NineChime forum

Waccoon wrote:

I'm wondering if this is a Vista problem.  I'm using XP, and I have had no issues of this sort.

I'm afraid I don't have access to a Vista machine to test this out.  XP is used exclusively at work.

I have a more modern build of PaintBBS you can try, though.  I recompiled it myself with a newer Java compiler, so it might work out:  PaintBBS 2.3 Wac.  This is a slightly refactored version I made while investigating the annoying SocketPermission() issue.

Thanks for the link! Incase anything goes wrong, I'll backup the PaintBBS.jar and run some tests under the Windows Vista (host operating system), Windows XP (VirtualBox) and Windows 98SE (VirtualPC).

Edit: Okay, Wac. The good news is that the PaintBBS applet works properly on Windows Vista with Sun JRE 1.6u10. It also worked under the Windows XP guest.

But the bad news are the following:

1. Under Windows XP SP3 and Internet Explorer 7 with Microsoft Java Virtual Machine installed, the PaintBBS java applet does not load at all with the error message "load: class pbbs.PaintBBS not found".

2. Under Sun JRE 1.4.2u18 (final), a red X occurs with the error message "Loading Java Applet Failed". The Java applet was tested under Windows 98 SE.

I realise that there are a handful of people use older versions of Windows with either Microsoft JVM, Sun JRE 1.4 or Sun JRE 1.5 and that they are unable to afford to upgrade to either Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Vista and they could be upset that PaintBBS will no longer work on their operating system. I even fear that PaintBBS 2.3_w may not even work on Sun JRE older than 1.6u10. This doesn't seem to be very fair.

How can I fix the "load: class pbbs.PaintBBS not found" issue to make it compatible with older operating systems?

My oekaki was designed for Windows NT 4.0 (or Windows 98), Internet Explorer 6, Firefox 2 with Sun Java 1.4_2 or better, by the way.

Last edited by rainbow (11-16-2008 18:15:36)

Waccoon wrote:

I could try recompiling a new version with a lower compiler stepping.  This should allow the applet to work with older versions of Java.  I haven't had much luck getting it to run on my Mac, though, which is why I haven't started distributing my modified version.

Wac, that sounds awesome for users who have Microsoft JVM and older versions of Sun Java (no lower than version 1.4 since Windows 9x might cause problems operating the applet under JRE 1.5). Some of my oekaki users even access the site via a Mac and it would be disappointing to see PaintBBS 2.3_w not work on their computer.

I'm hoping that the recompiled PaintBBS applet will work on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 98 or later. If you have the recompiled version of PaintBBS, please let me know. I'm pretty lucky that I have the original (unmodified) applet backed up.

Edit: I was wondering if the recompiled version with a lower compiler stepping is up. However, it was hard to tell, because NineChime went down earlier this week. I really hate to see someone complain about PaintBBS 2.3_w not working at all with Microsoft JVM or with older versions of Java.

Last edited by rainbow (11-21-2008 18:16:09)

OK, to clear up a few things (because Java version numbers are confusing):

PaintBBS 2.22_8 was the last official version of PaintBBS.  I decompiled it, refactored it a bit, and gave it a new, unofficial version number, 2.3_w.

My mod was originally written to be compliant with Java 5, so it wouldn't work properly on older Java installations, or Java 5 on PPC Macs.  So, it was never officially released with the Wacintaki distribution.

I have now removed some of the Java 5 refactoring I did so the applet will run on Java 1.4, but it still includes some fixes.  It was compiled with Java 6 in Java 1.4 compatibility mode.  I've also tested it on my PPC Mac, so it will also now work on old Macs.  I never figured out why Java 5 code won't work properly on PPC Macs using Java 5, but now that's no longer an issue.

So... test this new version (PaintBBS 2.3_w) and let me know if you have any luck.  If not, I'll try recompiling the original PaintBBS 2.22_8 without any modifications and see if that works.  If not, then I think PaintBBS with Java 1.6u10+ on Vista is not going to work.

Any update on this?  I don't have a Vista machine on which to try the new PaintBBS.