Vassal not launching

My problem is that Vassal does not launch. I usually get the animation indicating that the computer is working for about a second, and then nothing more. I have seen various posts about problems similar to this one, but no advice that worked. I have reinstalled Vassal, reinstalled JAVA and rebooted my computer in every possible combination with no effect. I can affirm that VASSAL did work this same computer about a year ago and then stopped. I have seen some advice that Vassal will work with older versions of JAVA, and when I try to launch VASSAL without JAVA installed, it asks for JAVA 1.5. Therefore, I attempted to download a version of JAVA that old, but it would not install on my operating system. (Too old.)

I would greatly appreciate any new advice on how to fix this, other than the usual of reinstalling and rebooting everything. Thanks in advance. Here are my system specs.

  • Model: Dell Latitude E5500 laptop

  • OS Windows 7 Home Premium

  • Intel Core2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz

  • Memory 3.00 GB

  • Windows 7 Professional

  • 32-bit Operating System

  • VASSAL-3.1.17-windows

  • Java version 1.6.0_29

Ron

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

My problem is that Vassal does not launch. I usually get the animation
indicating that the computer is working for about a second, and then
nothing more. I have seen various posts about problems similar to this
one, but no advice that worked. I have reinstalled Vassal, reinstalled
JAVA and rebooted my computer in every possible combination with no
effect. I can affirm that VASSAL did work this same computer about a
year ago and then stopped. I have seen some advice that Vassal will
work with older versions of JAVA, and when I try to launch VASSAL
without JAVA installed, it asks for JAVA 1.5. Therefore, I attempted to
download a version of JAVA that old, but it would not install on my
operating system. (Too old.)

I would greatly appreciate any new advice on how to fix this, other than
the usual of reinstalling and rebooting everything. Thanks in advance.
Here are my system specs.

  • Model: Dell Latitude E5500 laptop

  • OS Windows 7 Home Premium

  • Intel Core2 Duo CPU P8700 @ 2.53GHz

  • Memory 3.00 GB

  • Windows 7 Professional

  • 32-bit Operating System

  • VASSAL-3.1.17-windows

  • Java version 1.6.0_29

Are you still having this problem with VASSAL 3.1.18?


J.

Yes. I just downloaded 3.1.18 and the behavior is the same. The installation puts a shortcut on my desk top. I doubleclick the shortcut and nothing happens. I get a circular symbol on the mouse pointer that indicates something is happen very briefly (less than a second) and then nothing. Vassal worked for me until sometime about a year ago maybe. I might be associated with switching laptops. At this point I can’r remember.

I’d appeciate any ideas.

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

Yes. I just downloaded 3.1.18 and the behavior is the same. The
installation puts a shortcut on my desk top. I doubleclick the shortcut
and nothing happens. I get a circular symbol on the mouse pointer that
indicates something is happen very briefly (less than a second) and then
nothing. Vassal worked for me until sometime about a year ago maybe. I
might be associated with switching laptops. At this point I can’r
remember.

I’d appeciate any ideas.

The first thing to do is check whether Java works. Go to a command
prompt and type ‘java -version’. What’s the output?


J.

Thanks for helping. How do I get a command prompt. If I use “Run” and type java -version the black box pops up but disappears so fast I can’t read it.

OK, I figured that out.

Java versoin is 1.6.0_29
build is 1.6.0_29-b11

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

OK, I figured that out.

Java versoin is 1.6.0_29
build is 1.6.0_29-b11

Ok, so your Java probably works.

Change directory to wherever you installed VASSAL. If you installed
VASSAL in C:\Program Files\VASSAL-3.1.17, then type this at the prompt:

cd C:\Program Files\VASSAL-3.1.17

Then:

javaw -client -cp lib/Vengine.jar VASSAL.launch.ModuleManager

What happens?


J.

I have vassa lin C:\Program Files\VASSAL but when I type that in the command prompt after cd it says it cannot find that directory. I have also tried with with -3.1.18 and -3.1.17, as you have shown above, though I don’t think that the numbers are in the directory name. Should I try you javaw command even though I do not seem to have successfully changed directories?

