NeoLemmix Old Formats Installer Files?

[Strato Incendus]

So, once again my laptop crashed during the development of a pack. It happened for the first time two years ago during the final stages of Lemmings World Tour, and now of course it had to happen again during the final stages of Lemmings Open Air.

Fortunately, I had backups of all the levels in both cases - in this case I had everything in Dropbox. However, while last time it was only the hard drive that needed to be replaced, this time my laptop was thrown into a loop of constant rebooting. I was able to fix it with a system image recovery, resetting my laptop to December 2018, and then dropping all my New-Formats level packs back in from Dropbox.

The first crash occured while I was working on a level for Lemmings Open Air - I was able to recreate it from my hand-drawing and from memory this morning. I also still got the opportunity to fix some levels from LOA that had broken due to the Glider-Faller physics change. But eventually, the rebooting loop returned. Well, that laptop was 10 years old, after all; I had just upgraded its hard drive and RAM to the maximum that was possible after the last crash in 2018. So I hoped it would still last longer. But even attempting to re-install Windows from USB disk or CD didn't work.

Long story short: I rushed to the store and got myself a new laptop. I am still going to try to access my SSD hard drive from the old laptop to extract all the files. But of course, the system image recovery that reset it back to December 2018, even though it was the best chance of saving the laptop as a whole, of course deprived me of all of my newer files. I just took the risk because basically everything I worked on since that last crash in August 2018 I immediately saved in Dropbox, so I knew I wouldn't lose much.

So now I need to re-install NeoLemmix - and not just New Formats, but also Old Formats (10.13) and Very Old Formats (1.43). Most importantly because I want to continue maintaininig Lemmings World Tour in both formats. But also because kaywhyn picked up my first two packs (Paralems and Pit Lems) this weekend. So of course, I at least need to be able to play them again myself to evaluate his feedback. And if for nothing else, ensuring playability of older packs is why we always keep old versions available.

However, on the NeoLemmix website, I now only find the Old-Formats player exe file, but not the rest? Meaning, whatever folders I need for the skill panel, gfx, editor etc. The styles I can all get from my Old-Formats Lemmings World Tour thread (which is especially important because I modified some of them, as you might remember).

I assume it's still possible to download version 10.13 (and version 1.43) somewhere - otherwise kaywhyn and ericderkovits (who recently replay-watched Lemmicks) wouldn't have been able to look at these older packs of mine just recently. I just don't know where to get them from?

As I said, I might be able to salvage them from the SSD of my old laptop, since I already had those older versions installed back in December 2018. And this time, I assume it was not the hard drive itself that broke (as a storage space), but "just" the operating system. But I might be wrong. So I'd feel a lot safer if I simply knew from which online resource I could retreive those older versions.

[ericderkovits]

to get the older players(ie 1.43 and 10.13) just go to the neolemmix website and click on neolemmix player from there, there will be a link to a download page which will have a list of all the previous players which you
can download. This is how I got them.

[kaywhyn]

Wow, talk about bad karma with being so close to finishing a level pack in development. What kind of laptop did you end up buying? What about your previous one? If you're not already doing it, I would also recommend getting an external hard drive and backing up your files to it in addition to backing up to Dropbox. At least in this way, the advantage is that no internet connection is required to access the backup files on the external hard drive. Nowadays, external hard drives tend to be quite cheap as compared in years before. If your budget can allow it, you can get an external SSD drive for faster backing up. I remember back in 2008 while I was in college my laptop had to be reformatted due to being infected by a virus, and I felt so glad that I had been backing up my files on a weekly basis and was able to restore all my files.

I think you're already getting the Old Formats NL versions correctly by downloading them from the NL website, as that is how I got v1.43 and v10.13 as well. I just checked my NL directories for both, and the other folders you mentioned, eg, sketches, gfx, etc, weren't included, just the .exe file. Still, the level packs loaded just fine, as long as the level pack and any associated styles and other relevant files were extracted to the right folders in the NL directory.

[Strato Incendus]

Ah, you mean because all the important information (minus the styles) is included in the pack? Really good thing now that I've shared my styles folder back then with Old-Formats LWT, as well as sharing all of my custom sprite recolourings for New Formats as soon as I had made them. Or at least I believe I've uploaded all of them. Anyways, in case a certain type of sprite went missing, thanks to the recolouring feature, they're now easier to recreate than ever.

