I got that too. very strange. Tina

Tina, It must be the file, I left a message in Bloodsongs original thread, hopefully he can help us out. Thanks for replying, I'm glad it's not me! JKueser, thanks, I'll check it out. Coldrake

I unchecked read only on the blFrog.obj and tried it again but now I get a range check error Tina

hiyas! i'm not sure what that is. (i saw your message waaaaay down the list, coldrake.) i emailed maz about it, maybe he can shed some light on what that means. hey, coldrake... did you put blFrog.obj in that top slot, the 'original seed file' thing? 'cause when i made the pcf, i left that blank. (in fact, i dont know what it is for.) try just using the lower slots. (i dunno, might be worth a try. ::)

heyas; i put maz on the case. he says this error usually happens when trying to convernt a mac file with the pc mover.... but as far as i know; i'm using a pc... you guys are using a pc... (most of ya.) he also mentioned about the file becoming write-protected, but didn't specify which file. maz... any other clues? :)

Bloodsong, yup, PC. Nope, didn't put the blFrog in the top slot, it popped in all by itself when I put in the seed file. Thanks for your time and effort. Coldrake

I haven't had a chance to look at the pcf file yet (I'll download it today assuming I can find it) but even then I won't be able to decode it because I don't have the Zygote bullfrog figure. I seem to remember the last time anybody had an access denied message it was because one of the files was read only. I never saw the offending file at the time so I'm not sure of the exact details and it's a bit puzzling because the only file Mover writes to is the new obj file you're trying to create. The access denied message is generated by Windows, not Mover, which is why it's in coldrake's snazzy font and the Mover stuff isn't. The range check error sounds like Mover is trying to write a non-ASCII text character to the new obj file which implies a corruption of the pcf file. You can't write anything in the top slot, it reads the pcf header file and is just there to tell you which seed file you should be using. On further thinking about the Mac/PC differences, this would not generate this error. It would just give an obj file that wouldn't work. That will be fixed soon anyway.

Bloodsong, I can't find the pcf file on Fun Stuff. Where is it downloadable from? Also, have you tried downloading and decoding the pcf file yourself? It may be that the downloadable one has got corrupted and is different from the one you started with.

maz; thanks for checking into this. the frogs are not on fun stuff, they are at poserworld. (www.poserworld.com) characters section 3. i will d/l it now and re-try it. it seems to be working for some people (or at least steve... maybe something happened after he put it on the server.) also, if anybody wants me to email them the original pcf, send a note to me at sphynx@gis.net; we can try that. sorry for the mess.

okay, we got a problem... 'cause i just downloaded it, and unzipped it, and decoded it, and i didnt have the slightest problem. :/ is there a new version of mover out? because i suspect mine is 'old'. i have weenies 98, version 1, full version (if it's a weenies error like maz says).

Latest Mover is 1.01, but gives the same file format as version 1.0. I've downloaded the pcf successfully but not having the original frog I can't really do anything useful apart from looking at the header of the pcf which looks OK at first glance. The other possibility that comes to mind for this error is that some other process is using one of the files and won't release it. Do you have Poser running with the seed file at the same time as you're running Mover? Or is the pcf file open in a hex viewer or WordPad? After that I'm running out of ideas.

Mover vers 1.01 check nope. Poser wasn't open. Neither had I looked at the file in WordPad I've unchecked readonly on the original obj and even checked to see if the pcf was locked, but everything appeared to be on the up and up Therefore, I've come to the conclusion that Bloodsong's frog doesn't like me =^) Tina

I'm sure bloodsong's frog likes you really. He's just temperamental. However, I guess I'm stumped now. I'll contact MartinC who did the Mac version. If he's got the frog then maybe he can check it out. Failing that the only thing I can do is ask Zygote nicely if they'll let me get the frog from somebody if I promise to delete it afterwards.

heya; well, i got the latest mover (btw maz, like your site!) and tried it again. still worked fine. i sent the pcf directly to lyne, and she can't get that to decode either. :( hey maz... how 'bout a dos version of mover ;) (well, i dunno!)

DOS? Aaaargh! Why would you want a DOS version if Poser is Windows & Mac? MartinC has had a look at the problem for me and it worked fine on his Mac. He also pointed out the obvious to me that I've got the Zygote frog with Poser 4. Duh. I've never used any of the Poser 4 animals and assumed the frog was on a Zygote special disk. It's now nearly 1 am so I'm off to bed but I'll have a go at investigating tomorrow.

Again, thanks for all your time and effort, if I didn't like the new frogs and maps so much, I wouldn't have mentioned it! Coldrake

Ok, having sussed that I've got the original frog I've now tried to decode the pcf file and it worked like a dream. The only possibility I can now suggest is that those of you who are having problems are maybe using the frog from the Zygote animals disk rather than the frog that comes with Poser 4. MartinC reckons that the original frog on the Zygote disk used carriage return/line feed, whereas the poser 4 version uses carriage return only. The slightest difference (even one byte) between the seed files used for encoding and decoding would make the resulting obj file unintelligible (that's the whole point of the program after all) and possibly produce an error message, though I would have expected a range check error under those circumstances rather than file access denied. If you really are using the Poser 4 frog as seed file, could somebody who is having problems send me both the pcf and the seed file so that I can see whether the files themselves are faulty. Don't send me the frog file from the original animals disk because I don't have that and therefore don't have a licence for it. You'll just have to trust me that I have Poser 4.

