1.61 error with admin passwords on pre1.61 multiplayer saves

[Larandor]

Hi, I was playing a couple of multiplayer games and saving them to pick them up later when me and others would get together to play. However after updating to 1.61 trying to load any pre 1.61 game results in it asking for an admin password. I never set any admin password, and the game does not accept me leaving it empty or trying any other passwords I could think of.

Has anyone else experienced this or know of a way to fix it?

Edit: After a bit of experimentation, it seems this problem only shows when loading games from the lobby, NOT when loading for a directIP game

 

[MrCynical]

There have been a few other reports of passwords being requested when they weren't set, and there were also a few cases identical to this in the switch from 1.09 to 1.52. It seems to be set up so that Civ 4 generates a random admin password if the files in the assets folder have been modified since the game was saved to prevent cheating. Unfortunately 1.61 modifies these files, so a random admin password has been generated for the 1.52 saves.

In the case of the switch from 1.09 to 1.52 there was a sort of fix because it generated the same admin password for all games on all computers. Once someone located this in the save file (although it was a horrible 32 character string of letters and numbers) it could be put in when the game requested it, and the save game continued.

Unfortunately, while this worked for the switch from 1.09 to 1.52, it doesn't work for the 1.52 to 1.61 switch. The game no longer accepts the same admin password, and it no longer seems to be listed in the save game file (actually the old admin password is still listed in there, it just no longer works).

Here is a thread about the same problem at the 1.09 to 1.52 switch. As I've said though, the fix they found there no longer works.

 

[Picturtle]

I'm also having this problem, hopefully someone can post another workaround so my pitboss game can resume. It was getting pretty heated what with wars and alliances abound.

 

[Larandor]

Yeah, in the end I resumed the game by loading it as a DirectIP game since for some reason it doesn't ask for the password there. You'll just have to get the people you're playing with to join it that way rather than the lobby.

 

[Picturtle]

Doesn't work for me in this case, since my game started out as directIP.