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Old 09-25-2014, 05:18 PM   #1
myrjola
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Default GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

Hi everyone,

my girlfriend has been suffering from a somewhat odd problem with GCA; a character file that used to work just fine on a Windows XP installation of GCA crashes the program. Soon after trying to open the character on her laptop (which is running W7) it will just show a dialog with "Runtime Error '13': Type Mismatch" message and fail. Even more curiously, the same character did still load successfully on the W7 machine of our GM, who's also using GCA.

We've tried uninstalling and re-installing the application (including removing gca.ini as suggested in the FAQ) and running the updates, but the problem seems to persist.

We suspect it might be related somehow to the Banestorm data file, as her character has a dragon template applied and furthermore if I create a new character and apply the same Dragon - Young (Banestorm) template her character uses and save it, then try to load it, it will crash in completely similar manner.

Any ideas..?
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Old 09-25-2014, 06:15 PM   #2
ericbsmith
 
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Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

That's... odd. Especially if one computer will open it and the other one won't. Were both computers running the same version of the program and fully updated?

It may be that something is corrupted in the character file. The best suggestion I can make at this point is for you to zip up the character file and e-mail it to either Armin or myself so we can take a look at the innards and see if there's an obvious problem.
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Old 09-26-2014, 05:32 AM   #3
myrjola
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

Yes, I think at the time we tried it on the GMs machine both of them should have been running the same version (latest available at that point). I can probably actually verify this tomorrow, as we will have a gaming session then.

I sent a zip archive containing both the original file and a minimal new character (basically just a default new character plus the dragon template applied) to Armin, as I found his email address first.

It's kind of comforting that this feels odd even to people familiar with the internals of GCA, now we feel a little less silly :)
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Old 09-26-2014, 12:26 PM   #4
Armin
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Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

Is it possible that your girlfriend is running Windows with different language settings than you and your GM?

As much as I've tried to catch them over the years, we do occasionally still run across an issue that tracks back to the decimal separator being a comma instead of a period. This sounds suspiciously like that might be the case here. (This issue is an unfortunate and bothersome side effect of GCA's data being so easily user editable; sometimes a number with a decimal point can't be determined correctly by GCA to be an actual number, because the comma confuses it; and sometimes when doing math, a comma gets saved to data instead of a period because language settings are automatically applied, instead of GCA's own preferred internal settings. It's kinda messy.)

Also: I got the email, but there was no ZIP file attached. If you'd like to try again, that would be great. And thanks for including the minimal test case as well, that will be very helpful.
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Old 09-26-2014, 02:11 PM   #5
myrjola
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

If I recall correctly, this is indeed the case; GM is using Windows set up to Finnish language, whereas my girlfriend uses English language.

After reading your comment I checked the language and region settings on the laptop: it's set to English language, however a Finnish format is selected, in which the decimal separator is a comma. I tried changing the decimal separator to period and then launching GCA. The good news are that now it does load her character just fine, so your suspicion seems to have been very much spot-on.

Thanks for the help, this should make tomorrow's session quite a bit more convenient for her! :)
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Old 09-26-2014, 03:05 PM   #6
Armin
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Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

I'm glad you found it, and can adjust to work around it.

I'm very sorry for the bug that causes this issue. Fixing these requires a fix to the program itself, so there's no possible quick fix for now.
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Old 08-17-2015, 10:01 AM   #7
kirkley
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

I've got the same problem:

Windows 10\Windows 8.1 (on my laptop), GCA b.4.0.423 (with updates), path to folder: "F:\GURPS Character Assistant 4\", default gds file.

1) Create new character
2) Add to "Language - Native (Spoken)" Advantage
3) Save and then try to open my saved character, but crash with "Runtime error 13: type mismatch"
4) Open gca file in notepad++ and delete everything in [Bonuses] section. Save and open file in GCA - everything is fine!
5) Resyncronize (select default checkboxes), save and open, but crach again with the same error...

This problem appears with all my saved characters, but some of them doesn't crache until i go to the "Tools - Oprions" or try to resynchronize them.

How can i fix this?
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Old 08-19-2015, 02:18 PM   #8
Armin
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Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

It's kinda weird that you're hitting this bug so easily, as I thought it was just a few special cases that caused it to pop up due to saving bad data to the files.

Anyway, this is almost certainly caused by the decimal separator being a comma instead of a period, as mentioned above, and being saved that way to the character file instead of being saved as GCA expects, with a period.

Until I'm able to issue a patch or a new version, which is currently not possible, the only real work-around is to change Windows settings to something that includes the decimal being a period. If that's a problem for normal use, you might try setting up a separate user account for GCA that uses that setting.

I'm really sorry about this issue. I know it's frustrating for you, because it's really frustrating for me, as well.
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Old 08-25-2015, 02:52 PM   #9
kirkley
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Re: GCA fails to load a character (Runtime error 13)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Armin View Post
It's kinda weird that you're hitting this bug so easily, as I thought it was just a few special cases that caused it to pop up due to saving bad data to the files.

Anyway, this is almost certainly caused by the decimal separator being a comma instead of a period, as mentioned above, and being saved that way to the character file instead of being saved as GCA expects, with a period.

Until I'm able to issue a patch or a new version, which is currently not possible, the only real work-around is to change Windows settings to something that includes the decimal being a period. If that's a problem for normal use, you might try setting up a separate user account for GCA that uses that setting.

I'm really sorry about this issue. I know it's frustrating for you, because it's really frustrating for me, as well.
Thx! I've solve it by changing decimal separator (funny i know) in the Regional and Language Settings.
P.S. Good luck with GCA 5! =)
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