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Skeletonpatch

Doom Builder 2 Nodebulder problems

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I am having issues getting the nodebuilder working. For some reason whenever I save any .wad files I receive an error stating that access is denied for whatever nodebuilder I have selected. It does not matter which one I switch it to the problem still persists. I assumed that this is a problem with my computer's antivirus software, Norton 360, but I can't find any information on my computer that suggests that it is blocking anything. I have not reinstalled Doom Builder 2 on my computer, I'd rather not do that unless I really NEED to. This doesn't seem to affect the functionality of the .wads in testing or editing, I just want to get this issue resolved. I'd appreciate any help anyone can send to me.

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Sounds like a folder permissions type thing. The newer OSes believe that they need to protect you from yourself, under the guise of security, and they lock out programs from being able to write files to certain folders.

 

Typically, the editor saves a copy of the map somewhere, and then runs a separate program to build the nodes. The editor "points" the node builder to the temporary map's folder and filename. The nodebuilder either updates this .WAD file, or creates another temporary .WAD file with the nodes in it. Then, the editor waits until that program has finished, and then grabs the finished .WAD file, while cleaning up any temporary copies.

 

My point is that these programs need to be able to open, modify, close, and delete .WAD files in certain folders. Those folders need to allow this type of activity. Hopefully, this gives you an idea what to look for.

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9 hours ago, kb1 said:

Sounds like a folder permissions type thing. The newer OSes believe that they need to protect you from yourself, under the guise of security, and they lock out programs from being able to write files to certain folders.

 

Typically, the editor saves a copy of the map somewhere, and then runs a separate program to build the nodes. The editor "points" the node builder to the temporary map's folder and filename. The nodebuilder either updates this .WAD file, or creates another temporary .WAD file with the nodes in it. Then, the editor waits until that program has finished, and then grabs the finished .WAD file, while cleaning up any temporary copies.

 

My point is that these programs need to be able to open, modify, close, and delete .WAD files in certain folders. Those folders need to allow this type of activity. Hopefully, this gives you an idea what to look for.

I think your advice has gotten me closer to solving my issue, but the problem has not been fixed yet.

 

I went to the compilers folder in Doom Builder 2 and edited the properties in ZenNode, and under security I set it to allow "modify" and "write". That did not work so I set it to allow "full control" which also didn't work. There is a "special permissions" option that it will not let me change. Trying to edit the security properties on the folder I store my custom .wads in leads me to a string of windows that I can't properly navigate.

 

Am I on the right path or do you think that I'm looking in the wrong place? My operating system is Windows 8.1 if that helps.

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Make sure to install Doom Builder, install source ports, save your wads etc., somewhere else than into Program Files.

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2 hours ago, scifista42 said:

Make sure to install Doom Builder, install source ports, save your wads etc., somewhere else than into Program Files.

 

2 hours ago, Vorpal said:

Are... you trying to save your wads in \program files\ ?

My .wads and source ports are not in the program files, though Doom Builder is... If that is the problem then I guess I will need to reinstall Doom Builder so that it is not there. I will let know if it works.

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I've reinstalled Doom Builder 2 and the problem has not been fixed. After messing with the .wad's folder properties some more I noticed that a "read only" option was checked, which I promptly deselected and clicked "apply", nothing changed and after reopening the properties I found that my changes were not saved and that it was still marked as "read only". Does anyone have anymore advice?

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You likely have a square box in your wads' folder properties, not a checkmark. The square means basically, "permissions within vary". read/write permissions are per file as far as I know, so if you are having a problem with a file check the permissions for that specific file (the actual .wad in this case)

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On 2017-07-21 at 0:54 PM, Vorpal said:

You likely have a square box in your wads' folder properties, not a checkmark. The square means basically, "permissions within vary". read/write permissions are per file as far as I know, so if you are having a problem with a file check the permissions for that specific file (the actual .wad in this case)

Yes it appears as a square box instead of a check mark. I checked the properties and none of the individual files in the folder are marked as "read only", though the folders themselves are. I have two separate subfolders within the main folder, which are each marked as "read only" as well; one contains a bunch of old maps that I made when I was still a beginning mapper (as such most are quite awful), the other contains Master Levels for Doom II PWADS that I spliced together into a single PWAD to run alongside Doom II without needing to relaunch ever level. I checked and every file in each folder is not marked as "read only"

 

It just occurred to me that it may be useful to show the actual error message that appears every time I click 'save', so here it is:

 

"Unable to remove temporary compiler files. UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied."

