On FAF client launch: "Errors occurred" -- FreeImage problem

[Retnut]

Hi folks,

I recently started playing FA again and when I found out about the FAF community I was pretty stoked. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get the client to launch.

I am running Win 7 x64. When I run FAF I get the following error dialog on startup:

It reads: Errors occurred
See the logfile 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever\FAForever.exe.log' for details

Logfile
Here is a pastebin of the logfile: http://pastebin.com/gyr7y8Fc
And here is an excerpt from the end:

...
C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever\FAForever.lib\FreeImagePy\library.py:92: FunctionNotFound: Error on bind FreeImage_FindNextMetadata.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever\FAForever.lib\FreeImagePy\library.py:92: FunctionNotFound: Error on bind FreeImage_FindCloseMetadata.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever\FAForever.lib\FreeImagePy\library.py:92: FunctionNotFound: Error on bind FreeImage_IsLittleEndian.
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.pyc", line 56, in excepthook
NameError: global name 'logger' is not defined

Original exception was:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.py", line 44, in <module>
File "util\__init__.pyc", line 557, in <module>
File "util\crash.pyc", line 24, in <module>
File "fa\__init__.pyc", line 82, in <module>
File "fa\maps.pyc", line 39, in <module>
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever\FAForever.lib\FreeImagePy\__init__.py", line 35, in <module>
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever\FAForever.lib\FreeImagePy\FreeImagePy.py", line 84, in __init__
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Forged Alliance Forever\FAForever.lib\FreeImagePy\library.py", line 95, in __init__
AttributeError: 'internlLibrary' object has no attribute 'lib'

The problem seems to be that the FreeImagePy library is unable to load the FreeImage dll. I have verified this by editing library.py within FAForever.lib to output error messages to the log at various points during execution.

Problem Research

• In my research I found this thread from the FAForever forums: http://www.faforever.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3398
  (I am posting a new thread as that one is a few months old and did not lead to a resolution of the issue)
• There is also this thread at the FreeImage community on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/p/freeimage/discussion/36110/thread/642f3b7e/
  Of note here is a reply by Hervé Drolon from the FreeImage community that reads:

  Hi,
  FreeImagePy (http://freeimagepy.sourceforge.net/) is based on FreeImage 3.9.x.
  I suspect that this library no longer work with the latest FreeImage version.
  Hervé

• And finally, here is the first mention of this error I can find (from May 2012): http://pastebin.com/LX8uVWMK

Troubleshooting thus far

• Disabled antivirus (Microsoft Security Essentials) / Result: no change
• Downgraded to older version of FreeImagePy / Result: no change
• Downgraded FreeImage dll / Result: no change
  note: I have been unable to find a 3.9.x dll as suggested by Hervé. I have also been unable to find a 3.7.x dll which is listed as a requirement in the FreeImagePy readme. I can compile these from source if there is a reason to believe this would be worthwhile, but this bug has been in the wild for a year and I've already downgraded to a 2-year-old release of FreeImage.
• Installed FAF on a new user profile / Result: no change
• Reinstalled FA and SupCom (original install was GPG/retail disc, new install is Steam) / Result: no change
• Played around with FreeImagePy lib to diagnose the dll loading issue / Result: diagnostic
• Reinstalled FAF (multiple times) / Result: no change
• Run as administrator / Result: no change

My VC++ runtime is up to date.
System Restore is not an option as I've never had a working FAF install.

I'm technically inclined and willing to hack at this if the problem is tractable, but I don't know enough about this library's history and dependencies to go much further at present. The next "troubleshooting" step as I see it is to reinstall Windows. I have a Win 8 key I could install but it'll be a week or so before I have time to sit down and get it done. Any advice as to how to proceed would be very much appreciated!

Thanks folks,
Retnut

[Ze_PilOt]

I'm not really sure what is happening as it work on 99% of the PCs.

I will try to swap the library to openImageIO soon.

[Kalessin]

I had the same issue and after scouring my PC for other copies of freeimage.dll I found a copy in my install of the PythonXY IDE, which was on my system path. Removing this fixed the problem, you could try a search to see if you have any copies of this dll on your path elsewhere.