What kind of laptop did you end up buying? What about your previous one?

The current one is a Lenovo Legion 7, 15". The old one was an Acer from 2010, which started out at 4 GB RAM and 256 GB hard disk (non-SSD), but when said hard disk broke in 2018 while working on LWT, I exchanged it for an SSD and also increased the RAM to 8 GB, which was the maximum possible.

If you look up the Legion 7, you'll probably find that it has quite a hefty price tag. But I hope it will endure at least as long as the Acer - and since I know I can't upgrade the RAM or anything about it, because most modern laptops are "sealed shut" with nothing to screw open, any kind of upgrade I might have done later otherwise already needs to be built in.

If you're not already doing it, I would also recommend getting an external hard drive and backing up your files to it in addition to backing up to Dropbox. At least in this way, the advantage is that no internet connection is required to access the backup files on the external hard drive. Nowadays, external hard drives tend to be quite cheap as compared in years before. If your budget can allow it, you can get an external SSD drive for faster backing up. I remember back in 2008 while I was in college my laptop had to be reformatted due to being infected by a virus, and I felt so glad that I had been backing up my files on a weekly basis and was able to restore all my files.

I already have an external hard drive (1 TB) - that's where I took the system image from. This is also the way I recovered from the crash during World Tour development - in that case, my system image had just been a few days old. But apparently, December 2018 was the latest one. Sadly, new system image backups often failed whenever I tried to create one (be it for lack of space on the external hard drive, despite its 1 TB size, or just because creating those backups took my laptop so long that it was always interrupted by something).

The reason I started saving every smaller file in Dropbox is because I live pretty close to a forest. And when the first crash happened (August 2018), risk of forest fire was quite high here, so I thought "What use does an external hard drive have if I need to leave quickly? Then both my PC and my hard drive are in the same place and can be destroyed."

Thus, ironically, the existence of my external hard drive did me more harm than good this time:
Had I known that my rebooting attempt would fail, I would have extracted the old SSD hard drive directly. Then all the current data would still be on it (from between December 2018 and now). The system image allowed for a temporary recovery, but only for a couple of hours today - and it came at the cost of everything that was on that hard drive from between December 2018 and now. Because of course, a system image overwrites everything on the target hard drive.

December 2018, that's a few months after the initial release of Old-Formats LWT. And shortly before the test version of New Formats with the Shimmier was released. Lemmings Open Air pretty much revolves around the Shimmier completely.

All my levels could be retrieved from Dropbox.
However, some of the older New-Formats levels produce errors when I open them in the editor, telling me "an object reference was not linked to an object instance"?
This is a rough translation of the German error message; it refers to "JIT" debugging (just-in-time debugging).

For Lemmings Open Air, I fortunately uploaded the ZIP file containing 111 of 120 levels just a few days ago. So I can just replace my versions of the levels that display this error with the ones from the ZIP file. And this error has so far only occurred on some of the earliest levels made for Lemmings Open Air. This is a small minority, and none of my newest levels made shortly before the crash were affected.

I'm a little worried about Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll and Lemmings: Hall of Fame now. Because I haven't shared any test versions of those yet. So even though they're also complete in Dropbox, those copies are all I have (the earliest ones might also be on the external hard drive, and those would be the most crucial ones).

Maybe namida can tell me a little more about these JIT debugging / object-instance errors? If it's just something present or absent in the level text file, it should be potentially easy to fix.

[namida]

Can you PM me a couple of the affected levels (along with any unreleased styles, if applicable, that they use)?

Re: old-formats, the style autodownload should still work for styles that were included in it, and NXPs should generally include missing styles anyway. The player itself was simply a standalone EXE file. You're on your own for the old-formats editor, as there's no reason to be using it anymore (except perhaps SuperLemmini editing).

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for your explanations, namida!

Regarding the error, it seems like this has something to do with the age of the file / the version of the editor with which they were created / last modified.

