Launch Base 0.99.260 vs. Ares

[Marshall]

For some weird reason, your system appears to be translating specific characters in some cases, although thus far I can't see why nor can I replicate the problem even when I switch everything over to Hungarian. If you switch to English does the problem go away?

[Graion Dilach]

No, tested with local settings changed to English (US) and country settings to USA.

[Marshall]

I've uploaded a new version of LB. Can you create a text file in your Launch Base folder named "graion.txt"
Then run Launch Base and quit. This should amend the text file with several values. Please post the file so I can see the values, thanks.

[Graion Dilach]

Here you are.

---

Oh, update.

Character in entry C in graion.txt is added instead of rewritten. It's DC3 (ASCII 13H), BTW.

[Graion Dilach]

Another update.

I asked my tester to test this. Test was done on another X86 Windows XP SP2 computer, with Hungarian settings.

Result is similar... looks like it tried to verificate on the old checksum as well.

Code:

2010-12-21 22:21:04  DCoder DLL is missing! Unable to extract ra2md.csf from D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\langmd.mix
2010-12-21 22:21:04  Cannot merge "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\yrpm.csf" into ra2md.csf.
2010-12-21 22:21:04  Restoring mod/game configuration.
2010-12-21 22:21:04  Mod activated.
2010-12-21 22:21:04  Recalculating mod disk usage.
2010-12-21 22:21:04  Checking for updates to Syringe branch "syringe".
2010-12-21 22:21:05  No update available - Syringe is up to date. Latest revision: 12
2010-12-21 22:21:05  D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\Syringe.exe = 0e3a71ed58177c8aaa23a4571133826e = NmAKeX9gCVB7Y24wcXNVLjV7IgJWSwFaAQ5aXCgAC0I= != SV8ALS8aLVZQBA4OTCA5az9oekkkI3nrbVsJqQhgPz4= = fµ9e3d59a6dc024¶7dc50828afbda27d
2010-12-21 22:21:05  Syringe verification failed.
2010-12-21 22:21:05  Deleting "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\Syringe.exe"
2010-12-21 22:21:05  Checking for updates to Syringe branch "syringe".
2010-12-21 22:21:05  Syringe update available. Latest revision: 12
2010-12-21 22:21:05  Downloading "http://ares.strategy-x.com/lb_data/syringe.tar.gz" to "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\syringe.tar.gz"
2010-12-21 22:21:06  Download complete.
2010-12-21 22:21:06  Decompressing D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\syringe.tar.gz
2010-12-21 22:21:06  Deleting "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\syringe.tar"
2010-12-21 22:21:06  Moving "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\msvc.r12\Syringe.exe" to "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\Syringe.exe"
2010-12-21 22:21:06  Deleting "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\Syringe.txt"
2010-12-21 22:21:06  Moving "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\msvc.r12\license.txt" to "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\Syringe.txt"
2010-12-21 22:21:06  D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\Syringe.exe = 0e3a71ed58177c8aaa23a4571133826e = SF4AdHhLegZfAwJfSnE8PT9kK05wdnc/MAtcrQxqP2g= ... -h2LKxK7h66
2010-12-21 22:21:06  Syringe update complete. Updated to revision 12
2010-12-21 22:21:07  Deleting "D:\Program Files\Westwood\Red Alert 2\LaunchBase\Resource\msvc.r12"
2010-12-21 22:21:07  Launching Yuri's Revenge via Syringe.

graion.txt attached.

[Graion Dilach]

Bumping because I had to refer to this topic twice within a day.

Still not fixed, and with the current spreading of Ares, it should be considered as a major problem.

What we know: it's not the md5-generator's bug. The buffer seems to garble the info.

[FS-21]

I talked with Graion Dilach about one LB bug I detected yesterday & he gave me the link of this topic, in my case without an internet connection I made a clean install of LB & a mod that use a custom Ares release & I wasn't able to launch that mod until I got an internet connection, then LB downloaded that syringe.exe file in LaunchBase\Resource & it worked.
LB never use the syringe.exe file that I put in the mod installer to run the mod.

[AlexB]

Marshall, do you use the UCase or LCase functions, and/or InStr[Rev] or StrComp on the data to get the MD5 value of or do you convert strings to byte arrays using StrConv, possibly with vbTextCompare?

[Marshall]

I use md5deep and a function called GetCommandOutput that I copypasted from the net somewhere. This uses user32emToCharBuffA to do something...
I think I need to switch to yet something else to get my checksums.

[DCoder]

copypasted from the net somewhere. ... to do something...

So basically you are running code whose actual functionality you do not understand?

Judging from the function name suffix "A", this was meant to work with ASCII strings only.

[Marshall]

Well it was supposed to capture the output of command-line programs, which it did on my system but obviously doesn't work for all locales.
Really I shouldn't be using a separate exe to get my checksum so will need to look into something else, but so far I haven't managed to find a reliable, fast DLL.
It would be nice if I had time to translate the whole thing into a better language.

[AlexB]

Which thing, the MD5 function or the entire Launch Base? Does it have to be MD5? If CRC32 is enough, I can provide you with a VB5/6 class.

[Marshall]

Well I was referring to LB as a whole but that's really unfeasible.
CRC32 might be sufficient.

Whilst we're on the subject, I should probably look at rewriting the security system for plugins, although I wonder how important a robust security system for plugins is these days...

[Renegade]

Yeah, screw security...it's hindering the release of my Wussy Salad Troopers plugin!