This is a bit of "a shot in the dark", but you should try this: Copy the seedfile from E: to C: (or just make sure they are on the same partition) and try again. Don't expect miracles, but it might be worth trying.

I've got the IS department at work on this now (unofficially) and their current suggestion that it could be caused by another program such as a virus checker running in the background which is stopping the file being accessed. To check for this you need to eliminate all processes other than explorer and systray before running Mover. To do this press ctrl-alt-delete which will bring up the close program dialog box. Then click 'end task' for every program except explorer and systray. Then cancel the close program dialog, run Mover and keep your fingers crossed. If it works, you can do the process again but this time just stopping one application at a time (or do a binary chop if you want to save time) until you find the offending application. My only doubt about this is that I can't see why it would only cause problems with the frog and not other pcf files.

heya; hmmm... i thought tygerlander tried it with the animals cd frog AND the p4 frog. that would bite if it only works with the p4 frog, because i wanted the p3&animal cd people to be able to use it, too. but anyhow, i was going to suggest, as a last ditch effort, you can boot up in safe mode and try it. :/ maz: you silly! if it is a weenies error preventing the decoding of this file, then a plain dos version would work, right? i mean, no drivers and crap messing things up. just obj text file to obj text file. (well, the pcf file isn't plain text, but...) FINALLY: if you just CANT decode the fool frog.... you can at least change the library cr2's to point to the original frog. you will get the species, morphs and tongue, but the texture maps wont work. neither will the translucent ribbet trick, even if you make your own skins, because the original frog has its back and belly layered over each other, and you'd end up with a transparent throat and head.

Safemode certainly sounds worth a try. I'd like to get to the bottom of what is causing the trouble for some people and not others though. And why only with this one file? I hope to have a fix out fairly soon which will cope with the carriage return & line feed differences. That will get the p3 & animal cd people off the hook. MartinC already has it in the Mac version. As for DOS, I don't fancy doing it myself but if anybody else wants to give it a go I'll gladly share the algorithm with them.

I'm now quite sure that the error is actually triggered by seed and PCF files being on different drives. As a workaround/test: Please try to copy the seed file onto the same drive containing the .pcf and decode it. It'll be important to find out if this works.

hmm.. I'll try all of those suggestions out when I get home later. Thanks Tina

Sorry Martin, I really thought you'd solved it but your diagnosis doesn't seem to work on my machine. I've got two hard drives, one of which is split into 4 partitions, plus a zip drive. I copied the seed file to C, D, E, F, G and I and put the pcf file on G. (D is the totally different hard disk and I is the zip disk). It decoded perfectly every time. Back to the drawing board.

However, a slight breakthrough. I've discovered that I can get the "File Access Denied" error message every time if I make the pcf file read only. I have no idea why this should cause the problem because Mover doesn't write to the pcf file (or at least it shouldn't). I'll have to go through the source code line by line to try and fix this one. Also, it's difficult to see how the pcf file could accidentally have become read only on coldrake's machine and Tygerlander reported that her pcf wasn't read only any way. Hours of fun ahead I think.

The test should also be done by someone who did get the error message before, so please keep trying & testing. Of course it doesn't happen every time with two separate drives, but I managed to reproduce the error exactly this way, and it is not there here with just one drive.

Could those who got the File Access Denied Problem please do another test. That is to step by step go through the decoding process and let me know at what point the error message comes up. Is it, as I suspect, when you've selected the pcf file from the open file dialog, or is it when you click on the decode button for instance. Also, could you doubly or trebly check that your pcf file hasn't become read-only. Right click on the file icon, click on properties and then make read-only isn't ticked. It's probably best to send these test results direct to me rather than clogging up the forum.# maz@sandylodge.demon.co.uk

At last, definite progress. I've identified the line in the program that gets upset when it encounters a read-only file. Unfortunately according to all the manuals I've read it shouldn't get upset as it's not trying to write to the file. I guess it may take a couple of days to come up with a fix. Also, some of you are reporting problems without read only files. That may be a strange quirk of the same problem or it may be a separate problem, only time will tell. Please send details of step by step tests so i can have more evidence to go on.

I did it the messy way, I installed P4 again in a different directory and decoded Bloodsong's file with that .obj file. Then I copied the files into my current P4 directories before deleting the newly installed P4 copy. (A mess..see? I also had to make sure that the shortcuts pointed back to my original file directory) I think I know what happened: The Animal CD and the P4 animals both put the geometries into the Zygote Animals directory. Obviously the geometry I have was the for the Animal CD frog. I guess Bloodsong's frog works with the P4 frog only Tina

Tina, I just did the exact same thing (great minds think alike!) and mine works fine now also. I tried with the Poser frog and it worked fine, then I tried it with the Zygote CD frog and got the same error message. Bloodsong, Maz and MartinC, thanks once again for your time and effort, it's GREATLY appreciated. Bloodsong, thanks again for the wonderful new frogs and maps, they're great!!! Coldrake

Glad to hear you folks got it working. I'll now do a fix as soon as I can so that Mover will cope with all the different variants of seed files which share the same name. Then Bloodsong's frog will work with the CD frog as well. This exercise has, however, highlighted a problem with read-only files. For the time being the fix is 'don't use read only files' but I'll try and make the software cope with it properly in future.

heyas; thanks for figuring this whole mess out. tina and coldrake, sorry you had to go through the big mess of reinsalling! ugh! (you must like frogs an awful lot ;) ) maz; also sorry for causing so much trouble.... or, on the bright side: glad i could help you improve your program. ;)