Knock on wood, I've just checked the oldest levels of my other two packs currently in development - Lemmings: Hall of Fame and Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll - and so far, they seem to be fine. Maybe it was a lucky coincidence for me that on many of these oldest levels, I had recently changed something again, so that their last change date was newer. For example, "Walking after midnight", a level originally featuring the L2 Shadow tileset, I had reshaped to make it look more like L3D Alien.

Lemmings Open Air was apparently indeed the most critical pack, because it's the one longest in development, and it was the oldest levels from that particular pack that caused the issue. Even the New-Formats conversion of Lemmings World Tour is newer, so those levels don't seem to cause trouble either.

Since only a few LOA levels from my Dropbox caused the error, not the ones from the recently uploaded zip, I have already replaced all the broken levels from LOA with those from the ZIP file. The downside of that is of course that I currently don't have any remaining broken examples to send to you - for diagnostic purposes, this would of course be interesting. Especially because this "object-reference / object-instance" error occured on both my old (now broken) laptop AND the brand-new one I'm currently using.

I was already pretty fatalistic about Lemmings: Hall of Fame and Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll. Because if those levels were affected, there wouldn't be any zip files on the forums yet, only my Dropbox. But so far, these levels seem to be stable.

In the unfortunate case that this error pops up again, I will gladly come back to your offer, though!

Can you PM me a couple of the affected levels (along with any unreleased styles, if applicable, that they use)?

[kaywhyn]

Ah, you mean because all the important information (minus the styles) is included in the pack?

I think so?

The current one is a Lenovo Legion 7, 15". The old one was an Acer from 2010, which started out at 4 GB RAM and 256 GB hard disk (non-SSD), but when said hard disk broke in 2018 while working on LWT, I exchanged it for an SSD and also increased the RAM to 8 GB, which was the maximum possible.

Whoa, you're on the really low end of the RAM. Generally, people get at least 8GB or 16GB of RAM. You'll definitely want the recommended amount of RAM if you're going to do a lot of editing and other resource heavy intensive tasks. Also, 1TB for the SSD is quite common, as 256GB is generally nowhere near enough for most people, especially if you have a lot of programs, pictures, music, and videos.

If you look up the Legion 7, you'll probably find that it has quite a hefty price tag.

I just looked up your laptop model, and yes, those specs are so much better, so I think you made a really good choice for a new laptop. Acer's laptops, while decent, tend to not be as on the high-end with regards to specs and hence not as powerful as laptops from other manufacturers, such as HP, Dell, or even Lenovo. The price tag is about on par with my Dell XPS 15", although it's not really classified as a gaming laptop. It's still runs games quite well, though. It's really fast, that's for sure.

But I hope it will endure at least as long as the Acer - and since I know I can't upgrade the RAM or anything about it, because most modern laptops are "sealed shut" with nothing to screw open, any kind of upgrade I might have done later otherwise already needs to be built in.

Oh really? I thought the opposite is true these days, where one should be able to open up any laptop and easily upgrade the RAM and/or the hard drive. Of course, some are easier to unscrew open than others. On the other hand, I have been nothing but a Dell laptop user for the last 13 years, and all the different Dell laptops I have owned are easy to open up. 

I already have an external hard drive (1 TB) - that's where I took the system image from. This is also the way I recovered from the crash during World Tour development - in that case, my system image had just been a few days old. But apparently, December 2018 was the latest one. Sadly, new system image backups often failed whenever I tried to create one (be it for lack of space on the external hard drive, despite its 1 TB size, or just because creating those backups took my laptop so long that it was always interrupted by something).

In that case, I recommend getting at least a 2 TB external hard drive. Getting more might be overkill, but the very nice thing is that you will almost never ever have to worry about running out of space due to all the backups and system images (depending on if you want to keep only the most recent or let Windows manage the space).

What are you using to make a system image? I think regardless of what you use, a system image backup will always take a really long time, especially depending on how much is on your computer. The advantage of a system image restore is that you save yourself the trouble from having to reinstall all your programs/software, especially if you have a lot, something that you need to do if you do a clean install of the OS. However, the biggest drawback of a system image restore is that it's all or nothing. You can't choose what to restore, and so if there is corrupted stuff in the system image backup, that will get restored. In contrast, if you do a file backup, you can choose individual files to restore, which is why I always recommend people do both a file backup and a system image backup. Also, I simply don't use the computer while the backup is in progress.