 

I still need help on this, I greatly appreciate the help I've already gotten.

Edited by Skeletonpatch

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13 hours ago, Mr.Rocket said:

? Your anti-virus maybe throwing a false positive with ZenNode ?

It could be, though I have gone into my antivirus' settings and configured it to specifically ignore Doom Builder and ZenNode (at least that is what I think I was doing, it isn't made clear by the antivirus software), and it still tells me that "Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied". My antivirus is Norton 360 as I've mentioned before. Does anyone have any more ideas?

Edited by Skeletonpatch

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You talked about moving Doom Builder out of Program Files, but what about zennode.exe?

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17 hours ago, Empyre said:

You talked about moving Doom Builder out of Program Files, but what about zennode.exe?

ZenNode is installed in the 'Compilers' folder housed within the Doom Builder folder, so I can't see how it could still be in the Program Files. Maybe I should try moving my custom wad folder into the Doom Builder folder? I'll see if that changes anything...

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Nope, it doesn't...

 

This entire issue is really starting to get on my nerves! Reinstalling Doom Builder outside of the program files changes nothing! Telling my antivirus to ignore it changes nothing! Setting files to not be 'read only' changes nothing! I would be awesome if the error message provided more info than just "Unable to remove temporary compiler files. UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied."! What is denying access? Which direction is this path going? The way this statement is worded suggests that the .wad is trying to access ZenNode, which makes no sense to me, as I would think that it would be ZenNode trying to access the .wad!

 

This is clearly not a very common problem, as I could not find any solutions anywhere, hence why I created this thread (and registered for Doomworld in the first place to be honest, and I am loving the community so far). What angers me the most is that it does not seem to affect any functionality in Doom Builder or in testing, which makes it seem like it should be super easy to fix!

 

I thank everyone who has lent there advice to me, but I still need more. Who knew that giving access to a program that does something originally coded for a game in 1993 would be so challenging?

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Without doing any research I'm just guessing it's Doom Builder trying to manage temporary backups of the map data, but the area it tries to do this is protected by the OS (\program files\). I've never heard of or experienced this happening with Doom Builder though. Perhaps you went out of your way to change some setting (e.g. I'm pretty sure by default, backups are done in the wad destination directory, not the Doom Builder directory).

 

There is always the option of just not building nodes in DB, and then running your nodebuilder of choice from the command line or batch file (once upon a time, the only option we had!)

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2 hours ago, Vorpal said:

Without doing any research I'm just guessing it's Doom Builder trying to manage temporary backups of the map data, but the area it tries to do this is protected by the OS (\program files\). I've never heard of or experienced this happening with Doom Builder though. Perhaps you went out of your way to change some setting (e.g. I'm pretty sure by default, backups are done in the wad destination directory, not the Doom Builder directory).

 

There is always the option of just not building nodes in DB, and then running your nodebuilder of choice from the command line or batch file (once upon a time, the only option we had!)

Doom Builder, ZenNode and my .wads are contained in folders on the desktop, I did a reinstall of Doom Builder and have not messed with really any settings at all. Doom Builder and ZenNode are in the same folder while my .wads are in a different folder. I am thinking that maybe there should be a subfolder inside of Doom Builder's that you are meant to store custom .wads in, though I already tried that and as you can see in my previous post it did not work much to my frustration.

 

I just created a new map and every time I tested it there were no error messages, then when I went to save it I was given an insane amount of errors, suggesting that even though I hadn't saved it anywhere and I assume it would have been a temporary file in Doom Builder somewhere, the access was still denied to ZenNode.

 

I have no experience using a command line for editing .wads and I feel so lucky that it is no longer a requirement, I remember watching one of my cousins fighting to use deepsea in the early 2000s, LONG before I ever even touched zdoom; hell I remember my dad talking about how one of my uncles spent months trying to figure out how to create a long corridor without anything in it sometime in the late '90s. I know that in terms of editing software available, I am pretty lucky compared to what was available in the past. The first time I played any Doom game all the way through was using a terrible DOSBOX port that didn't even have an option to go full screen (it was a tiny non-resizable window that I had to lean way to close to the screen to see) and required that I type a command every time I wanted to launch it, so I can sort of estimate how difficult it was. That aside, this problem is still pissing me off and I feel that there is no reason for it to even exist. I've had nodebuilder errors before, but those were related to a specific map I was making that was way to massive for its own good, this happens no matter what size of a map I am dealing with!

