DII- LOD "Error decompressing Sprite"

[Buck(Ale)]

This problem has been extremely troublesome and frustrating for me. I've sent several (unanswered) e-mails to blizzard, in addition to posting on the Support forum. Getting online support is just an impossible joke (I've sat in channel waiting for hours with no help at all). Posting this here on The Helpers Suggestion in the hopes that someone might have insight as to what my problem is, cos i've tried everything I can think of, and i'm at my wits end.

Hardware:
PIII 1Ghz/133 (@ default)
512MB Crucial PC2100 (2X256MB)
Voodoo 4 4500 PCI (play DII on this in Glide mode)
Geforce2 GTS 32MB AGP
Sound Blaster Live!
Running Win2K Pro SP2
Anyway, for those that aren't familar with my name, i'm formerly of firingsquad.gamers.com fame, and i'm a sometimes writer for viahardware.com I'm a PC technician by trade, so suffice it to say, i'm an expert in PC hardware and the Windows family of O/S's. This error seems to be a program issue, which is outside of my field since i'm not a programmer.

""Halt
Location : C:\Projects\Diablo2\Source\D@CMP\SRC\Codec.cpp, Line #1627
Expression : Error decompressing sprite"

this error happens to me very often. Before writing to Blizz tech support, I followed all of their major troubleshooting recommendations. Which included: removing and reinstalling the game (using two different Disc sets, DIIC and LoD). Running Regclean, and manually cleaning the registry. In addition i've also tried running the game on both my display adapters. The problem occurs regardless of which display adapter i run the game on, and regardless of Driver version, but normally I have the latest drivers for both devices (and everything else for that matter) installed on the system. In the case of the V4, this means the 1.04 drivers, which were current at the time that DII was released.

Does anyone have any clue as to what the cause of this problem might be? when i first started to have the problem, I suspected a corrupted DLL, but after several cleanings and reinstalls using different LoD discs, I'd find that hard to believe.

I can furnish my DII log files on request.

Thanks in advance for any insights anyone can offer.

 

[The Helper]

OK - have you got the latest updates for your Motherboard? This has fixed this problem with other users.

Good Luck!

 

[Buck(Ale)]

Appreciate the response but that falls under the category of prelim checkbox items.

Board is a Soyo 7vda, which has the VIA Pro266 chipset. i've always kept up with the latest drivers, which in this case would be the 4.35's.

This problem has haunted me thru several 4-in-1 versions, so I know it's not related to that. The system has no other operational difficulties (the occasional hiccup here and there, but hey, it's windows), the problem is isolated to DII only.

 

[LT.Homer Simpson]

From what I understand --the probelm is a cd rom read probelm. It be that it ever installed a corrupt file or its just not reading some info correctly from the cd. Try reinstalling the gane or try turning the dma or sync info check boxes on or off in the cdrom properties settings. Also try switching ide on ur comp--maybe placing the cdrom on a master or slave.---I believe it has a lot to do with the new copy right protection Bliz uses on its D2 cd.

Some people have even used a cd crack to solve this probelm.

 

[Buck(Ale)]

That was another possibility, either that or a bad/corrupted MPQ. I have been having problems withe one of my CD-ROMs, but that isn't the drive that the LoD disc resides in during gameplay. However, the game was installed for a very long period of time with no problems whatsoever. the issue only poked up after 1.09.

Granted, It could have been a scratched disc, but i've played and installed from a different LoD disc with the same results (no, that one isn't scratched too )

All the MPQ's are located in the local path(\program files\DiabloII), so that path should (and does) get parsed by the system to locate the MPQ required before it touched the CD-ROM. I purposely recopied all the MPQ's to the HDD to prevent it from hitting the CD-ROM.

Actually, by default all the MPQ's, except for the LoD music MPQ, are copied to the HDD. The D2Char.mpq file used to be run from the CD-ROM, but the LoD installer copies that file to the HDD(it has to, so the LoD disc can reside in the Drive during gameplay).

Anyway, I'm currently in the process of rebuilding my system from scratch. Ran into an odd kernel panic (ok, BSOD in windows terms) that was causing weird system behaviour( kernel was terminating due to a trapped exception in ntoskrnl.exe, which is the Win2K kernel.) probably my kernel got damaged somehow, and I just decided that instead of manually fixing it, now would be a good time to excise my Win9X backups and go full Win2K (to take advantage of NTFS).

We'll see if I get lucky with my LoD problem, but somehow I expect it to rear it's ugly head again.

BTW, I have written Blizzard tech support again (as of yesterday, about the same time that I posted this here). Still no response at all from them.

that's absolutely unacceptable to me.

 

[Wargasm]

given the fact tha this problem hits these forums atleast once a week and no total workable solution has bin figured out i doubt that blizzard has a reply to this .

 

[Buck(Ale)]

I didn't know that the problem was so common.

None of my "gang members" (for lack of a better term, they hate the word "clan") has experienced anything like it, so, so far i'm the only one that I know of that does have this problem.