Thus, ironically, the existence of my external hard drive did me more harm than good this time:
Had I known that my rebooting attempt would fail, I would have extracted the old SSD hard drive directly. Then all the current data would still be on it (from between December 2018 and now). The system image allowed for a temporary recovery, but only for a couple of hours today - and it came at the cost of everything that was on that hard drive from between December 2018 and now. Because of course, a system image overwrites everything on the target hard drive.

Thus is the biggest problem with technology, where it's unpredictable and can sometimes act up for no reason and not work. It's especially annoying when it decides to not work at crucial moments. Of course, you can reduce the severity by doing things like backing up files/creating a system image on a regular basis, but even with these things in place, something can always go wrong when it comes to technology. That's why I constantly say that "Computers are one of the greatest inventions ever, but it's also one of the most frustrating inventions ever."

[Strato Incendus]

Whoa, you're on the really low end of the RAM. Generally, people get at least 8GB or 16GB of RAM. You'll definitely want the recommended amount of RAM if you're going to do a lot of editing and other resource heavy intensive tasks. Also, 1TB for the SSD is quite common, as 256GB is generally nowhere near enough for most people, especially if you have a lot of programs, pictures, music, and videos.

The funny thing is, the iMac I'm using for all my music production also only has 8 GB RAM (even though it can be upgraded as far as 32 or even 64 GB, if I recall correctly). Yet, so far I haven't needed more yet. I am perfectly aware that most audio production computers have at least 16 GB RAM (as my new laptop has). At least with the 2018 iMac, it is still possible to upgrade the RAM yourself. (Only if you go for the more expensive model, though, which still has a lid at the back of the screen - with iMacs, screen and computer are all integrated into one flat package.)

That's why I constantly say that "Computers are one of the greatest inventions ever, but it's also one of the most frustrating inventions ever."

I know this phrase as "computers solve problems you wouldn't have otherwise".

Kind of like playing Lemmings: We first create virtual problems for virtual people to then find solutions for these virtual, self-imposed problems.

In that case, I recommend getting at least a 2GB external hard drive.

I assume you meant 2 TB? 2 GB I already have in my Dropbox, but that's approaching its maximum capacity.


Anyways, my old hard drive is attached now, and as I expected, it's still functional. So I just copied my Old-Formats and Very-Old-Formats folders from there. Since December 2018 was already after the initial release of Lemmings World Tour, all the three preceding packs (Paralems, Pit Lems, and Lemmicks) were completed by then.

For Lemmicks, I wasn't sure at first whether there might be a newer version of Lemmicks here on the forums after I fixed some backroutes... but the forum link should point to the Dropbox link, and both the nxp.file in the Dropbox as well as the retrieved one are from 25th June 2018. Is that the version of Lemmicks you played, kaywhyn?

I assume it is, because in the Lemmicks thread I just re-discovered that WillLem had asked me for the individual level files at the beginning of this year, and I made a zip folder of everything.
That Lemmicks zip file is from February 2020, but all the level files still have 25th June 2018 as their latest modification date. The only three files in that zip folder newer than that are three level screenshots from fall 2018. Since my Image Backup is from December 2018, even those .pngs are included in it.



Anyways, I'm now trying to retreive anything else from up to December 2018 that I might still need... I could potentially wipe it clean afterwards and use it as an external SSD hard drive. After all, I still have the System Image Backup on my older external hard drive, and the SSD now only contains everything from that System Image Backup.

I really wish I had given up on my old laptop earlier, then I wouldn't have used the System Image Recovery and all files up until two days ago would still be there. I valued the laptop over the data on the hard drive, because the most important files were in my Dropbox, and the old laptop had some software installed (even in its 12-2018-state) that might be quite a hassle to re-install on my new laptop now (including some work-related stuff that requires a VPN tunnel to work, so I need to set up the client for that tunnel again, etc.).

I'm now trying out DiskDigger and Recuva to see whether those programs can retrieve some of the data from the SSD before I reset it to December 2018 with the System Image Backup.

