How-to-fix Known Issue when running with Kapersky 2010 on Win7-64bit

[keith.lamothe]

If you're doing ALL of the following:
1) Running Win7-64bit.
2) Running Kapersky 2010 (or earlier).
3) Trying to run AI War 4.0 (or later)

AI War will fail to start with a "Get thread Context failed" error message.

The specific problem is that when AI War automatically tries to connect to the internet to check for updates , Kapersky takes it down ninja-style.

There are a few ways to deal with the problem:

1) The best solution is to update to Kapersky 2011 (or whatever the most recent version is).  They fixed the bug (or feature, if you like AV programs that tackle with enthusiasm) with that version.
2) If you can't/don't-want-to update Kapersky, you can disable AI War's auto-check behavior by opening your settings.dat file (Game folder, RuntimeData subfolder) and changing the line ""AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates:1" to ""AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates:0".  This will naturally prevent you from automatically hearing about the new updates through the game, but the updater will still work.
3) Change AV programs.  Not suggesting this, though, since it's possible another AV program will have some other set of problems, etc.

If none of this works for you, please let us know so we can help you.

(thanks to Jarhead0331 and Odyvek for providing/confirming most of this information)

[Bentmah]

hey i have same problem and am trying to use this fix but i cannot find a settings.dat at all in any folder any suggestions?

[x4000]

In order to get a settings.dat file, you do indeed need to run it once (please don't post settngs.dat files, anyone, as they have your license keys embedded in them).  To get the game to run once, you'll have to temporarily shut off Kapersky, then you can update the settings.dat, and then you can get the game itself to run while Kaspersky is still online.  Hope that helps!

[Bentmah]

tried that again and prior to posting it still wont run >< very frustrating has the same error: Fatal error in gc
                                                                                                                           GetThreadContextFailed

now it always counts to 9 before doing this so i asume that is the game loader or something?
i have left it for quite some time to and it does not pass 9

[x4000]

I'm not sure what to say, beyond that, not having ever used Kapersky myself.  The problem is something in their program, which was fixed in their later version.  I'm not sure if that version costs money or not, but if not it's definitely worth an upgrade.  If not, then I'm suspecting that Kapersky is not actually fully shut down yet.  Step 9 is when it does the check for updates.

Hold on a sec, I should be able to give you a temporary non-license-key-filled settings.dat that you can use...

[keith.lamothe]

You can just create an empty text file named settings.dat in your RuntimeData folder, and paste the following into it:

SERIALIZATION_VERSION:67
AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates:0


and save it, then run the program.

[x4000]

Ah.  Well, also note that this only works for 4.021 and above, since that flag wasn't being evaluated prior to 4.021.  Just as an FYI, but if you have this from Steam or Impulse it should be no worries if you just create that text file as noted there.

[Bentmah]

Great success thank you kindly for your assistance

[x4000]

Awesome, glad to hear it!

[cloneboy]

I bought the game from Steam the other day and having no joy in getting the game to run. Tried all the options here (inc making the text file), but still getting the Getthread error when it counts up to 9. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[keith.lamothe]

Tried all the options here (inc making the text file), but still getting the Getthread error when it counts up to 9.

That's very odd; it sounds like your attempt at the settings.dat file didn't work because when the 9 is on the screen it's the auto-update step.  What's the exact path and name of the settings.dat file?

Not suggesting this as a solution, but it will really help with diagnosis: if you disconnect from the internet and totally disable Kapersky, does it still crash there?

[cloneboy]

It's in the steam AI war folder.  ai fleet command - Runtimedata- settings.dat.

file reads;

SERIALIZATION_VERSION:67
AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates:0

When DCd from the net the game works just fine.

[keith.lamothe]

It's in the steam AI war folder.  ai fleet command - Runtimedata- settings.dat.

file reads;

SERIALIZATION_VERSION:67
AutomaticallyCheckForUpdates:0

When DCd from the net the game works just fine.

I... dunno what's going on, then   I wonder if maybe it's the steamworks stuff that's trying to get on the internet.  But looking at step 9 in the code there's really nothing like that that I can see.

One thing you could try is to run while disconnected from the net to avoid the crash, go into settings and disable automatic updates (it's a checkbox in the first column of the first tab, I believe), and save settings.  That would make sure that the settings file it's actually using has that flag.  Then quit the application, reconnect to the internet, and try again.

[x4000]

Yeah, I agree, that's what I'd try -- just in case for some reason the permissions are messed up on that folder and it's writing into a shadow folder as can happen with Program Files in Vista/Win7.  You could also try forcing yourself to have full write permissions to the entire AI War folder and all its subfolders, and that might fix it if the other doesn't.