Help...Born a Tech Level too soon! Loading Universe.

[richard gorman]

Bit of a Luddite so forgive me gearheads if this question is too obvious/plain daft. Got Traveller Universe from BITS which loaded on to my shiny new computer (Windows 7) but won't run. Error message;

(-2147467259) )XTG Systems Interbase6 ODBC Driver - unavailable database.

Followed error message trail and downloaded Interbase6 ODBC Driver hoping to solve the problem but it won't install properly. Wrong version of Windows? Am I doomed or missing something obvious?

 

[HG_B]

Bit of a Luddite so forgive me gearheads if this question is too obvious/plain daft. Got Traveller Universe from BITS which loaded on to my shiny new computer (Windows 7) but won't run. Error message;

(-2147467259) )XTG Systems Interbase6 ODBC Driver - unavailable database.

Followed error message trail and downloaded Interbase6 ODBC Driver hoping to solve the problem but it won't install properly. Wrong version of Windows? Am I doomed or missing something obvious?

I couldn't even get it to run on Vista. The program is VERY old from an OS viewpoint. It won't run at all on "7"

 

[daltoncalford]

Go to www.firebirdsql.org
Install the latest version of Firebird and the latest version of the odbc drivers.
Firebird is free and is the opensource version of Interbase.

 

[richard gorman]

Thanks DaltonC. Did as suggested. Error message gone but still won't progress as the message 'Your user name and password are not defined. Ask your database administrator to set up a Firebird Log In.'

Have I downloaded the wrong thing or am I the 'administrator'? If so can I set up the log in details myself and if so ho?. I couldn't find anything that made sense to me in Help.

 

[Hemdian]

First off, Universe will run on Windows Vista (Ultimate), albeit a little clunky, but not on Windows Vista (Home Premium). I never did get to the bottom of why the difference ...

To run Universe on Windows Vista (Ultimate) you must:

(a) Set the executable to run in Compatability Mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 2), disable visual themes, and disable desktop composition.

(b) Before starting the Universe executable, start IBconsole and double-click the local server (log in with u=SYSDBA. P=masterkey). You may be prompted to start the server ... say yes. Leave IBconsole running while you run Universe. (If this is your first time running IBconsole you may need to ‘register’ the local server.)

(c) Once in Universe go to the Preferences and disable all sounds.

Secondly, Universe has been successfully run on Windows 7 64-bit using Virtual XP. (I don’t know anything further about which version of Windows 7 it was.) The installation process did completely crap out but the user was able to complete the installation steps manually based on my instructions. Email me at support@trisen.com for further assistance.

Firebird is the open source successor of InterBase 6 but I haven't had a chance to play with it yet. In theory it should work though some of the installation procedure is undoubtably different.

 

[FreeTrav]

Any version of Windows 7 that has "XP Mode" (virtual machine running XP, license included) is either going to be Professional, Ultimate, or Enterprise, or will be running a third-party virtualizer and a separate Windows XP license.

FOR THE MOST PART, if you are able to get something working on Vista, it should be able to run on the corresponding version of Windows 7; the only issue might be the User Account Control settings.

 

[forthekill]

Thanks DaltonC. Did as suggested. Error message gone but still won't progress as the message 'Your user name and password are not defined. Ask your database administrator to set up a Firebird Log In.'

I too get that same message when trying to run Universe on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate.

The install was fine, but I got the same first message as you. I then tried installing Firebird and ended up with that error message above.

I have it running on XP in VMWare Workstation, but the VM hogs resources and is slow, so I'd love to get it running on Windows 7.

I am going to see if I can uninstall Firebird and see if I can get it to work.

 

[Hemdian]

Not sure what steps you may or may not have done but InterBase (or Firebird) needs a user TRAVELLER_USER (password = TRAVELLER_USER) and another user TRAVELLER_DBA (password = TRAVELLER_DBA).

And you may find some further help at Trisen Support --> Traveller Universe --> Installation.

 

[richard gorman]

TA - Nearly there but...

Capital Science Academy Awards to Hemdian and others! Thanks to a friend from a higher tech world got Universe running on Windows 7. Set up as administrator, used TUStarter to set up database, logged in using default referee password. So I can browse and enjoy the information. However as a final frustrating tease all the Referee notes windows are opening, complete with flashing cursor but it's no allowing me to enter or alter any data! Right clicking on these windows seems to cause the program to seize up. So near and yet so far. Any ideas?

 

[Hemdian]

However as a final frustrating tease all the Referee notes windows are opening, complete with flashing cursor but it's no allowing me to enter or alter any data! Right clicking on these windows seems to cause the program to seize up. So near and yet so far. Any ideas?

Can you send screenshots via email to support@trisen.com?

 

[forthekill]

Anyone have any success getting Universe to run with Firebird? I have Firebird set up, added the appropriate users, and even set up the DSN in the ODBC Data Source Administrator. The only thing now is to get the actual database into Firebird, but I'm not really sure how to go about that.

I am on a mission to get it to run natively on Win 7 x64 Ultimate. I am tired of running it in VMWare Workstation under XP, so anyone who has any tips I am all ears.

If I can get it to go, I will create a guide on how to do it so we can all enjoy.

 

[Hemdian]

Anyone have any success getting Universe to run with Firebird? I have Firebird set up, added the appropriate users, and even set up the DSN in the ODBC Data Source Administrator. The only thing now is to get the actual database into Firebird, but I'm not really sure how to go about that.

I finally had a go at using Firebird myself (on a Vista machine as I don’t have Win7 yet) but it’s falling at the last hurdle (so far). But I am getting the database into Firebird. It’s mildly inconveinent that there is no GUI interface for Firebird like IBconsole is for InterBase. Anyway, here is what I’ve done so far:

I installed Firebird-2.5.0.26074_1_win32.exe. Then, I typed CMD to get a DOS box and navigated to where Firebird was installed (C:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_2_5\bin). I added two users ...

gsec -user sysdba -pass masterkey -add TRAVELLER_DBA -pw TRAVELLER_DBA

gsec -user sysdba -pass masterkey -add TRAVELLER_USER -pw TRAVELLER_USER

And ‘restored’ an InterBase database from the CD ...

gbak -c d:\data\sample.gbk c:\sample.gdb -v -user sysdba -pas masterkey

(Okay, so maybe it’s not a good idea to have a database in the root directory of the C drive. )

Next I installed a Firebird ODBC driver (Firebird_ODBC_2.0.0.148_win32.exe). In ODBC Data Source Administrator, on User DSN tab, I clicked “Add” and selected “Firebird/InterBase(r) driver”. In the resultant dialog box I gave the new DSN a name (sample1), set the database field, entered TRAVELLER_USER into both account and password, and selected “ISO8859_1” as the character set. Using the “Test connection” button gave a positive result.

Now, in REGEDIT I navigated to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Traveller Universe\Databases and created a new string value with name matching DSN name just created (sample1). I modified the string value to give it a description.

When I run Traveller Universe the new database appears in the list of the login window ... but if I select it it just hangs.

I will need to re-setup my old VB6 development environment in order to debug this. I’m not sure when I can get round to this but I will report back when I do ... unless someone else finds a solution first. But I did notice that when I set up the users I got a warning about only the 8 most significant bytes of the password would be used so the problem may be related to that. (A mismatch in the connection string when Traveller Universe attempts to attach to the database.)

 

[forthekill]

Try using Database Workbench 4 Lite as a GUI to Firebird. It's basically like IBConsole.

Thanks for looking into this issue.

I will try doing the DB restore like you did and see if I can at least get to the same point you have on my Win 7 box. Hopefully that will mean that running it under the x64 version isn't the issue.