Some weird stuff.

[Auzll]

First of all, sorry for making my first post here and not in the introductions forum. I'll get to it eventually. D:

So, here's what I came here to report - AmistrRO's files are acting a bit weird. Before anything else, I think I should say that:
a) I have kRO (not Sakray) installed, because (as most of you already know) they have ceased their support for the old Sakray server (which used the sdata.grf). I also hate using disk space (probably because I have a really small HD), so I think I won't bother downloading Ragray. Well, at least I don't want to.
b) I have this habit of installing new servers on separate folders, then patching them and reorganizing their files in my main RO folder. This is because I hate screwing up, and having to download one and a half gigabytes over and over again hurts my feelings (and my computer).
Etc.

Here's what I did, and my problem: I installed AmistrRO on a folder called aRO, and tried to patch it (only to find out there are no newer patches available. That's cool). I then moved the files amistr.grf, AmistrBA.exe, AmistrRO.exe, bandaids.file and the folder BandAids to my main RO folder, and ran the patcher again to open the client. Well, it failed, as expected, so I renamed data.grf to sdata.grf and it... seemed to have worked. However, the background was completely black and I couldn't log in ("Failed to connect to server"). For some reason I decided to move AmistrRO's files back to its folder, along with the renamed sdata.grf, and... it worked. What. The background was pretty and I made a new character.

What makes me curious is: why did it only work when I ran it in the folder it was installed? And why, especifically, was the login screen blank? Did it not recognize amistr.grf, possibly? I'm sure it's not related to other servers, because the only other one I have here doesn't use a data.ini (at least not with that name) and my Data folder only has the .eot files kRO put there on one of its updates (or on its install). It's not because of setup.exe either, because hell that doesn't even make sense and I just tested it. The dll files seem to be the same as the ones I have, and moving all content from the Backup folder Amistr installed didn't seem to break everything in its folder.

In short, uh, Amistr seems to love its own folder so much that it will refuse to run anywhere else.

OH WAIT I just renamed that folder and Amistr is still running perfectly. I'm even more confused now.


My only possible guess is that HackShield's files (kRO's current bad-things-blocker) might be interfering with something, somehow, for some reason - but they are already inside the Backup folder, which means I have already tested with them. I have also put the HShield folder inside aRO's one, and it also ran perfectly, so it's definitely not the guilty guy here.

I decided to attach a screenshot of my current RO folder, so you can try to guess what would be causing this weirdness.
EDIT: ah yeah: rdata.grf is the Renewal data file. I like messing around with it and playing on Renewal Sakray.

IN SHORT 2: I can run Amistr just fine if I move sdata.grf to its folder, but I'm lazy and don't want to do that every single time. Help me. D:

[Aoi]

Amistr should not be installed in a sub-folder. It doesn't look like you did that either. It looks like the folder you renamed is /backup/. This folder should not affect the game being able to run or not. It holds all the DLLs that come with kRO/Sakray in case you didn't get them all.

[Auzll]

Wow, you're fast.

Well, as I said, I only install stuff in a sub-folder to prevent the overwriting of files. After patching everything properly, I move them out to the main folder and run it from there, and then proceed to delete the folder in which I installed the server's files. The Backup folder is still there, but it's inside the "a" folder (Amistr's folder).

[Aoi]

Not sure exactly what you are asking for, but we'll see if this answers anything.

I see that you have sdata.grf and rdata.grf. If you want to be able to play without sdata.grf you're going to need data.grf. rdata.grf is not enough, it doesn't contain all the needed files.

[Auzll]

I already have data.grf D: I only renamed it to sdata.grf because Amistr wouldn't start if I didn't do it.

I'm not exactly sure of what this thread is actually about too (sorry for wasting your time), but it's just something weird that hasn't happened with any of the server I have played on.
Some more tests, and god this thing is really weird.
- Moved all dlls from RO's folder to Amistr's folder, and it worked
- Moved a lot of folders around

OH GOD I FOUND OUT WHAT CAUSED ALL THE WEIRDNESS.
mpatch.inf. Mine had 4 bytes for whatever reason, and AmistrRO's had 505. Replacing them seemed to work... but now I'm curious as to why, exactly. Don't worry about it, it probably hasn't anything to do with the server.

But uh, to not let this topic go to waste, why doesn't the client run if there's no sdata.grf? I noticed there's no data.ini, which means that the instructions on which grf file should be read are probably somewhere in the client itself, but well, isn't it possible to add something to tell it to try looking for data.grf too?

EDIT: nevermind what I just said - what is that mpatch.inf for, actually? Mine was related to my other server, it seems, but I find it weird to have a client act that way when that file is different.

[Koma]

Glad to hear that this was solved.

mpatch.inf is a patcher-related file on most servers. It is similar to spatch.inf which stores Sakray patcher details.