Going through withdrawl

[sandwedge]

I need help - kids and I went to play a classic - Steve Opfer's Harper's Grove and the computer would not let us. All Opfer courses after Gloucester do not work on our computer except for Ingall's Creek. All courses before Harper's Grove do work. We have all the libraries installed: Parkland, Park3, New park, Opfer 1, Opfer 2, Opfer 3. I do not have a virus on my computer. I am running Windows 7. The courses affected are: Harper's Grove, Joshua Ridge and Kaunlani Bay (sp?). For now I have unistalled all 3 and am hoping the community can give us an assist. Have not ever played these courses before but we have enjoyed Steve's other courses - really lousy that we have the files but they don't seem to work at this point. Help

[sandwedge]

Okay, my daughter helped me out with this one and thought I would pass along the solution. It appears that my cd-rom version of PGA had something to do with it. We own the PGA Collector's Edition cd-roms. We uninstalled all the Opfer courses and then began to reinstall them in order of their release (Abernathy, Benson Hills, Cranfield Pines, Deerfield Trace, Eden Valley, Gloucester Golf and Hunt Club and then stopped here). We then re-installed Ingall's Creek FROM the Collector's Edition cd. Then we installed Harper's grove, Joshua Ridge and Kaulani Bay and woila they all worked. As best as my daughter can figure it is an issue with the libraries and the date of the one on the cd as opposed to the ones that come with the files for the other courses. Did Mr. Opfer change libraries or something? Is this an issue similar to the Alan Toft thing that the community needs to be aware of? It appears that there are two distinct versions of the Parkland and Opfer 1 libraries and that if not installed in the manner described above will overwrite and lend some of Mr. Opfer's courses (along with other courses that use these libraries unplayable). Or it could have been the reinstall of the Beartooth Pass and Rugged Cross libraries that come with the xcr file of Ingall's Creek in the cd-rom version that did the trick. Hope this is coherent enough - we got it fixed - heads up to a potential problem with the following libraries then:
Opfer 1
Parkland
Beartooth Pass
Rugged Cross

Heads up to the PGA Collector's Edition cd-rom issue:
reinstall Ingall's Creek and the libraries in the xcr file.

Please post any thoughts here so we have a thread for future reference - a lot of the early courses use the Parkland library and many courses use the Beartooth Pass and Rugged Cross libraries as well. This issue might baffle someone without a technology sharp teenager at home If we have not explained this correctly or if it is a known issue already, please chime in.

[tincup]

This could be a problem dating back a few years when we were serving libraries in unzipped format. Every time you downloaded an upzipped library, the modification date got changed. This was a big problem for people who played online in Kali. Kali demands that all players have the same modification date on libraries. Otherwise, Kali gave you an "Altered Library..." message and won't let you play. This issue was resolved when we started serving libraries in zipped format. The file(s) internal to the zip file maintained their dates.

I don't know if this is your particular problem, but it sounds like it could be.

Dar

[sandwedge]

Thanks Dar for weighing in - appreciate your insight very much! Yeah it sure does sound like that is part of the problem at least. Certainly would explain why some of the Opfer courses worked and others did not. There are 3 groups of Opfer courses as best as I can tell: Abernathy through Gloucester; Harper's Grove through Kaulani Bay and Ingall's Creek, Lost Mountain and Mae's Glen. When group 1 worked we couldn't get group 2 to work and when group 2 worked we couldn't get group 1 to work. Lost Mountain and Mae's Glen would only work if all courses were installed in chronological order as described in my previous post. Ingall's Creek would then not work at all. When we reinstalled it from the Collector's Edition cd then they all worked. My daughter was sure it had to do with dates on the files since the library names were the same on the cd as they were on GSC. I still think there must have been some type of change with Opfer libraries though too - the Harper's Grove file on GSC says, "without Parkland library" and the notes refer to a second version of the Parkland library or Opfer 1 library.

Has anyone else had this problem or am I the only one? It could be just a date issue with my cd rom then if just me and then we just need to note it in case another person at GSC has a PGA CE cd that they are using and runs across this issue. The error is not "cannot initialize the course" by the way - the error is "PGA 2000 has stopped working" and this occurs after the splash screen comes up. The courses install fine and the splash screen comes up but then the game crashes when attempting to start a round on the course. Hope all of this helps - so sorry for the long posts, just don't want anyone else to go through the headaches we went through!

[tincup]

Just another thought.... when you installed the game, did you install the patchs? There are two... patch 3.3.4.5 and a CE patch.

[sandwedge]

Yes, we are currently running the game with the latest patch installed - 3.3.4.5 and with the CE patch as well.

[tincup]

Ok, I just wanted to eliminate that as a variable.

I am still trying to figure out what your problem might be. The order of installing courses should make no difference whatsoever. Each course installation is a stand-alone event... as long as the proper libraries are there, it should install and run with no problem.

Most likely, it is a library issue of some kind. For the record, here are the two custom libraries for Harper's Grove along with the modification dates and times I have for them. You might check your libs against these dates-times.
Opfer1 --- 3/13/2001, 04:23:48 PM
Parkland--- 6/1/2000, 01:26:50 PM

The course does use other libs, but they are all stock libs.
Dar

[SteveHorn]

Sandwedge! I have the CE version of the game. Not long ago I had library issues (nothing to do with Opfer courses). Some libraries would show up as being installed but accually had 0 inside the folder. Others would show 0 in the properties but were accually fine. I don't know what caused this to occur or what the accual solution is except to reinstall the game and to also delete all Sierra and PGA2000 registry items you can find before you reinstall.

[sandwedge]

Ok, I will try and check the dates on the libraries and get back here with what I find out - warning though, I need my daughter's help and she's got stuff planned with her friends so it might take a little bit. Those are the two libraries that gave me trouble though if I remember correctly.

Steve,

How exactly do I clear the registry of PGA files? I had a problem with the CL tool not allowing me to work on a project file and I think that had to do with the registry as well - could this in fact be the culprit with these library issues. Like Dar always says - if it says "cannot initialize the course" it is always a library issue but this error message was different; "PGA has stopped working" yet it was only for these courses and not for any of the other ones as far as we could tell. I have 498 courses installed and 395 libraries installed according to the CL tool's count. For now everything works fine so I would hate to uninstall and reinstall but if that's what it takes. Have you ever had any trouble with the Opfer courses or libraries Steve??? Is it an isolated issue for the CE edition users I wonder or a greater library issue for everyone or just a messed up registry on my machine? If it is just an isolated issue to me then I feel horrible guys for taking up space here with it. I will check with the girls and see what light they can shed on things - after all they were the ones that got it running right


Thanks much and if this turns out to be an isolated incident; please forgive me in advance

[SteveHorn]

Sandwedge! WOW I don't have anywhere close to that many courses or libraries installed at one time on my computer. maybe 40 courses (including the 32 that come with the CE version) and maybe 50 libraries at the most.
Never had a problem with any of the Opfer courses I've played. Unless you have more serious issues with PGA2000 in your case I can't recommend messing around in the registry. If you decide thats what you want to do I can give you more details of how and where to look and what to delete but I would try a regular uninstall and reinstall before going into the registry. But if you know how to get those courses to work I would consider it a minor inconveince with so much installed on your computer.
You might want to start compressing courses with there non stock libraries and putting them on CDR or CDRW so you don't lose them. Also it will unclutter your computer.