[kaywhyn]

The funny thing is, the iMac I'm using for all my music production also only has 8 GB RAM (even though it can be upgraded as far as 32 or even 64 GB, if I recall correctly). Yet, so far I haven't needed more yet. I am perfectly aware that most audio production computers have at least 16 GB RAM (as my new laptop has). At least with the 2018 iMac, it is still possible to upgrade the RAM yourself. (Only if you go for the more expensive model, though, which still has a lid at the back of the screen - with iMacs, screen and computer are all integrated into one flat package.)

Interesting. Luckily, upgrading the RAM is simple and the price of memory sticks has gone down considerably.

I know this phrase as "computers solve problems you wouldn't have otherwise".

Kind of like playing Lemmings: We first create virtual problems for virtual people to then find solutions for these virtual, self-imposed problems.

Yea, these are good ways to put it.

In that case, I recommend getting at least a 2GB external hard drive.

I assume you meant 2 TB? 2 GB I already have in my Dropbox, but that's approaching its maximum capacity.

Yes, you're right, that's a typo on my part. Again, more than that is likely overkill, but luckily even those external hard drives with more than 2 TB are much cheaper now than ever before. Also, you don't ever have to worry as much about running out of space when backing up.

I also have the free 2 GB Dropbox plan like you. I have been considering upgrading my Dropbox plan, but I've been doing fine on just 2 GB for Dropbox for years, so probably not.

For Lemmicks, I wasn't sure at first whether there might be a newer version of Lemmicks here on the forums after I fixed some backroutes... but the forum link should point to the Dropbox link, and both the nxp.file in the Dropbox as well as the retrieved one are from 25th June 2018. Is that the version of Lemmicks you played, kaywhyn?

I assume it is, because in the Lemmicks thread I just re-discovered that WillLem had asked me for the individual level files at the beginning of this year, and I made a zip folder of everything.
That Lemmicks zip file is from February 2020, but all the level files still have 25th June 2018 as their latest modification date. The only three files in that zip folder newer than that are three level screenshots from fall 2018. Since my Image Backup is from December 2018, even those .pngs are included in it.

Yes, I believe I played the Lemmicks version from back in 2018. IIRC, I just downloaded the pack for the very first time earlier this year, and so it has to be.

edit: Yup, my computer shows that I downloaded the pack earlier this year in April, so it has to be the June 2018 version you mentioned.

[namida]

If you're going to go for paid cloud storage, I highly recommend OneDrive over Dropbox. I think their free plan is larger than Dropbox's too, but more importantly, OneDrive's OS integration is VERY good.

If you're not a fan of Microsoft, consider Google Drive. It's not quite as great as OneDrive, but still a lot better than Dropbox.

(I personally have a current OneDrive subscription and had a past Dropbox subscription. I've never fully used Google Drive myself - I have a small subscription to that too but it's only for Lemmings Forums backups, because it's easier to automate this with Google Drive than with OneDrive - but I have heaps of experience with it through assisting clients at work.)

Unless your internet connection is bad, I would go for a good cloud storage plan before thinking about external drives. As mentioned above - an external hard drive won't save you in a disaster where your hard drive is as gone as the PC itself. Cloud storage will - and also has the convenience of that you can log in and access your file from elsewhere, without having to plan around it in advance.

[Strato Incendus]

Good thing you mention OneDrive - I had it enabled by default on my new laptop, but it seems like it's already full. I think I set it to "save everything from my desktop and documents folder" - because there was obviously very little in those locations initially. But today I copied my entire documents section from my old hard drive over to my new laptop, just to be on the safe side. So now my OneDrive settings definitely need to be more selective.

[kaywhyn]

If you're going to go for paid cloud storage, I highly recommend OneDrive over Dropbox. I think their free plan is larger than Dropbox's too, but more importantly, OneDrive's OS integration is VERY good.

If you're not a fan of Microsoft, consider Google Drive. It's not quite as great as OneDrive, but still a lot better than Dropbox.

Both OneDrive and Google Drive totally went over my head. Then again, I haven't really used either one as much as I should. Google Drive is the one I'm sure I'll be using a lot for my future job, although I might want to look into OneDrive as well, since I probably should try and keep my computer files separate from my work files. I certainly could put both on Google Drive, but then it'll start getting messy for myself.