OK, I got to the right directory. I just had to do it in steps rather than all in one command.

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

I have vassa lin C:\Program Files\VASSAL but when I type that in the
command prompt after cd it says it cannot find that directory. I have
also tried with with -3.1.18 and -3.1.17, as you have shown above,
though I don’t think that the numbers are in the directory name. Should
I try you javaw command even though I do not seem to have successfully
changed directories?

No. You need to find the directory which contains VASSAL.exe. That’s
the one from which you need to run the javaw command.


J.

OK, I typed your javaw command while in the VASSAL directory and nothing happened. I just got the directory prompt back. I tried it a few times.

To elaborate, I typed the javaw command while in the C:\Program Files\VASSAL directory with is where vassal.exe resides. Nothing happened. :frowning:

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

To elaborate, I typed the javaw command while in the C:\Program
Files\VASSAL directory with is where vassal.exe resides. Nothing
happened. :frowning:

Do you have a directory called VASSAL in your home directory? In Windows
7, you’ll find the home directories under C:\Users. Is there a file
called errorLog there? If so, what’s in it?


J.

Here are the contents of the error log. I would not be surprised if the date on all this items is the date I switched to this computer.

12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – Starting
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – OS Windows 7
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – Java version 1.6.0_20
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – VASSAL version 3.1.14
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.490 0 – Manager
12 Feb 2011 03:30:07.829 0 – Loading module file C:\Users\ronjacobsen\Desktop\Vassal\MMWv5c.vmod
12 Feb 2011 03:30:07.829 0 – Loading module Mr. Madison’s war
12 Feb 2011 03:30:07.829 0 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\java -Xms256M -Xmx512M -DVASSAL.id=1 -Duser.home=C:\Users\ronjacobsen -cp lib\Vengine.jar VASSAL.launch.Player
12 Feb 2011 03:30:11.167 1 – Mr. Madison’s war version 05c
12 Feb 2011 03:30:11.167 1

12 Feb 2011 03:53:11.710 1 – Exiting
12 Feb 2011 03:53:13.800 0 – Exiting

By the way, Mr. Madison’s War is the last thing I successfully ran on Vassal, though I may or may not have succeeded with in on this computer.

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

Here are the contents of the error log. I would not be surprised if the
date on all this items is the date I switched to this computer.

12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – Starting
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – OS Windows 7
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – Java version 1.6.0_20
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.475 0 – VASSAL version 3.1.14
12 Feb 2011 03:30:04.490 0 – Manager
12 Feb 2011 03:30:07.829 0 – Loading module file
C:\Users\ronjacobsen\Desktop\Vassal\MMWv5c.vmod
12 Feb 2011 03:30:07.829 0 – Loading module Mr. Madison’s war
12 Feb 2011 03:30:07.829 0 C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\java -Xms256M
-Xmx512M -DVASSAL.id=1 -Duser.home=C:\Users\ronjacobsen -cp
lib\Vengine.jar VASSAL.launch.Player
12 Feb 2011 03:30:11.167 1 – Mr. Madison’s war version 05c
12 Feb 2011 03:30:11.167 1

12 Feb 2011 03:53:11.710 1 – Exiting
12 Feb 2011 03:53:13.800 0 – Exiting

That’s not a fresh errorLog.

What happens if you try running VASSAL with an administrative account?


J.

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

Here are the contents of the error log. I would not be surprised if the
date on all this items is the date I switched to this computer.

Also, what else is in that directory?


J.

I have to step away from my computer now, but I’ll check back in tomorrow and follow any advice you have. Thanks for taking the time.

Ron

Just noticed your last post. Besides the error log, there are files called:
key
lock
preferences

also folders called:
ext
plugins
and 27 temp.zip files.

Thus spake ronljacobsen:

Just noticed your last post. Besides the error log, there are files
called:
key
lock
preferences

also folders called:
ext
plugins
and 27 temp.zip files.

Delete lock, and then try running VASSAL.


J.