path to the lsl5 file copied from the disc, I started the game and a lsl5-MEMORY.DRV file was created. I hit "Skip" and was able to set a password (or opt out).

Thanks for the help! I really appreciate it! I also really appreciate all the work put into ScummVM.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:23 am

Hm... Were you able to save at all before changing the save path? What was it set to?

Cerebus1 · Post by **Cerebus1** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:37 am

The save path for both games had been set to Default. I couldn't save in Larry 3, as I couldn't even get the game to run after the title screen. Larry 5 could save, though I didn't have the opportunity to set or refuse a password. Changing the save path to the file containing the game files solved the problems in both games.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 8:03 am

That is very strange. If you were able to save in LSL5, you shouldn' t be having problems...

fuzzie · Post by **fuzzie** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:08 am

This is https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.p ... tid=418820 which I have updated with info about the likely cause.