Civ 4 cancels at load ... '~df1394b.tmp'

[Leopoldo]

First of all I've read that many believe that this has to do with Civ 4's anti-pirating copy protection scheme back-firing on me and even though I am running only with a unpirated (non-copied) store bought disc, the copy protection (safedisc?) is tripping up my load and erroring out under a false reaction that I have a copied disc in the drive.

Some facts:

1) Game worked fine for me about 6 months ago. I set the game aside then picked up again when I heard about new patch 1.6x and wanted to try it out again (and then encountered this issue).

2) The initial 'splash' screen appears, then desktop, then the generic windows application error message with 'details' always referencing this file '~df1394b.tmp' everytime.

3) I've uninstalled/reinstalled. I've uninstalled again, defragmented, then reinstalled. I've patched (1.6x) and tried. I've tried without patch -all failed to solve launch error.

4) I do not have nor have I ever had any CD/DVD copy programs like 'Alcohol' or whatever.

5) I do have a DVD-RW drive (NEC 3520A) that I have tried both with it's original firmware and the lastest firmware (no luck).

6) I have a clean virus free (NAV/ Spybot and Ad-aware defended) system the exceeds all specs: Athlon XP 3500+, Asus A8V-deluxe mobo, 1 gig Corair RAM, geForce 6800 ultra 256 grfx, NEC optical drive, Western Digital SATA HD. (I can provide more details if somebody replies to help and needs them)

7) I contacted 'Take 2' techical support, who have had me try many things like NT compatible mode, deleting all '*.tmp' files, starting game with all other unnecessary processes stopped, all to no effect. Take 2 tech support, while being very friendly and courteous (and excellent english speaking natives of UK), have so far been of no help, not being able to fix the problem, have been surprisingly unaware of the number of other players who have encountered this problem, have had me generate a full DXDIAG system report and forward this to them, and have run me up to 'level 2' tech support where it's been many days and I haven't heard back from them (even tho they promised reply within 48 hours)

8) I 'googled' '~df1394b.tmp' file type and I'm aware of the opinion of many PC users that this is an error related to safedisc's copy protection software that apparently Civ 4 has installed into there game discs (as far back as Civ 3)

I hope for replies and help from any of you reading (thank in advance and I will thank you again in replies) , and I will gladly add any additional information (even that huge DXDIAG output report) if anybody here can take a shot at helping me. I am getting a little bummed as it seems more and more like Take 2 doesn't have any ready fix for this problem.


Thanks in advance for any help.

Leopoldo
... a sad Civ 4 gamer who through no fault of his own can't play anymore

 

[civ_god06]

Well Im not too sure what could be causing that error as I've never come accross it before. But if you think its safe disk then try contacting them for support.

http://www.macrovision.com/support/by_category/Safedisc.shtml

 

[Leopoldo]

Thx for replying Civ-god, but as I said in #7 I have contacted Civ 4 support (Take 2), but they seem no where near having any solution (I hope they prove me wrong).

Twice in my multiple phone calls to them they've ended the call saying that I'd here from them in 48 hours, but then 72 hours passes with no reply at all from them.

I'm to the point where I am about to demand they send me a new copy of Civ 4 (in exchange for my current), but I'm not even sure that would fix the problem.

 

[civ_god06]

Like i said in my reply try contacting Safe Disk as well as take 2 to see if they can be of any help.

Its worth a try

 

[rayw69]

Thx for replying Civ-god, but as I said in #7 I have contacted Civ 4 support (Take 2), but they seem no where near having any solution (I hope they prove me wrong).

Twice in my multiple phone calls to them they've ended the call saying that I'd here from them in 48 hours, but then 72 hours passes with no reply at all from them.

I'm to the point where I am about to demand they send me a new copy of Civ 4 (in exchange for my current), but I'm not even sure that would fix the problem.

What you are encountering is a SafeDisc problem. Don't bother asking for a new copy of the game, as there is no possibility that a new disc will result in any different behavior.

As for their 48 hour promise, I'd be willing to bet that refers to 48 business hours. That pretty much means weekdays. So you probably can't count Saturday and Sunday towards that 48 hour period.

My advice would be to test other games you own which utilize Safedisc protection, and see if they exhibit the same behavior. In all likelihood, they will.

 

[trythis]

I did not see where you have attempted to delete all of your .tmp files. I would try the following :

1. Go to start, run and type temp. Click 1 of the files that open and then press control A which will select all of the files. Then press the delete key and select yess to all.

2. Go to start, run and type C:\documents and settings\ (insert login name here) \local settings\temp. Again click on a file and press control A which will select all the files and select yes to all.

try then to run the game.

 

[Leopoldo]

Civ-God :

Ahh I misread your reply -I see now where you suggesting I go to safedisc website -As you say it's worth a try (thx).

Rayw69:

Thank you for your reply -How this is working (safedsic's protection) is confounding me? Is it making a registry entry? How come completely uninstalling/reinstalling or even starting with a new disc will fail? How does safedisc maintain some record that it was installed in the past? (if it even is).
The point is again I was running just fine for many weeks shortly after I bought the game when it first was released here in Virginia. Then after setting it aside for some months and picking it up again I then encounter this bewildering 'safedisc' presumably copy protection problem.
I would not know how to ID other games I have that also use safedisc (I do have a lot of games however, many of them recnt releases so it's likely I assume that I have other discs using safedisc).

Trythis:

See #7 in my first post -yes Take 2 tech support had me delete all 'temp' and all 'tmp' files from that directory to no effect. Thank you for trying to help me too.

Please keep any ideas (replies) coming. I sense that any fix I get is more likely to come from you guys then Take 2 support.

Thanks,

Leopoldo

 

[rayw69]

List all of the more recent games you have installed o your system. I can try to verify if they use SafeDisc. Are you saying that you are not having similar problems wiht any of your other games?

I don't have an in-depth knowledge of SafeDisc, so I can't really state exactly how it works. But it pretty clearly doesn't rely on any history data. Reinstallation of the game does nothing, as that in no way involves Safedisc.

Obviously, something has changed in your system since last you attempted to play the game. If you are using Windows XP Home, using "Fast User Switching" can created Safedisc problems.

 

[crunch]

So, have you tried a nocd crack? Or something else to bypass the copy protection?

 

[peterbarthold]

I'm also having this same problem. I recently purchased a Dell e1705 Inspiron laptop in the past 5 months and have only ever installed some netgear software for my home network storage device. As far as gaming goes i only ever play America's army which i download from their site. I use my computer primarily for music and work. I purchased Civ 4 friday and was jsut going to return it and get another tomorrow if this is as hard to fix as it sounds. See if that works..... I did all the steps listed above except for the calling people stuff.

here is the error report that i get.

AppName: civilization4.exe AppVer: 1.6.1.1841 ModName: ~df394b.tmp
ModVer: 0.0.0.0 Offset: 00077c9c