 

[Wargasm]

well it does come up often .
i sold a shitload of copies of diablo 2 and LOD . and no one ever returned the game ...cept this smart ass who tried to get a second cd key number . how unlucky for him that he had to encounter me hehe

 

[The Helper]

Have you checked your ram yet with gold memory?

http://www.goldmemory.cz

Sometimes Bad Ram can cause this problem. Even ram that works perfectly fine with everything else can cause this problem with Diablo 2. Gold Memory Checker will catch it if it is.

 

[Buck(Ale)]

The ram is definitly fine, it's high quality stuff, that's all i'm willing to use in my own system.

Crucial PC2100 2.5 CLS

It's been tested in a Ram tester, and passed with flying colors.. err, flying green LED's rather. But i'll run that sucker just out of curiousity.

 

[The Helper]

That goldmemory can be slow if you have a lot of ram, you might want to make it an overnight process.

 

[Troll 404]

What worked for me.

I followed some simnple steps:
1. uninstalled D2:LOD
2. defragged my HDD (my OS is Win2K Pro)
3. made sure I had lates vid/aud drvrs - and directX
4. reinstalled, etc.

This fixed my issue. I had the same exact error msgs - it drove me nuts for weeks. Hated life. When my MF sorc had the prob...I had to do something. (haha)

Well worth the effort. I have not had any errors since then. Even after 1.09c.

BTW, I blamed 1.08 when it started for me ya know.

 

[Buck(Ale)]

Thanks for the reply Troll, but those are steps that i've gone thru already several times.

In addition to defragging the drive and reinstalling (several times) i've also manually gutted the registry (pulling out the keys that Blizz support pages denote).

I've even recently done a complete wipe and reinstall (I was ready to get rid of my Win98 backup installation and convert the drives to NTFS anyway), but yet, the problem persists.

As a matter of fact, the first thing LoD did on it's very first run after being freshly installed, was crash. =O

Damn thing didn't even completely load and it already crashed.

been crashing alot since too.

Basically, i've given up on DII.

 

[Troll 404]

Least common....etc.

I would bench the box and start looking at removing all the cards except for the video. Reinstall Win2K Pro from scratch - update to SP2, update to DX8, and maybe even stay away from getting the latest video driver for the card (if possible) - then D2:LOD. Run it in single player. See how it goes without audio, and the NIC - or Modem whatever you use. Then progress upward until I got the blasted error.

Oh well. How is it working on another box setup? Change video/audio cards? MB/CPU?? Arrrrgh.....!~!

My last theory is one where your own personal magnetic field is somehow corrupting every electronuic thing you touch. LOL.

 

[Buck(Ale)]

Appreciate the reply but i'm not removing anything. The hardware isn't a problem, and this is actually a fresh installation. I'd been looking for a good time to get my old Win98 Backup O/S off the drive and upgrade to NTFS, and this was as good of a time as any of a potshot to try and cure DII's woes.

Anyway, fresh install, all updates applied (trust me, i've done everything that can be done. I'm a professional tech. So i've pretty much exhausted all possibilities at this juncture.)


As this rate, there isn't much that I can do besides continually harrass Blizzard till i get an answer out of them.

The sad part is that they are even ignoring mail from me coming from my @firingsquad.com mailbox.

 

[NoNameRequired]

Perhaps if everyone here would send the same E-Mail to Blizzard ? I'm sure they will anwser at least one of them.

As for your problem, I'm no professional, just an amateur. I can't help a professional with the basic solutions you probably alwardy tried. But since you claim your field is Hardware and not Software, I will give it a shot.

Follow these steps :

-Go on the Windows Update Site and update critical errors and such.

-Update your CD-Rom drivers.

-Right click on "My Computer" on the desktop and then properties.

Under the device manager tab, double click on your CD-Rom.

Toggle DMA mode and Sync Data transfer on and off. Try different combinations. Make sure you reboot each time so the changes take effect.

-Right click on "My Computer" on the desktop and then properties.

Under the performance tab, click on File System. Under the CD-Rom tab, try scrolling the bar on the opisite side than it alwardy is.


These are only CD-Rom related solutions but you never know. Feel free to ask if blocked anywhere.

 

[Buck(Ale)]

These are all good suggestions, but ones that I've already deliberated on.

I have this thing about drawing back on performance. I won't do stuff like turn down video acceleration etc to "troubleshoot" a problem.

no one should have to limit their hardware's performance to troubleshoot out the problems of a single program.

I did some further work, removed the game and reinstalled it without patching, and played a bit of Single player.

No crashes at all.

Installed LoD (whic patches to 1.07) played a little more, no crashes.

logged onto Bnet, patched up, the game immediately crashed with the same error.

That pretty much verifies what I thought was the starting point for the problem, it was introduced with the 1.08 patch. Something in there is what is causing the problem for me.

oddly enough, the included readme with 1.07 has some information about the decompressing sprite error.

It says to remove and reinstall the game. ..... snicker.