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So that's a clue, your use of the test map feature. That creates a wad file in \AppData\Local\Temp\ and runs it in the port you configured, and should delete it after you exit the port. 

 

Are you not exiting the source port in your test sessions, or are the temp wad files not deleting properly? You can find the exact file path if your port has a verbose console (e.g. zdoom, eternity).

 

And no using command line tools is not scary as long as they have documentation. I was about 12 and not exactly computer literate when I figured out a lot of these tools.

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There's an other Doomworld topic of the same problem from 2012 but no solutions.

 

The Builder creates one temporary work folder per session in:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Temp (Win Vista/7/8 or newer)

 

The folder gets a random name such as: aktx3z37, ml4a91b0, x072g8z0... If DB does crash the folder and it files will survive as a backup. If DB exits normally the work folder is always deleted. But a new work folder is created everytime DB is opened and editing of a wad is started.

 

This might be related to DB2 itself. Could you try out some of the last DB2 or even the latest GZDB SVN builds? They're all newer than the last offical DB2 (1553) with installer:

https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/doombuilder2/
https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/gzdbbf/
 

Or if you have a reasonable modern computer, try running DB in admin mode: Right-click the Builder.exe file, or it's shortcut, and select Run as administrator. Does that have any change?
 

Edited by dl_simc

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47 minutes ago, Vorpal said:

Are you not exiting the source port in your test sessions, or are the temp wad files not deleting properly? You can find the exact file path if your port has a verbose console (e.g. zdoom, eternity).

I exit the source port every time I finish testing the map. Taking your suggestion, I looked at the in-game console after testing a brand new, not-saved-anywhere map and found the file path to the "temp" folder, the folder is filled with what I assume are temporary Doom Builder folders, they are all empty and the one that was listed in the console of the testing session is not present in the "temp" folder.

 

18 minutes ago, dl_simc said:

There's an other Doomworld topic of the same problem from 2012 but no solutions.

 

The Builder creates one temporary work folder per session in:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Temp (Win Vista/7/8 or newer)

 

The folder gets a random name such as: aktx3z37, ml4a91b0, x072g8z0... If DB does crash the folder and it files will survive as a backup. If DB exits normally the work folder is always deleted. But a new work folder is created everytime DB is opened and editing of a wad is started. Old DBs also leave dll files (93 kb or more) in the Temp folder. But those folders and dlls are all viped out if you ever use ccleaner or some other system cleaner.

 

This might be related to DB2 itself. Could you try out some of the last DB2 or even the latest GZDB SVN builds? They're all newer than the last offical DB2 (1553) with installer:

https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/doombuilder2/
https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/gzdbbf/
 

You responded while I was typing this! The folders in the Temp folder are named randomly in that format. I have ccleaner but haven't used it in months. My only experience with map-making in Doom is with Doom Builder 2. I have been experiencing this issue for a while and can't honestly say when it started, it very well could have been when I first installed Doom Builder on my current PC. Which is my second computer and third time I had installed Doom Builder 2 on any computer I might add, the first time was on my Dad's computer and the second time was on my first laptop (which died of a severe case of bad quality-assurance). This problem very well could have originated when I installed it on this computer for all I can remember, it just hasn't bothered me much due to being to busy to mess with Doom Builder much until now...

 

After looking at the thread you linked, I see that this person had the attention of CodeImp, the problem was not resolved and I notice that the version discussed is the same version I am using... There isn't a solution to this problem I guess... Welp! I guess I'm gonna need to try GZDoom Builder then!

