Hoster won't open!

[EmilioM]

This past Fri. and Sat. the 10th & the 11th I did my shows and had no problems. Yesterday the 14th I did maintenance on my computer, ran Norton antivrus, and Tuneup utilities to defrag and clean up unnecessary files, and today I went to start up Hoster and got the window that says Hoster - Convert HDZIP Files, which is normal. I hit the cancel button like I always do and it beeped like normal and normally Hoster starts up after that, but it didn't. I right clicked on Hoster and hit properties and got Error processing file: H:\MTU\HOSTER\songs.mdb, and another saying Disk or Network error (3043). Also just want to say H is my hard drive. I went to My Documents, and Hoster 4.08 isn't there, even though 4.06, 4.05, and 4.03 are there. I tried redownloading 4.08 and installed it, but the same thing happened, then i installed 4.06 and then 3.4, but they won't open either. I have a Gateway GT5034 with Athlon 64x2 dual core running at 2.2Ghz, 2gig memory, NVidia GeForce 7300GS with 512mb memory, 320gig HD with 293 gig allocated to H drive and 65 gig free, and 2 Plextor 755SA DVD drives. HELP! EmilioM.

[ddouglass]

Sounds like your Tuneup utility delete something needed.
The files have not been in Documents and settings since version 3.321 at least. Look in H:\MTU\Hoster and see if Songs.mdb is there. That is where it is supposed to be.
If it is there and still won't open then it may be corrupt which means you need to delete it and the backup then re-open Hoster which should rebuild it.

[EmilioM]

I looked under H:\MTU\Hoster and all the songs are under KMA Files folder. Also where is the backup located?

[EmilioM]

By the way, I've used the Tuneup utility before without any problems. If that's the cause, I'll have to delete it.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Hey Emilio,
Dale wants you to look for the songs.mdb, not your KMA files. According to the information you gave it is supposed to be in your H:\MTU\Hoster folder.

Also have you tried rebuilding your database?

Jim

[EmilioM]

I have a few Microsoft Access Application folders, all which contain the songs, which are named songs, songs_backup, temp, & temp_songs, but none that actually say songs.dbs. As far as rebuilding, don't I have to have Hoster open to rebuild? If so, I can't get Hoster to open.

[ddouglass]

They are Access files and named Songs.mdb, Songs_Backup.mdb, and Temp.mdb. You should also find one labeled Singers.mdb if you have used the Singers database in Hoster.
Since Hoster can't open with the Songs.mdb it is probably corrupted, so delete that file and open Hoster. It should rename the Songs_backup to Songs and continue opening. If it still won't open then delete the Songs_backup.mdb and the temp.mdb then open it again. It should then rebuild the database automatically. If it doesn't then manually go in and rebuild it.

[EmilioM]

I deleted the songs dbs first and it did rebuild, but afterwards Hoster still didn't open. So then I deleted the other folders (backup), and rebuilt the db but it still didn't work.

[ddouglass]

Then tune-up has deleted something needed for it to operate.
Does your Tune-up program have some way to restore files?
If not you are going to have to try a Windows Restore.

[EmilioM]

Yes it did have a restore function and I restored 3 things. Also I tried Windows restore and it still doesn't work.

[ddouglass]

What files did you restore from Tuneup?
You may need to Restore all of them except the obvious ones that are temp files and such.
When re-installing are you doing the Remove and Re-install or Upgrade?
Try doing the Remove and check the box at the bottom of the personal information page. This will clear the Registry entries too. Then Re-install. Hopefully that will clear the problem.

[EmilioM]

Dale, I restored all three files that were deleted. They all had to do with Hoster, I don't remember what they were, but they had alot of numbers and letters that didn't spell anything out but at the end of it it did say Hoster. I went ahead and redownloaded Hoster and replaced it instead of upgrading and also checked the box that removed all stored settings, and it works!!!! Now I have to redo my marquee and I'm all set. Thanx to you Dale and everyone else for your help.

[ddouglass]

Glad that got it going again. By doing that it does remove all the settings so you have to reset anything you changed, such as the marquee. You may have to reset up your display too if you had anything special set-up there such as the singers display lists.
The only files I can think of for Hoster that have letters and numbers like that would be saved playlists which would be DEF001.HST, DEF002.HST, etc.
Is there any way in Tuneup to have it exclude file types or specific folders on the hard drive? If so I would make sure the Hoster files are not checked in the future.

[EmilioM]

Dale, thanks again for all your help. If it wasn't for you and some of the other people who are on these forums, alot of us would be in deep poo. I'll have to check to see if Tuneup Utilities will let me exclude some things. The thing about it, I've had that program for quite some time now and I've used it before with no problems. I've already got my marquee and my background up and running and just finished getting all my instabuttons back. Thanks, EmilioM
PS. Those files were not the DEF001.HST files. The string of numbers and letters were very long, about 3/4 of the way across the screen.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Originally Posted by EmilioM

PS. Those files were not the DEF001.HST files. The string of numbers and letters were very long, about 3/4 of the way across the screen.

Emilio,
I'm glad Dale got you up and running. I don't know for sure because I'm not in front of your computer but these files with the very long string of numbers sound to me like they are registry entries.

In the future, if your "cleanup" program won't give you a way to leave the MTU registry entries alone, go through the list it provides before you delete the registry entries and make sure you are not deleting any that are related to MTU products.

I hope this information helps to prevent this problem from happening again.


Jim

[ddouglass]

Jim is right those would be registry entries. This is why I don't like registry cleaners because they don't check to see if the string is involved with an active program.

[EmilioM]

Jim, I appreciate all the help that you, Dale, & Mark have given me. I have a gig the next 2 days, and I was starting to panic. Thanks again. I think that those entries were registry entries. Like I told Dale, I've used the Tuneup Utilities program many times in the past, and it's never deleted needed entries. What it would delete were worthless entries that were empty or didn't point to anything, (ie. shortcuts to programs that had been deleted) and other useless entries. In fact, it was my fault because I trusted the program so much, that when it asks to clean up and repair, I don't even look at what's being deleted. I just say yes, since I've never had any reason to doubt it would just take care of the junk only. From here on out, I'll definately be more careful and check every entry that it wants to clean.
JR