Keyboard Lockup

[Ingles of the 57th]

I have just encountered a strange circumstance in the RODES (4) scenario.

Having just taken the McPherson's Farm objective and beginning to swing the axis of my attack towards the second objective to the east, I find suddenly that all my keyboard functions are completely locked and inoperative.

This is not a random problem as I have caused it to repeat a further two times under the same circumstances. I have not seen the problem in any other scenario, even the larger ones.

Each time I have managed to lose RODES in the navigation confusion with a potential winning score already posted.

I will try again with a different keyboard and normally I would also try on another computer but accreditation makes this tiresome.

I will also see if I can save a game for the record. But I won't be able hit the + key to achieve this, as it will not be functioning at the critical moment. Catch 22.

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot

[Ingles of the 57th]

Before America wakes up and somebody tells me, I have belatedly realised that I can of course access the "Save Game" function from the menu using the the mouse.

I was also interested to note that, even though I was killed before finishing the scenario, my posthumous score was recorded and promotion was achieved. Most generous !

It seems to me on reflection that losing the entire keyboard function is more likely to be a WINDOWS XP problem but it is certainly something in Gettysburg that caused it to happen.

I will try to re-create the game for saving.

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot.

[pcelt]

XP Also---I have experienced this once without understanding why (except in the top left of screen was a little message ZZZZZZ (sleeping???)
Cleared prob with ESCAPE or CONTROL --cant remember which but it was no real issue
Cheers
Pcelt
Late of the Cornish Home Guard (in fact -always late)

[ADukes]

Did you alt+tab/ctrl+esc out of the game?

EDIT: pcelt, you hit the chat key (Z).

[Ingles of the 57th]

To ADukes

No I never use that key combination .... it just suddenly happened during the course of play.

To PCelt

Thanks for the info. I guess it must be the piskies, I will try what you suggest. Feel free to share a pasty with me ... but you will have to come to Zimbabwe to get it.

I have now also found it happen in the Jackson Scenario so it is not scenario-specific. But the curious thing is,that it occurred at exactly the same position on the map as in the Rodes scenario. A few yards south of the McPherson Farm objective. Can a problem be caused by one of your units setting foot on a certain map location? Seems weird to me.

There is not much point in sending a saved game. I have discovered that, when you save and reload, the keyboard works again .... although I have not yet tested for how long.

There seems a related problem in the Jackson scenario in that, whenever I have asked a Divisional Commander to form line or column just south of Cemetery Hill, the scenario crashes straight out. North of Cemetery Hill .... no problem. Again location related ?

Geoff Laver
Late of Her Majesty's 57th Regiment of Foot

[ADukes]

See my edit. Did you hit the chat key as well?

[Ingles of the 57th]

I have no recollection of hitting the 'z' key. This was a single player game.

But I would have thought it very improbable that I could have hit it twice by accident at exactly the same spot on the battlefield in two different scenarios.

I will carry on my experiments. It takes a bit of time, as at least an hour is needed to fight your way to the appropriate location in either scenario. ( and also I have to drive 120 km and back tomorrow to do my shopping, so will not be seriously back at the keyboard until Friday)

Geoff Laver

[pcelt]

To A Dukes------Re Z key (chat you say) but this is also the cam zoom is it not?

[ADukes]

Oh sorry. Of course it is the zoom key, so it was the X key you accidentally hit before.

[pcelt]

So,to conclude--it is likely that we inadvertantly hit the "X" key (chat) which disables the keyboard --I have found that "Escape" clears the lockup.