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Just installed GZDoom Builder, I did NOT receive a "Unable to remove temporary compiler files. UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied." when I saved the map! Though I absolutely hate that desktop icon. What was wrong with maybe recolouring the Doom Builder 2 icon or adding "GZ" in front of the Doom Builder 2 icon? Whatever I can change the icon to whatever I want. The important thing is that it didn't tell me that it was "Unable to remove temporary compiler files. UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied.", so as long as I never need to see "Unable to remove temporary compiler files. UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied." I will be happy! Better yet, GZDoom Builder has an interface very similar to photoshop! Yay! So I guess the solution to "Unable to remove temporary compiler files. UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied." is to just install a different piece of software altogether! I say thanks to everyone who tried their best to help a Newbie like me... Even if it turned out that my problem had no real solution. I have known of Doomworld for a while now, and I can't believe I didn't join sooner.

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Glad to hear you got it sorted!  GZDB is based on DB2, so whatever problem it was presumably it was fixed in the continued development of GZDB.

 

It's why most people here would recommend GZDB anyway: it's still in active development, so bugs have a chance of being fixed.  DB2 is a closed piece of software.

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On 7/23/2017 at 1:38 PM, Skeletonpatch said:

Nope, it doesn't...

 

This entire issue is really starting to get on my nerves! Reinstalling Doom Builder outside of the program files changes nothing! Telling my antivirus to ignore it changes nothing! Setting files to not be 'read only' changes nothing! I would be awesome if the error message provided more info than just "Unable to remove temporary compiler files. UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'ZenNode.exe' is denied."! What is denying access? Which direction is this path going? The way this statement is worded suggests that the .wad is trying to access ZenNode, which makes no sense to me, as I would think that it would be ZenNode trying to access the .wad!

 

This is clearly not a very common problem, as I could not find any solutions anywhere, hence why I created this thread (and registered for Doomworld in the first place to be honest, and I am loving the community so far). What angers me the most is that it does not seem to affect any functionality in Doom Builder or in testing, which makes it seem like it should be super easy to fix!

 

I thank everyone who has lent there advice to me, but I still need more. Who knew that giving access to a program that does something originally coded for a game in 1993 would be so challenging?

ZenNode.exe is not a path - it is a filename. I can only provide general advice, since I'm not at my game PC, but here goes:

 

DB need to know 3 things:

  • The full path and filename of the node builder.
  • The full path of where to place the temporary .wad file to be built.
  • The full path and name of the output file.

Somewhere in your DB configuration (visible in a dialog, in a config file, or in the Windows registry, do not know which), one or all of these are messed up.

Are there any spaces in any of the subfolders leading to where ZenNode.exe is located? If so, the path must be enclosed in double-quotes.

 

I find it strange that the install does not set this stuff up properly. I'm sorry - without being at my game PC, or in front of your PC, I cannot suggest any more than that. Good luck.

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3 hours ago, kb1 said:

ZenNode.exe is not a path - it is a filename. I can only provide general advice, since I'm not at my game PC, but here goes:

 

DB need to know 3 things:

  • The full path and filename of the node builder.
  • The full path of where to place the temporary .wad file to be built.
  • The full path and name of the output file.

Somewhere in your DB configuration (visible in a dialog, in a config file, or in the Windows registry, do not know which), one or all of these are messed up.

Are there any spaces in any of the subfolders leading to where ZenNode.exe is located? If so, the path must be enclosed in double-quotes.

 

I find it strange that the install does not set this stuff up properly. I'm sorry - without being at my game PC, or in front of your PC, I cannot suggest any more than that. Good luck.

I've already switched to GZDoom Builder, which does not have this problem. I know that ZenNode.exe is an executable, not a path, that's just the way the error was worded on screen for some reason.

 

In my mind this problem has been solved, just not the way I thought it would be. I thank everyone who lent their help to me.

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A stab in the dark but I wonder if you have nonenglish windows with moonrunes in the file path

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On 7/29/2017 at 1:35 AM, Skeletonpatch said:

I've already switched to GZDoom Builder, which does not have this problem. I know that ZenNode.exe is an executable, not a path, that's just the way the error was worded on screen for some reason.

 

In my mind this problem has been solved, just not the way I thought it would be. I thank everyone who lent their help to me.

I knew that *you* know ZenNode.exe is a file - I was suggesting that the program thinks ZenNode.exe is a folder, which is why the message is worded that way. When a programmer shows a "path not found: X" message, it is a good indicator that the program is trying to use X as a path. It's an important clue suggesting how to fix the problem.

 

But GZDoom Builder basically *is* DB2, with some additional good stuff, and, obviously a better install, so I'm glad you found a way to map again!

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