For about six months I'm trying to play in the same computer that I already finished the game about 3 times. But now every time the game don't create a new profile at the startup it crashes when reach the main menu. If I delete the profile.bin from the only existing user the game ask to create another profile and it works fine until I try to go back to the main menu, when it crash. And I have to delete again the profile to the game work again and get the same error later. I already formated the computer, made the driver's and OS updates and tried to play without success. Someone have any idea of what happened?

Its a problem related to K-lite Codec Pack. To solve it:

1 - Uninstall K-lite Codec Pack
2 - Delete your profile.bin (my documents\my games\fable\saves\yourprofilename)
3 - Play normally

But, if you need K-lite Codec Pack installed, after the steps above, do this:

1 - Installed K-lite Codec Pack
2 - Using notepad, create a c:\fable.bat file with this in it:

@ echo off
cd "\Program files"
if exist "K-Lite Codec Pack" ren "K-Lite Codec Pack" "K-Lite Codec Pack.old"
"C:\Program files\Microsoft Games\Fable - The Lost Chapters\Fable.exe"
if exist "K-Lite Codec Pack.old" ren "K-Lite Codec Pack.old" "K-Lite Codec Pack"

3 - Create a shortcurt to c:\fable.bat and put it in your desktop. Delete the old shortcut to fable and just use this new one

Thats it.

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Solution is above, but if you want more explanations:

Its a piece of my profile.bin WITHOUT K-lite Codec Pack installed:

HUDTooltipEnabled TRUE;
Gamma 1.0;
HUDAlpha 1.0;
SoundVolume 0.8;
MusicVolume 0.6;
DialogueVolume 0.9;
UsingHeadPhones FALSE;
ShowingBuddyNames FALSE;
CameraSensitivity 0.5;
CameraResetting TRUE;
Antialiasing 0;
TextureDetail 1.0;
ShadowDetail 0.0;
EffectsDetail 0.0;
MeshDetail 1.0;
Resolution 7;
RefreshRate 0;
ScreenAspectRatio 0;
VerticalSyncEnabled TRUE;
AssignedInputsPassive[0] CActionInputControl(77,3, 4);
AssignedInputsPassive[1] CActionInputControl(64,2, 12);
AssignedInputsPassive[2] CActionInputControl(65,2, 13);
AssignedInputsPassive[3] CActionInputControl(64,3, 6);
AssignedInputsPassive[4] CActionInputControl(65,3, 7);
AssignedInputsPassive[5] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,109,C2DCoordF(0.0,1.0));
AssignedInputsPassive[6] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,112,C2DCoordF(1.0,0.0));
AssignedInputsPassive[7] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,114,C2DCoordF(0.0,-1.0));
AssignedInputsPassive[8] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,111,C2DCoordF(-1.0,0.0));
AssignedInputsPassive[9] CActionInputControl(75,3, 4);
AssignedInputsPassive[10] CActionInputControl(57,3, 5);

With this profile.bin, Fable works fine.

If I install K-lite Codec Pack, enter in Fable and save a game, my profile.bin turns to this:

HUDTooltipEnabled TRUE;
Gamma 1,000000;
HUDAlpha 1,000000;
SoundVolume 0,800000;
MusicVolume 0,600000;
DialogueVolume 0,900000;
UsingHeadPhones FALSE;
ShowingBuddyNames FALSE;
CameraSensitivity 0,500000;
CameraResetting TRUE;
Antialiasing 0;
TextureDetail 1,000000;
ShadowDetail 0,000000;
EffectsDetail 0,000000;
MeshDetail 1,000000;
Resolution 7;
RefreshRate 0;
ScreenAspectRatio 0;
VerticalSyncEnabled TRUE;
AssignedInputsPassive[0] CActionInputControl(77,3, 4);
AssignedInputsPassive[1] CActionInputControl(64,2, 12);
AssignedInputsPassive[2] CActionInputControl(65,2, 13);
AssignedInputsPassive[3] CActionInputControl(64,3, 6);
AssignedInputsPassive[4] CActionInputControl(65,3, 7);
AssignedInputsPassive[5] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,109,C2DCoordF(0,000000,1 ,000000));
AssignedInputsPassive[6] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,112,C2DCoordF(1,000000,0 ,000000));
AssignedInputsPassive[7] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,114,C2DCoordF(0,000000,-1,000000));
AssignedInputsPassive[8] CActionInputControl(114,2 ,111,C2DCoordF(-1,000000,0,000000));
AssignedInputsPassive[9] CActionInputControl(75,3, 4);
AssignedInputsPassive[10] CActionInputControl(57,3, 5);

Take a look at the numbers. They are messed! With this profile.bin, Fable crashes.

I hope Fable's designers can find a final solution for this. At least, problem is isolated.

Thank you for the help. It worked.

Now my theory:
The problem is the diference between comma and dot to the program. In a C++ program comma is used so separate parametrers to a function. The dot is used to delimitate the fraction of the floating point numbers. What I think is somehow the K-lite Codec pack uses the comma to delimitate the same thing that in C++ is made with dot. Result: Crash! The C++ code recieves more parametrers than it's prepared to do and lauch a exeption. Unfortunately there's no way to the developer's to find a solution because it's quite impossible to the program to know when the comma is used to separate the parametrers or to define a float variable.

It's strange that the codec pack seems to change the "." to "," which obviously causes the crash. I don't think the additional zeros will cause problems. Maybe it has to do something with the Windows Regions and Speech Settings or something similar in the K-Lite package.

Anyway, maybe one could write-protect the profile.bin so that K-Lite cannot alter the file. My general suggestion is still to not use those "all-purpose" codec packages. Install the codecs you really need or use VLC-player which got nearly ever codec integrated.