Unless your internet connection is bad, I would go for a good cloud storage plan before thinking about external drives. As mentioned above - an external hard drive won't save you in a disaster where your hard drive is as gone as the PC itself. Cloud storage will - and also has the convenience of that you can log in and access your file from elsewhere, without having to plan around it in advance.

Also, the other disadvantage of external hard drives is having to physically carry it around with you if you want to access files in there. Sure, they're portable, but it's a hassle to carry it around, since it means one more thing to watch carefully and take care of along with your electronic device. Of course, you can use a thumb drive instead, but they tend to be much smaller and are more easily lost since they don't make a sound if you drop it. With cloud storage, all you need is simply an internet connection, which isn't very difficult considering how there's practically Wifi/hotspots everywhere you go, as well as being able to log in or access the software.

[Strato Incendus]

Indeed; this is exactly the reason why I started saving everything in Dropbox instead of continuing to create my system image backups. Which is the reason why my system image backup was so old. And why it would have been better for no image to exist, because the hard drive in this case was fine, and then I wouldn't have come into temptation of overwriting all the files with a 12-2018 state.

So my mistake was basically down to me not being consistent enough. I either should have kept making system images, or dropped and deleted them completely and only store everything in Dropbox. As I said, NeoLemmix levels are so small that you can fit loads of them into Dropbox, as well as all my compositions (written in Guitar Pro) or other creative outputs (in Word etc.). So I've got all the important creative work I've done in the last 1.5 years back from Dropbox. The only things I hadn't put in there were photoshop files, because they are quite large. But fortunately, I backed up most of those on my external hard drive, as I've found out yesterday (e.g. the CD covers and booklet pages I had designed for my music).

The only photoshop files I noticed are missing are for example the rank signs of Lemmings, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll and Lemmings: Hall of Fame. My pack folders already include the finished png files of those, of course - it will simply be a little hassle if I want to edit something about them now (e.g. change the font).

OneDrive has 5.0 GB capacity with its free plan (as opposed to Dropbox's 2 GB), so that's certainly an improvement! I'm just currently clearing out the OneDrive for this new laptop, because initially it started saving my entire Documents section, and thus, 5.0 GB were used up in a split second.

[kaywhyn]

OneDrive has 5.0 GB capacity with its free plan (as opposed to Dropbox's 2 GB), so that's certainly an improvement! I'm just currently clearing out the OneDrive for this new laptop, because initially it started saving my entire Documents section, and thus, 5.0 GB were used up in a split second.

Similar to iCloud's free plan of 5GB for iPhones. That reminds me, I really need to clear out my massive amount of photos/videos on my phone, because nothing has been backing up to iCloud for a really long time now due to no more storage space that I willingly allowed myself to be stuck with but haven't done anything about it. More importantly, I should really do a full backup of my phone via iTunes soon, because I don't think I've ever done one since I got my new phone around this time last year. Not good. Shame on me. Even though nothing has happened to the data all this time, I definitely don't recommend doing what I've been doing, and instead I would absolutely suggest to anyone to also regularly backup their phone, similar to how we should be backing up the files on our computer regularly anyway.

[Strato Incendus]

Can you PM me a couple of the affected levels (along with any unreleased styles, if applicable, that they use)?

Re: old-formats, the style autodownload should still work for styles that were included in it, and NXPs should generally include missing styles anyway. The player itself was simply a standalone EXE file. You're on your own for the old-formats editor, as there's no reason to be using it anymore (except perhaps SuperLemmini editing).

Well, it happened. The error re-occurred again. Apparently it seems to happen when I use the regular text editor of Windows to edit information in levels (e.g. change the music)? Meaning, when I try to re-open a level edited this way in the NeoLemmix editor.

Here's one level where I did that, and now it causes the error I described earlier.

Fortunately, I still could go back to a ZIP file to get an earlier version of the level to fix it. Otherwise, it seems like the level is irrevocably damaged.

Or maybe it's just that the level music is stored in several instances in a level file now?
It used to be the case that it's just listed at the top, so I thought I could delete the line "MUSIC" without replacement if I wanted to reset a level to standard rotation.