Oolite Bulletins

Hi, I have managed to find a similar post on this that seems to describe the same symptoms but my prob seems to appear due to different watsits.

Whenever there is any text interactions, any selection results in all subsequent text, anywhere, becoming yellow blocks/bars and consequently unreadable.

It started when I did my first ship exchange and a script appeared asking if I had the new furbles (or whatever they`re called) and if I wished to purchase one for 30cr. Either selection, yes/no, results in all displayed text just being blocks and bars with no text, including the HUD and game menu.
The same thing happens at the casinos, hackers yards and stations where someone tries to sell me something.

I have run it from the command line to see what it says when I reproduce the bug, but it doesnt seem to.

I wouold really like to have these features so any help would be much appreciated

PS. Not sure what oolite version, the one installed from repro in synaptic in Ubuntu 7.10. I get the same bug whether not oxp`s are installed.

Looks like it could be a font problem but frankly I cannot yet think how you would start Ok and then go wrong.

For starters can you examine the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file?

Before starting Oolite see if you have any font warnings/errors at the start of the file (Don't worry too much if there are any). Remember what is at the end of the file. Run Oolite and after you create the error look at the log file again. See if anything new has popped up.

Another thing to try: Have a console session open before starting Oolite with the following command ready and just waiting for <Enter>

dmesg|tail

As soon as yopu create the error switch to this console and hit enter. There may be a useful message there.

# This is the only error thrown up at start up, and lots of it!:

2008-02-11 09:55:22.827 oolite[7353] don't know how to load entity 'http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd' id '-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN'
.:3: validity error : Validation failed: no DTD found !
<plist version="1.0">

# Just spotted another on start up, this appears just the once:

2008-02-11 11:05:39.742 oolite[9024] Vertex Array Range optimisation - not supported


# There tends to be a few of these during play:

2008-02-11 10:00:29.827 oolite[7408] OPENGL_DEBUG GL_ERROR (1280) 'invalid enumerant' in: Universe before doing anything


# This is what happens in the command line when the error is reproduced!?:

2008-02-11 10:36:29.178 oolite[7408] SCRIPT debug messages ON
2008-02-11 10:36:29.178 oolite[7408] SCRIPT debug messages OFF
2008-02-11 10:36:29.180 oolite[7408] SCRIPT debug messages ON
2008-02-11 10:36:29.180 oolite[7408] SCRIPT debug messages OFF
2008-02-11 10:36:29.182 oolite[7408] SCRIPT debug messages ON
2008-02-11 10:36:29.182 oolite[7408] SCRIPT debug messages OFF

# dmesg|tail produces this on error reproduction:

jascas@FURY:~$ dmesg|tail
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] total Inv = 0
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] free Inv = 0
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] max single Inv = 0
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] total TIM = 0
[ 122.112000] eth0: link down
[ 123.900000] hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.
[ 150.116000] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[ 150.116000] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
[ 150.116000] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 160.428000] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present

# And here is the bit before it:
[ 119.196000] fglrx: module license 'Proprietary. (C) 2002 - ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY' taints kernel.
[ 119.204000] [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 1776 MBytes.
[ 119.204000] [fglrx] module loaded - fglrx 8.37.6 [May 25 2007] on minor 0
[ 119.228000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:01:05.0[A] -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] total GART = 130023424
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] free GART = 114032640
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] max single GART = 114032640
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] total LFB = 134217728
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] free LFB = 119828480
[ 121.236000] [fglrx] max single LFB = 119828480

# In /var/log/Xorg.0.log
There are a few warnings and "so I`m doing this instead" lines but the file is far too large to post here and I dont know, or cant seem to get working, how to paste the file into a scrolling box. (I have googled how to do it biut it doesnt seem to work!)
here are the errors and warnings:

(WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
Entry deleted from font path.

(WW) fglrx(0): board is an unknown third party board, chipset is supported

(WW) fglrx(0): Only one display is connnected,so single mode is enabled

(WW) LoadModule: given non-canonical module name "glesx.so"


Thankyou very much for taking the time.

OK, nothing in there is related to a fonts problem so, at the risk of appearing to take the lazy way out, I suggest that the culprit may well be the Graphics Card/Driver subsystem.

ATI cards, especially the older ones, have a history of misbehaviour in games.

Please post which Linux Distro you are using, what is the PC and is the Graphics Card integrated with the motherboard. Do you know what the card model is?

Meanwhile, try to download the latest version of the driver from www.ati.com (you will be redirected to www.amd.com).

For this you do not need to know the precise version of your card. I think though that there is a separate driver for integrated cards. I am not impressed by the integrated ATI cards. I recently bought an AMD mobo and after 3 days of tinkering gave up and nipped out for an NVidia card.

Chalk and cheese!

Sounds like a problem with the texture management code.

Judging by the DTD errors, you’re running Oolite 1.65. (This makes sense; it’s the last “stable” release, so the correct one to have in a repo.) The texture system has been entirely rewritten since then. An installer for test release 1.70 can be found here.

Hi, I have just noticed that some online flash stuff (well I presume its flash) has started doing the same thing, the text being blocks and bars, obscuring whats underneath. Also some streamed video boxes have just started to show blanks. I am wondering as to whether its due to an upgrade or maybe something I have broken trying to get another game working (sulk) - more than likely. Suppose I should go off to the Ubuntu forums ahgains to see if I can get clues to fixing this.

Thankyou very much for the help anyway. Just incase, I will give that info you asked for:
OS: Ubuntu 7.10 Gusy
Advent 7201 Laptop - Celeron M
Ati Radeon Express 200M

I am downloading the latest as I type (going really slowly for some reason, going to be another 30min). I shall try and when it finishes.

Thank you for the suggestion.

I installed (well sort off) the latest incarnation, 1.70. The only thing was, half way through the install it just froze. I left it a good half hour just in case but to no avail. When I killed the proc and resarted oolite, but text probs were all solved! I still dont seem to be able to fully install 1.70, it always crashes half way through install, (corrupted dl maybe?) but atleast i have a fully working oolite!
Thanks

The recommended procedure, another_commander tells us, is to completely remove the previous version of Oolite before installing, or to install to a different location.