What happens if you copy your profile.bin (a working one) before installing K-Lite and replacing it again afterwards (the broken one)?

work mate, for getting to the root of all and documenting it here.

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"*** the World and drop the Neutron!"

Problem is when Fable saves (or re-saves) profile.bin. If you keep a working copy of profile.bin, you can replace the crashed one with this working one, but if you save the game, this new copy will get crashed again (with k-lite installed).

Putting a working copy of profile.bin before every run, works. I did it. But you cannot save any game. And I believe if you change profile.bin to read-only, you wont be able to save games.

I changed my "regional settings" to "English (EUA)" and the problem disappeared. Returning to "Portuguese (Brazil)", problem reappeared.

So, Im going to continue using fable.bat...

eumesmo12e:

I changed my "regional settings" to "English (EUA)" and the problem disappeared. Returning to "Portuguese (Brazil)", problem reappeared.

So, Im going to continue using fable.bat...

Do it this way, when it works for you.

The reason I came up with the Windows Regions Setting was that it also controls what symbols are used as decimal counters ("," or ".") and so on. Maybe you can leave the language (Portuguese in your case) and only just change the symbols for the specific fields.

I think it is because you may have to play an English version of Fable on a Portuguese computer which may cause problems concerning the interpretation of certain symbols. Just a wild guess because I don't know if you have a Portuguese localised version. I for example have no problems playing a German version of Fable on a German Windows, although we usually use the symbols ("," and ".") the opposite way English people do, at least concering numbers. If I had an English copy of the game I could test it, but ...

Still that doesn't justify why K-Lite is causing this strange behaviour in the first place of course.

---

"*** the World and drop the Neutron!"

Its a idea to change "," and ".", but it will bring problems that I havent in Excel, calculators, etc, which are localed to Brazil. Maybe you are right about my Fable version, but I believe there is no Fable version localized to Portuguese. I have this information:

"The game is being localized in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japenese. Korean and Traditional Chinese subtitles (with English audio) will also be offered."

I dont know if its really true, but I have one single problem now: Fable+K-lite. So, fable.bat is a pointed, fast and transparent solution.

I'm using a pt-br OS too. It's possible that k-lite access the OS settings to decide witch separators it must use. But it cause a problem doing so because in programing languages the point is used in the float and the comma to separate function's parametrers. So both solutions presented, the fable.bat and uninstalling the codec pack will solve the problem I presented here in the first post, because they just isolate the game from the codec.
Probably it's not the codec directly that writes in the file. Probably the game request the info to be writed based on the info the codec pass to the game, and then the game don't check the comma, because there's no reason to check... since the default OS codec pass the info the right way.

I don't have k-lite,
but I still got the same problem
(opened up profile.bin file and checked)

Can ffdshow cause the same problem?

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Veni, Vidi, Vici.

malmern:

I don't have k-lite, but I still got the same problem (opened up profile.bin file and checked) Can ffdshow cause the same problem?

Probably every program that changes the regions settings or is in contact with them can cause this problem. I dunno what ffdshow is though, so I can not say for sure.

---

"*** the World and drop the Neutron!"

eumesmo12e:

Its a problem related to K-lite Codec Pack. To solve it:

1 - Uninstall K-lite Codec Pack
2 - Delete your profile.bin (my documents\my games\fable\saves\yourprofilename)
3 - Play normally

But, if you need K-lite Codec Pack installed, after the steps above, do this:

1 - Installed K-lite Codec Pack
2 - Using notepad, create a c:\fable.bat file with this in it:

@ echo off
cd "\Program files"
if exist "K-Lite Codec Pack" ren "K-Lite Codec Pack" "K-Lite Codec Pack.old"
"C:\Program files\Microsoft Games\Fable - The Lost Chapters\Fable.exe"
if exist "K-Lite Codec Pack.old" ren "K-Lite Codec Pack.old" "K-Lite Codec Pack"

3 - Create a shortcurt to c:\fable.bat and put it in your desktop. Delete the old shortcut to fable and just use this new one

Thats it.

 

The fable.bat file does not work on my pc (Windowns xp sp2). I doubleclick it, a window opens and as soon as it appears it is gone again. Now i am not the greatest pc freak so it may just be that i did something wrong...

I opened wordpad, typed in your code (copy and paste) and saved the file as fable.bat on my c: -harddrive. well, the rest is already said... What should happen actually?

 

PS. actually I do not even have k-lite and also I uninstalled everything on my pc that has a "codec" in its name, but the problemn still is the same: I try to start Fable TLC and when it says something like "left click to continue" (right after the intro movie) it crashes without any message or anything like this and I can watch my desktop...

Same problem with the VistaCodecs pack. But it's easier to fix.

First of all, uninstall all third party codecpacks you may have on your machine and update to the newest version of VistaCodecs. It's the only one you'll need. Optionally you can keep Quicktime and Real.  (VLC is only local to it's own platform so that will have no effect on Fable.)

Delete you Fable profile, the entire folder. (my documents\my games\fable\saves\yourprofilename) Sorry, but your gona have to start the game over.

Go to your windows start menu and find the "VistaCodecs\32bit Tools" folder.

Select the "Video decoder configuration" with the FFV icon.

Go to DirectShow control and select the Don't use ffdshow in check box. Then browse and select the Fable.exe program. This sould disable the codec while Fable is running.

Now you can restart the game and it sould be able to save and open the profile.

It worked for me.

Other things you should/could do:
- Update to the latest DirectX
- Update your Graphics card driver
- Update your Audio driver
- Set your regional settings to ENG (UK).