Minsc

Qwinn,

Salutations! This was awesome! I've just replaced the original bif files with your posted ones and the locations have been loaded without a crash or a hitch. Thanks for that very much! ;-)

It seems those original files actually are corrupt.. Such an insidious source of the problem.. :-P

Anyway, Could you do me one more favour and post the file "AR0611.bif" as I want to see whether the fragmentation of the tailor's shop place with black rectangles is also because of that file being partially corrupt? Although now my progress in the game should go smoothly, I'll be cautiously optimistic and, if there's a similar problem later, I would need to seek clean files again.. Hopefully, that won't be the case ;-)

Thanks again.

Minsc

Hello again,

I've been inspecting the bif files on my CD images (which are the same as the ones on the actual CDs) recently and I've noticed that something is wrong with the files "AR0612.bif" (apothecary), "AR0613.bif" (not sure..) and "AR0706.bif" (Finam the Linguist's house):

1. The beginning of these files is displayed in an unusual way by a text viewer compared to how other bif files are displayed
2. I cannot extract anything from these files using "Winbiff" even though I can successfully do that with the other bif files that I've tried

Also, my text viewer displays the "AR1400.bif" file (The weeping stone catacombs) in the similarly odd way but I've been there and it didn't crash and I could extract files from "AR1400.bif" without problems.

So I have reason to believe a small group of my bif files are corrupt. I've zipped them and attached to this post. I've included the "AR0611.bif" file (tailor's shop) with the other 3 because it had been placed next to the odd files and I had display problems with the location coded in that file, which I think could be related to that file also being partially corrupt. If someone has the time, could you get them, compare them with your own game files of the same name and then report whether there are any differences? The bif files can be normally found in the 3rd CD (of the 4CD version of the game) and I think the comparisons can be made even if you have different installs of the game, as these bif files are on the game permanent storage CDs which can't be affected by any patches or mods. Then, if you discover discrepancies, please post your own files for me to test. I would really appreciate your help ;-)

By the way, Finam the Linguist's house is actually plot-critical.. :-/

Minsc

What file(s) do you need, exactly?

I think I need 2 files from the "override" directory which are the AR0612.WED file that is for the apothecary and the AR0706B.ARE file that is for the Finam the linguist's house. Also, for troubleshooting, it would be good to have a clean file containing data about those locations from the main game directory, probably the AREFiles.bif file, but I'm not sure.. Qwinn or someone else would know better and I'm hoping that they will post the name of the file after reading this or, having enough spare time, I'll try to determine it ;-)

The important thing to remember is that the files should be taken from the game directory that has the same install as mine:
1. game 4CD version
2. official patch 1.1
3. "Planescape - Torment Fixpack" mod

Cool, if someone has some files to share ;-)

Minsc

Yeah, uninstalling and reinstalling everything takes some time.. Well, if at some point later you end up having a lot of free time and spending it idly, then it would be fantastic if you could do that, but, in general, it's not that necessary since I have, as it seems, an option to skip those areas and I wouldn't want to make you to go through such hassle. ;-)

Maybe someone else would have the same install?.. If not, then I will probably move on or try installing the game on a different machine, or something like that ;-)

Minsc

Qwinn,

I've tried what you said. There wasn't any AR0612.ARE file in the "override" directory but you probably meant the AR0612.WED file which I temporarily removed but the game still crashed at the apothecary. Same story with the Finam the linguist house, where I removed the AR0706B.ARE file to no avail. There is also one thing I think is worth mentioning. When I remove the AR0609.WED file, the game crashes at the Curiosity shop with the "Assertion fail..." error, though maybe that's not of much relevance as the error is slightly different.

I would guess then that the problem is not related to those area files or that, if it is, then the actual extracted area files could be corrupt. Hmm, I wonder whether the same would happen if I had the game on a machine running Windows 98..

Minsc