[id10tsyndrome]

Okay, new to the forums but looked around and didn't see anything like what I'm experiencing. So here it goes:

I have a brand new HP OMEN Laptop (15-dc1054nr) running Win 10 64, all drivers are up to date, etc...

About a week ago, I installed Bridge Commander and it worked just fine after install. I installed the Kobayashi Maru (2.0) Mod with all patches and fixes. Everything continued to work without issue. KM2.0 has settings to use the native resolution for your machine so I set it to 1920 x 1080 and still everything worked fine and looked amazing. I added a couple other mods (ships/sfx) and didn't have an issue either.

Now last night, after adjusting properties for a couple of ships using the Model Property Editor (I'M NOT NEW TO MODDING BC BTW), I attempted to run BC to test the edits. BC launched but would automatically minimize to the taskbar but would continue to run.

At first I thought that I screwed up somewhere during the edits I did so I replaced the edited files with the original backups (before the edits) and still BC would minimize to the taskbar.

Since I created a backup of the initial install as well as the install of KM2.0, I decided to delete BC and replace with the installed KM2.0 backup (WHICH WORKED BEFORE), but it also would just minimize to the taskbar.

I even went as far as to uninstall BC completely, used CCleaner to clean up any registry issues after the uninstall, then reinstalled completely.

Even the new, clean install minimizes to the taskbar.

I'm like beyond confused with this issue. Nothing, system related, changed between the last time it ran fine and when it started doing this minimizing to the taskbar thing.

I've played BC before, even had it heavily modded (by me) on a previous computer but I've never had something like this happen. Usually when a mod is installed incorrectly, BC launches to a black-screen, it doesn't minimize.

Oh, I've also tried starting BC in test-mode and since it minimizes before anything pops on screen, I can't do a console dump to see if there are any internal errors.

If anyone has any suggestions or can possibly shed some light on this issue it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks....

[DeWolfe]

This is an interesting issue. I'm afraid I haven't come across it before though.
a few things to try.

1. right click your shortcut for bridge commander, usually its on the desktop and click properties-->add the following to the 'target' field, at the end behind everything else;

-fullscreen

If that doesn't work

2. You could try editing the config file in the BC folder, do a resolution lower than your screens max and lower some other settings.

3. This might sound silly but roll your date and time back to December 2019. I have come across quite a few games that have issue with the current date. Like some kind of gaming Y2k bug.

If the problem is occurring on a fresh install, it likely means some setting from a previous install is still hanging around.

[id10tsyndrome]

Dewolfie... After reading your reply, the last line got me to thinking about the windows registry. Since I had already uninstalled BC, I went through regedit and removed any remaining instances of stbc.exe.

I had also posted the same question on the bc-central forums and got a reply that I should disable fullscreen optimization under the compatibility tab for stbc.exe so I did that, plus your suggestion of using -fullscreen in the target. I'm not sure if it was me removing the registry entries, the suggestion from bc-central, yours, or all of the above, but I've got it up and working now.

I did a little more research on disabling the fullscreen optimization that was suggested by the guys at bc-central, and a large number of posters on bc-central say that it immensely improves frame rate and lag for BC on newer systems and allows BC to take advantage of AA and texture filtering enhancements enabled through your graphics card control settings. So far, I'll agree that it is performing better than it did before this issue started.

I just hope that my issue doesn't pop up again out of the blue like it did. I would hate to have to go through this over and over again...

[id10tsyndrome]

Well, the problem has returned!

BC has been working fine after the reinstall up until this point. Earlier today I installed and tweaked the DJAmbassador mod (Argonaut and Republic) and played several QB games without issue using both ships. Again, no issues what so ever.

Turned my computer off and did a few things then came back and decided to up the phaser damage and texture file for the DJ Galaxy / Pegasus mod using MPE. This is something I've done A LOT to various ships since the reinstall a week ago...

Now I'm trying to launch BC and it just blinks and minimizes to the taskbar again. Thinking somehow MPE screwed up the DJPegasus.py file, I deleted the .py and .pyc then copied the DJPegasus.py from a backup from yesterday.

STILL SAME ISSUE! I can't figure out what the heck is going on. I also checked the logs directory in scripts/custom/logs... there is a log for each time that I've tried starting BC after it started acting up. each one looks the same... (see below)

=========================

Outdated Foundation, updating functions
Outdated Foundation, installing FolderManager
Repairing ship description outputs...
Galaxy Charts v1.5 is online
Foundation Tech loaded
Gravity FX has been loaded.
Fixing\Enhancing USS Sovereign's mods...
DS9FX Initializing...


========================

I can't believe that I'm going to have to uninstall, wipe registry of all STBC entries then reinstall. This is ridiculous!

Anyone have any other suggestions or troubleshooting ideas?

[aceman67]

If you're having troubles with a specific mod, have you tried asking for help on the modder's page? Because it sounds like you're having issues with the mod, and not Bridge Commander.

The only advice that I can give you, and this is from my experience modding Kerbal Space Program (I currently have ~250 mods in that game alone), is to keep a clean Stock install of the game backed up, and if you're going to be adding a mod to an already working modded version of the game, keep a separate backup of that as well.

[DeWolfe]

Well, the problem has returned!

BC has been working fine after the reinstall up until this point. Earlier today I installed and tweaked the DJAmbassador mod (Argonaut and Republic) and played several QB games without issue using both ships. Again, no issues what so ever.

Turned my computer off and did a few things then came back and decided to up the phaser damage and texture file for the DJ Galaxy / Pegasus mod using MPE. This is something I've done A LOT to various ships since the reinstall a week ago...

Now I'm trying to launch BC and it just blinks and minimizes to the taskbar again. Thinking somehow MPE screwed up the DJPegasus.py file, I deleted the .py and .pyc then copied the DJPegasus.py from a backup from yesterday.

STILL SAME ISSUE! I can't figure out what the heck is going on. I also checked the logs directory in scripts/custom/logs... there is a log for each time that I've tried starting BC after it started acting up. each one looks the same... (see below)

=========================

Outdated Foundation, updating functions
Outdated Foundation, installing FolderManager
Repairing ship description outputs...
Galaxy Charts v1.5 is online
Foundation Tech loaded
Gravity FX has been loaded.
Fixing\Enhancing USS Sovereign's mods...
DS9FX Initializing...


========================

I can't believe that I'm going to have to uninstall, wipe registry of all STBC entries then reinstall. This is ridiculous!

Anyone have any other suggestions or troubleshooting ideas?

Honestly, I'm sorry I can't give much more help. Yes, I'm afraid unless you find something elsewhere. A clean wipe of all STBC assets and a fresh install will be your only option.

As Aceman suggested. Start looking at your mods pages for support instead of STBC as a whole, might be something there.

[id10tsyndrome]

I think I've got this fixed. It's a pretty rare problem that I talked with the guys over at bc-central.net about. It ended up being a helper service that was running in the background for my touchpad. If I disabled all of the non-microsoft services on my laptop, STBC would run without issue but when I re-enabled all non-microsoft services, STBC would minimize upon launch. So, I literally had to disable all non-microsoft services, then turn each of them on one at a time and attempt to run STBC. With a lot of trial and error, it ended up being the SynTPEnhService. As long as that service was enabled, STBC would instantly minimize upon launch. Fortunately, this is an enhancement service for my touchpad that I hardly use so I've got it disabled and everything is running great.