I am a new poster to this group, and I hope that somebody can help me
out with this problem.
    I originally downloaded POVray about a year or so back and installed it
on my computer.  I have been using it pretty regularly with the occasional
"help file error" but it has been working properly.  Recently, I went to do
some rendering and the help file error appeared.  It had been sporadic in
the past, sometimes showing up but mostly not.  Now it was constantly
present.  I decided to reinstall the package but first I checked the POVray
site for any help in resolving it.
    The site pointed out that deleting the hidden file "POVRAY31.GID" should
end the problem, so I did that and it made no difference.  I finally decided
to reinstall the software and try again.  I went to the POVray home page and
downloaded a fresh copy just in case there were upgrades or revisions and
then did the install.  I had it install right over the old version and still
got the error.  Then I uninstalled completely and tried again.
    This time, the install halted with an error window that said:

 Install
  an I/O error occurred while installing a file.  This
  is normally caused by bad installation media or a
  corrupt installation file.

    I did a retry, but the same error appeared.  I moved the window aside to
read what file it was hung up on, and it said:

 Installing
  c:\...\POV-Ray for Windows v3.1\help\povray.31.hlp
     72%

 Finally, I hit Abort and it said:

   Abort - Corrupt installation file!

    So, I erased all POV related items on my hard drive, downloaded a fresh
copy and started over- I got exactly the same results.  I had the "one large
download" file so I decided to try the 1.44 floppy version just in case...
the results were identical.  Now, I cannot render anything because POVray is
no longer on my machine, and I cannot install it because any download gives
the same error.  I am stuck!
    I did download the 3.5 beta version and installed and ran it until it
expired with no difficulties at all.  It is simply that 3.1 will not install
or run on my computer now.  I have the same hardware, I have made no changes
other than installing a firewall (Norton Internet Security 2002,
professional edition).  All software was
disabled during installation, including Norton Internet Security, Norton
Anti-Virus, Windows Task Scheduler, everything.  I normally run SETI@home
but this was turned off and not running during installation.

  Here are the details of my machine.

software:
    Microsoft Windows 98 4.10.2222 A
    IE 5.5.00.2614.3500

hardware:
    AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz processor
    256 MB RAM
    40 GB hard drive
    Standard 3.5" floppy drive
    LS-120 Floptical drive

    This system has supported POVray 3.1 (not sure of the letter, it was
erased) for about a year or so, and now I cannot install 3.1 on it.  Once
again, 3.5 beta installed perfectly and ran with no problems.  Now that it
has expired, however, I have no means of rendering because I have no POVray
at all.
    I did a complete disk surface check (hours!) and a defragmentation.
There are no errors, I ran diagnostics, all RAM is okay, no hardware
problems.  Everything else runs the same as always.  Please help!

Cheers!

Chip Shults
My robotics, space and CGI web page - http://home.cfl.rr.com/aichip

Post a reply to this message

"Sir Charles W. Shults III" wrote:
> 
>     I am a new poster to this group, and I hope that somebody can help me
> out with this problem.

Hi Chip. Strange to see a S.E.* regular here :)

>     This system has supported POVray 3.1 (not sure of the letter, it was
> erased) for about a year or so, and now I cannot install 3.1 on it.  Once
> again, 3.5 beta installed perfectly and ran with no problems.  Now that it
> has expired, however, I have no means of rendering because I have no POVray
> at all.
>     I did a complete disk surface check (hours!) and a defragmentation.
> There are no errors, I ran diagnostics, all RAM is okay, no hardware
> problems.  Everything else runs the same as always.  Please help!

A couple years ago, when I was first installing 3.1g, I too had problems
with both the download and the help file. It took a lot of time and
effort to get it resolved and to this day I do not know exactly what I
did to finally get it to work - extreme measures were taken.

My advice at this point in time is to just stick with the 3.5 beta version
of the program. We have not had any reports with regards the problems with
the help file in the newest version, likely because we are now using a
different help format. If you don't want to download the whole distribution
each month you can download just the executable from -

http://www.povray.org/binaries/windows/pvengine-vc6-beta-12.zip

and place it in the "bin" folder in the folder where you installed
POV-Ray. This should keep you alive until we get the final version
ready for release a little later this year.

-- 
Ken Tyler - POV-Ray Technical Assistance Group

Post a reply to this message

"Sir Charles W. Shults III" <aic### [at] cflrrcom> wrote in message
news:3c84c0e1@news.povray.org...

<snip>

Hang on, I'll d/l 3.1 and see if the file on the server is corrupt (or at least
whether I run into similiar problems).
......

Nope - no problems here. You could try d/l via ftp (if you've been using the web
d/l). The only reason I can think of that this might solve the problem is if
you're getting a bad cached copy of the exe. Have you tried using the
alternative interface to whatever you previously used (i.e. web vs. ftp)? Hmm, I
wonder if you're software is d/l in ascii mode or something stupid like that?

Alternatively, I could place the copy of the install exe that I used on another
site, since I know it's a good one.

Post a reply to this message

Tom Melly wrote:
> 
> Hang on, I'll d/l 3.1 and see if the file on the server is corrupt (or at least
> whether I run into similiar problems).
> ......
> 
> Nope - no problems here. You could try d/l via ftp (if you've been using the web
> d/l). The only reason I can think of that this might solve the problem is if
> you're getting a bad cached copy of the exe. Have you tried using the
> alternative interface to whatever you previously used (i.e. web vs. ftp)? Hmm, I
> wonder if you're software is d/l in ascii mode or something stupid like that?
> 
> Alternatively, I could place the copy of the install exe that I used on another
> site, since I know it's a good one.

The MD5 checksum of my copy:

$ md5sum povwin3.exe
2e40fef6ec2aa1f53d69ad0c1a8b25ca *povwin3.exe

(note this could be an older file than the one currently available)

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, IsoWood include,                 
TransSkin and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/  
Last updated 21 Feb. 2002 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

Post a reply to this message

Thanks, Ken.  I'll stick with 3.5 and do that.  Just reinstalled it and
it's working fine.  I'll also post a few of my crude images on  the
povray.binaries.images group.

Cheers!

Chip Shults
My robotics, space and CGI web page - http://home.cfl.rr.com/aichip

Post a reply to this message

A quick update- I just downloaded the 3.1G POVray files to my daughter's
computer (600MHz 256 MB RAM) and got an identical "corrupted installation
file" message- it hung up on the help file again.  Something is definitely
loopy with that source.

Cheers!

Chip Shults
My robotics, space and CGI web page - http://home.cfl.rr.com/aichip

Post a reply to this message