I've compiled the current iteration of my game, and sent it to a couple of friends.

Friend A has no problem running it.
Friend B gets a compile related error "block variable without with variable not set" or something to that effect.

Thats a compile error, why would it work on 2 ppls comps and not 1? Why would it even compile at my end? it should have given me this error, and not even so much as let me run my program, let alone compile it.

so confused!

Anyone have any ideas why this may be? both people have same version of program, and supporting dll's

Thanks in advance!

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Can you include the line of code this is happening on?

Are you sure the dll's are registered on their comps. I'm pretty sure that error happens when it can't find the DLL

In my years of experience in VB6, "block variable without with variable not set" can be just about anything. The automatic error messages are, generally, quite useless.

Are you sure they have all the needed DLLs and OCXs, and all properly registered? Any chance they could have screwed up the file structure or any of the files?

Easiest thing, but usually not possible, is to run the program through the IDE on the problem computer. Other than that... you are pretty much stuck with "guess and check".

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i cant include the line of code this refers to, because it compiles on my machine without error, and my friend doesn't have/know vb, so he just gets the error on startup.

i suppose it's possible he no longer has the dll registered (somehow), but ive sent him previous versions which worked fine. He hasn't altered the registraton of that DLL since.

Thanks for the replies, il keep poking at it.

_________________
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
"Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment." -Jonah Orion
http://tankzgame.blogspot.com

You need to add code that outputs a status after every operation that could fail so you can see what line is causing the problem.

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I think it's unlikely to be a syntax error if it does compile on one machine but not another.

So what is being compiled on the friends machine? ...

Is it a full set of forms, modules, the .vbp etc, or just a selection of these that is being loaded? You should always keep the full set of files together, and load them through the vbp, rather than double clicking an frm or mod.

Make sure that any relevant References are enabled before compiling. (Is it in the project menu?) Look in the .vbp (open as text) to see which references are mentioned, and make sure friend has all of these dll's / ocx's installed, and not some alternative versions of them, (particularly important for ocx's).

Lastly, is it a different version of the vb compiler?

Does the friend who cannot run it have the VB RunTime files installed on their comp?

-Bryk

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As a long shot, what about system locality settings? Could that change the meaning of the text being interpreted, like messing around with punctuation symbols ($ % & # etc) vb6 files are saved in plain ascii aren't they?

Note that punctuation characters are used in the vbp where it specifies the references.

Not unless VB6 is being very stupid and using extended ASCII characters as special characters. Standard ASCII characters (so < 128) are standard across all ASCII code pages, so system locality settings shouldn't change them around. All standard punctuation is in standard ASCII btw (apart from £ for us brits anyway )

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my best guess is to have your friend re-install the vb runtime files

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I just noticed this part ... try having them un-register your DLL then register the latest version of it.

-Bryk

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I'm compiling it under VB5

I always open my project through the vbp, all the references are there.
Neither of my friends have VB at all, so im not sure if that would mean that they dont have the "VB Runtime Library" or not. Im basically just sending them the compiled .EXE file along with a folder of support graphics (which il toss into a resource file later on in the project)

How would they go about installing(or re-installing) the VB Runtime files if that's nessesary?

Thanks!

_________________
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
"Hope is the first step on the road to dissapointment." -Jonah Orion
http://tankzgame.blogspot.com

I believe vb5 uses a different set of runtime files than vb6. That may be the problem. They'll need the vb5 runtime files.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/180071

The vb6 files are here

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192461/EN-US/

If you install both of those and see what happens on your friends machine, and see if your project will run / compile on it then.

dll's don't often go wrong, and vb isn't so complicated that it's likely to go wrong. But if you wanted to reinstall these things, I don't think windows manages their installation, so you can't uninstall like with most modern packages. You'd have to find and delete the dll manually, and then run the above installers.

Good luck Jimbo