Can't run OpenBVE on Linux Mint 17

OpenBVE ran fine on Linux Mint 16, but on 17, which is based on Ubuntu 14.04. It doesn't do anything. Any idea where to look?

thanks,

Enno

Found a bug report at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openbve/+bug/1273393, thanks to ask ubuntu.

Short answer is that libgdiplus is broken.

I've been digging, and from what I can see, the change that broke things is probably this one:

Code:

[5e251c5] Ensure PNG transparency values are initialized. Thanks to Tom Hindle (LP: #1296786) (Closes: #741980)

http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/libg/libgdiplus/libgdiplus_2.10-3ubuntu1_i386.deb

That's the Ubuntu Saucy version of libgdiplus, which works correctly.
I'm reasonably certain installing it on Mint 17 or Trusty/ above won't do any damage, as all they've really done in the new packages is to add a few small patches.

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Chris, thanks. I tried to install the older one, but got quite a nasty message here. I then realized that I needed the 64 bit version, which then refused to install. And given that the stack trace that I see is similar to what I found on launchpad, I put another comment there.

thanks,

Enno

I had the same problem on 64-bit Trusty (Ubuntu 14.04 LTS). It was solved by installing these two packages:
libtiff4_3.9.7-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb
libgdiplus_2.10-3_amd64.deb

libtiff4 is required by libgdiplus, so both need to be installed. After this, OpenBVE runs again quite normally.

Thank you. Earlier I found that gdebi refused to install, because the .deb is too old, but dpkg -i did the job, and openbve runs fine.

My 1.4.3 still has a curious bug remaining where OpenBVE crashes with a null pointer error if I select a route with the mouse. Selection with tab and arrow keys works fine, though.

H'm, not here, so maybe that's Unity?

I'm running on KDE Plasma. Does the same thing on XFCE, though. In fact, I can reliably avoid it with the following sequence:
 1. select the Recently Used route tab
 2. select the Browse Files tab (it's selected by default, but blank; doing this populates the tab)
 3. select the .. directory first, then select what I want; if I select directly the item I want, I get the null pointer exception.

This tastes a lot like something's not getting properly initialized. It only concerns routes; I can select trains however I want without any problems.

Installation of libgdiplus_2.10-3_i386.deb (or the amd64 version on 64bit versions of Mint17) works just fine.  Use dpkg -i and ignore the warning messages about it being an earlier version. Of course it is - that is just what we want.   

Remember to exclude it from Update Manager until a permanent fix is found. (Have not found a neat way to exclude from Software Updater - you have to manually un-mark the update every time you run it). (I keep a copy of libgdiplus_2.10-3_i386.deb in my  ~/Software folder so I can quickly re-install if I forget!)

By the way, libtiff4 does not appear to have been updated, so does not need to be changed on the i386 version.

Did some major digging yesterday, and this was the result:
http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk/downloads/beta/OpenBVE.deb

Source:
http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk/downloads/beta/UbuntuSource.7z

Fixed both the null pointer exception and the crash on startup

Please install the original packages first to ensure that you have all required dependancies (This will not check, and currently has no dependancies), then this. It'll produce a new icon named OpenBVE (leezer3) or alternatively can be launched with the command openbve-leezer3

I'll look into trying to get this passed back into the Ubuntu source tree when some testing has been done.

Technical waffle time:
The newer compile of libgdiplus doesn't like certain transparencies in PNG files- I *think* from reading the patches that they fixed a security issue with regards to this.
This package has removed the transparencies from the PNGs in the menu data folder; There were two of them it didn't like, but I did all of them to be on the safe side. As the coredump is in libpng rather than libgdiplus, it's not triggering the .Net error handling.

The code in the package above has been updated to 1.4.3, and a simple messagebox has been added when clicking on a route. This stops the unhandled exception for reasons I'm unclear on, but it works (There's no reason I can find for it, the only thing I can surmise at the moment is that there's a timing issue somewhere)

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk

Sorry to have to report that this fix does not work on Xubuntu 14.04 64 bit. openbve-leezer3 works if the old version of libgdiplus is reinstalled.

Hmm, definitely working here.

I think it must be picking up the older PNGs from somewhere; Not sure if you're following the Ubuntu bug, but Phontanka found that it was trying to look for the plugins in the debian plugin location, as opposed to the Ubuntu location.

Try uninstalling the ubuntu openbve-data package and see if that changes things at all.

As an alternative, Phontanka also seems to have got 15.04 to work without crashing, other than crash when clicking on routes. (Use tab, or my package fixes this on my system..)
I need to do some more testing, as there's definitely something funny going on.....

Cheers

Chris Lees

http://www.bvecornwall.co.uk