Ecom virus? (Ecom message causing Fatal Exception error)

[SoLan]

I wonder if I might have discovered the first Ecom virus. I have been having trouble with my second level for a long time, starting from scratch twice and going back to backups several times, always somehow ending up with the horrible Fatal Exception error message at the end.

Now I think I have pinned the error down to an Ecom message that Olstrom sends to Andy when the level is finished. Somehow the text in that message causes the game (and my Palm) to freeze. I have discovered that just changing the wording slightly fixes the problem.

I do not get any error messages in the level editor, and the error message I get on the Palm (Tungsten T3) is simply a "Fatal Exception". I do have the text for the Ecom as well as working and non working versions of the level if that can help someone figure out what the problem is.

--SoLan

[t3guy]

Tell what the exact text is and I'll try it.

[SoLan]

I have narrowed it down even more, and the problem really is one of malicious code in an Ecom message! I am using MS Word to edit my stories and the text for the Ecom messages that will be part of a level. When I write don't in Word, the ' is changed into a ’, and the word becomes don’t. This obviously is a problem for Ecom, as a message containing the MS Word version of the word will make the game, and the device, crash.

I have now changed the ' thingy back, and my level is working again.

--SoLan

[Verdagon]

Good work, detective!

[Wizard]

Try using notepad or wordpad instead.!

[claxbane]

You actually have found a problem that we forgot about since we developed our missions. It has to do with the Word character set. You are going to have to watch out for that if you are trying to use word as a spell checker.