Python Initialization Failure

[mhgrove]

Grr. I have spent all night on different forums attempting to figure out how to solve this problem. Let me start by saying my tech level is very low.

I bought the game back in August, had some cab3 issue when installing, but got past those. Played once, no real problems. Now, I cannot get it to boot due to Python error. I should note that unlike almost every other post I read, I did NOT purchase Warlords, only vanilla (on disk) and now BTS, also on disk. Any help to fix this would be VERY appreciated!

 

[ori]

could you say a bit more about the error you get?
Welcome to CFC

 

[mhgrove]

Oh wow, yeah, that would be helpful I guess. I seem to have left that out.

When I try and play the game, the "loading" screen comes up, then a small window with a status bar. Once it gets to python, a fatal error box comes up, showing "Python Initialization Error". The attempt to open the game then shuts down.

 

[mhgrove]

Oh, and thanks for the welcome! didn't see it earlier, this thing has me in a tizzy

 

[ori]

please open the civilizationIV.ini for both Vanilla and Beyond the Sword (its in the respective My Games\ directories) and change everything with log in its name to 1 then start each vanilla and BtS once you have done so please zip the contents of the My Games\Beyond the Sword\logs and My Games\Civilization 4\logs directories and upload those here.

 

[mhgrove]

Wow, I'll have to play around with things a little. Tech level very low, I don't really know what you just asked me to do.

 

[ori]

Wow, I'll have to play around with things a little. Tech level very low, I don't really know what you just asked me to do.

ok assuming you have installed both games in the default locations:
you have 2 locations in which the games install files:
c:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 and c:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword respectively for the game files
and
C:\Users\<name>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\
C:\Users\<name>\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\
for the saves and some other things, now I am always talking about the My Games directories. In each of them you find a file called civilizationIV.ini open this with a text editor (double clicking on it should be enough).
Almost at the bottom of these files you'll have a block that looks like this:

; Enable the logging system 
LoggingEnabled = 1 
 
; Enable synchronization logging 
SynchLog = 1 
 
; Overwrite old network and message logs 
OverwriteLogs = 1 
 
; Enable rand event logging 
RandLog = 1 
 
; Enable message logging 
MessageLog = 1

only all the 1 are 0 by default so you have to change it so that they are all set to 1. After you have done so for both the Vanilla and the BtS files. Start Vanilla once if possible start a play now game and once that is started just exit to desktop. Then start a BtS game once and do the same (if it aborts at some point that is ok).
After you have done so you have files in the following directories:

C:\Users\<name>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\logs
C:\Users\<name>\Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\logs
You need to upload these files preferably as two zip archives here.

 

[mhgrove]

This should do it

 

[ori]

which one does not work - Vanilla or BtS or both?
the log you posted is of Vanilla which looks fine (this does not mean there are no problems, just none apparent from the game logs...).

 

[mhgrove]

vanilla works fine. only BTS gives me a problem. let me try the log for bts again

 

[ori]

ok - did you try to patch the game - it seems as if it is 3.03 which caused quite a few problems on its own. If you have not yet tried to do so patch the game using the 3.13 patch (you can get it from Firaxis' server).
The error it shows is a weird one, basically it seems to not find quite a few essential game files. But maybe the patch works.

 

[mhgrove]

Actually did patch it last night with 3.13. Didn't do much unfortunately

 

[ori]

the patch definitely did not install properly then (it still shows the previous version in the log).
You are definitely not the only one to encounter this problem. There have been quite a few people around here where the installer of the patch produced weird results. Unfortunately I do not think that anything short of uninstalling BtS and then manually deleting the My Games\BtS folder before reinstalling and immediately patching to 3.13 will be feasible

 

[mhgrove]

I will give it a shot, thanks!

 

[mhgrove]

Ack, the uninstall didn't go well. I then had to go in, have made several runs to remove all files manually. tried to reinstall the game, the installer froze in mid install, at the switch to disk 2. that happened before. Then, i go in and try and remove any files that made it on to try install again. now I can't get install to work, the system thinks I already have it and only lets me "play". argh

 

[ori]

there are a few threads on uninstall broken installs in the Tech Support Section but I am hesitant to recommend doing anything in the windows registry seeing that my help today resulted in nothing good

 

[mhgrove]

Oh, no, your help definitely did some good. It made me get re-acquainted with my PC, I used to be able to do some techie stuff but lost it all. and I think I might have gotten it to reinstall. I was able to open it twice, and now am going to try and patch it! So it MIGHT be fixed. Thanks for all your help!

 

[Firehazurd]

I've been having a very similar problem. I have successfully patched to 3.13 and that is not solving the problem. This is only happening to BTS. Any ideas?

 

[IhatehateBtS]

I have an idea..... BtS sucks and it doesn't work

I've had it for 24 hours and still havn't been able to play it due intially to a Python Init failure (I just did the re-install Warlods trick) and now the XML Init says everyhitng is in the wrong place

THEREFORE: I am playing Civ 2

 

[ori]

I've been having a very similar problem. I have successfully patched to 3.13 and that is not solving the problem. This is only happening to BTS. Any ideas?

Did this happen prior to the patch? Also do you have read/write access to the directories used by BtS?

I have an idea..... BtS sucks and it doesn't work

I've had it for 24 hours and still havn't been able to play it due intially to a Python Init failure (I just did the re-install Warlods trick) and now the XML Init says everyhitng is in the wrong place

THEREFORE: I am playing Civ 2

Civ 2 is a good game - so go for it, sorry to hear BtS does not install correctly. If you want any help post your problems here.