BDE Problem

[Alan Charbonneau]

I've had Delphi 2.0 running for 2+ years with no problems - then my
hard drive crashed. I installed a new drive and reinstalled Delphi.
Now the BDE gives me an error message. My Delphi is installed on a
second hard drive (Drive "D") but on Drive "C" there is a Delphi.ini
file and a few other files with Delphi as part of the name (all more
than 2 years old).

Is this simply a matter of deleting these files or deleting and
reinstalling Delphi or what?

[Brian Bushay TeamB]

What is the error message you are getting?
If it is an early version of Delphi 2 it shipped with a version of BDE that is
not compatible with Fat32 and you would need to get a new bde to use it with
long filenames.

--
Brian Bushay (TeamB)
Bbu...@NMPLS.com

[Alan Charbonneau]

The error occurs when I drop a table component on the form and click on the
DatabaseName drop-down on the object inspector. The error message says: "An error
occurred while attempting to initialize the Borland Database Engine. Error
$2109".

This may in fact be an early version - the About selection from the help menu
shows 2.0 and I thought I had a version of 2.09 (or some such bug-fixed version),
but I can't find another cd so I assumed that I was wrong. However, when I first
installed Delphi 2.0 (prior to the 2.09 version), I was able to use it.

When I reinstalled Delphi, several 3rd party apps had tabs appear at the top (eg
Infopower), but without the icons. I did not expect the icons since I had not
reinstalled the 3rd party tools, but then again I didn't expect the tabs either.
It seems there are some files on my old C drive that have delphi info on them.

Questions: 1 - Would using something like Norton's cleansweep be a good idea?
2 - If I have the early version, is there a download available for upgrading or do
I have to get a new cd or what?

Thanks so much for your help.

[Alan Charbonneau]

Brian Bushay TeamB wrote:

The error is "can not load Idapi32.dll"
Are you sure you installed BDE?  if you did a custom install you might have
unchecked the BDE install.

Yes and no.  I did not do a custom install, just a standard one.  I found the Idapi32.dll in the BDE directory as expected.  However (should have mentioned this earlier), there was an error message at the end of the installation that I did not pay much attention to that I believed referenced the BDE.  Probably said something about it not being installed - I'll get to find out when I make the 3rd attempt.

 

Also check
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SOFTWARE | BORLAND | DATABASE ENGINE | DLLPATH.
and see if it points to the directory where idapi32.dll resides
 

Not sure where this registery is or what it is called.  I found a slew of *.reg files in the Windows & Subdirectories of Windows.  What is the exact name of this registery file?

 

 
I am not familiar with cleansweep

 
It is a Norton Utilities program that searches a hard drive for orphaned files, unused dlls, internet downloaded junk, etc.  I found a Delphi.ini file with a lot of old junk in it (directories for the 16-bit version that were not installed when I loaded to my new hard drive).  My assumption is that in the install process, Delphi is reading one of these old files and it is causing problems.  (This may be a superstitious belief on my part, but two years ago, Delphi installed without any problems).  I can certainly delete the Delphi.ini, Delphi32.ini files, but thought a software solution that scanned the entire disk would be more elegant as well as more thorough.

[Brian Bushay TeamB]

>The error occurs when I drop a table component on the form and click on the
>DatabaseName drop-down on the object inspector. The error message says: "An error
>occurred while attempting to initialize the Borland Database Engine. Error
>$2109".

The error is "can not load Idapi32.dll"
Are you sure you installed BDE? if you did a custom install you might have
unchecked the BDE install.

Also check

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SOFTWARE | BORLAND | DATABASE ENGINE | DLLPATH.
and see if it points to the directory where idapi32.dll resides

>Questions: 1 - Would using something like Norton's cleansweep be a good idea?

I am not familiar with cleansweep

>2 - If I have the early version, is there a download available for upgrading or do
>I have to get a new cd or what?

You can downlaod a newer BDE version at
http://www.inprise.com/devsupport/bde/index.html

[Alan Charbonneau]

Thanks, I'll try that.

More information that might have been useful in my earlier messages:

Early in the installation process, I get a dialog box with
the following: "String variable is not large enough for string. Check
the string declaration. Error 401". Does this mean that the direcotry
paths are too long and if so, how can I change them. I am using the
default directory settings (except changing the drive letter from C to
D).

At the end of the installation I get a warning dialog: "There was a
problem configuring BDE" (no error code).

Any idea as to what is causing the above messages? I imagine you are right that the
registry is not properly updated, by why the message about the string variable? This
program installed just fine two years ago and is now causing me great stress even though I
am following the directions.

Brian Bushay TeamB wrote:

> >Not sure where this registery is or what it is called. I found a slew of *.reg files
> >in the Windows & Subdirectories of Windows. What is the exact name of this registery
> >file?
>

> The windows registry is a binary file where Windows stores all its configuration
> settings. You will find a regedit.exe in the Windows directory for editing the
> registry but explaining how the registry works is beyond the scope of this
> message. I suggest you spend some time on www.microsoft.com researching the
> topic Registry.

[Alan Charbonneau]

I tried the regedit.exe.  In my registry for Borland, I found the following which leads me to believe that even using the Uninstall from Win95 doesn't remove the path statements from the registry.  It is also, most probably, the source of the error about the string variable  "String variable is not large enough for string.  Check the string declaration.  Error 401".   This is the only place in the registry that has mutlitple instances of the same path.

DLL PATH:

d:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE
d:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE
d:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE
d:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE
d:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE
D:\DELPHI32\Common Files\BDE;
D:\DELPHI32\Common Files\BDE
C:\Delphi32\Common Files\BDE
d:\delphi\Common Files\BDE;
C:\Program Files\Borland\Common Files\BDE
 

CONFIGFILE01:

C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\_ISTMP3.DIR\IDAPI32.CNF
(is this where the CONFIGFILE01 should reside or did the bombing out of the install due to the string variable leave an old path here?)

[Alan Charbonneau]

HOORAY!  SUCCESS!  I've got the system working - it seems that 10 copies of my path statement in the Registry were a bit of a problem, whereas one path statement works just fine.  Now I'll download a more recent BDE and get cookin'...  Thanks everyone for all of your help.  One final question, aside from a more recent BDE, are there any bug fixes/patches for D2?  I remember a bug fix cd but don't remember what significant changes were on it (maybe BDE, maybe something else).  Any ideas?

Thanks again.

[Alan Charbonneau]

Never mind the last question, my D2 exec is dated 6/11/96 at 2:01am so it must be ver 2.01.  I have another question instead - can I use the latest BDE version 5.10 with D2 or are there compatibility issues?

[Brian Bushay TeamB]

[Art Begun]

D5 requires BDE5 but earlier D should run later BDE.
Make sure you get BDE5.1 replacement dll for
the Sql driver I believe if you go with 5.1. I'm
not sure it comes in the 5.1 download.

[Alan Charbonneau]

Thanks - the info is very much appreciated.

[Craig Stuntz]

Alan Charbonneau wrote:

> Early in the installation process, I get a dialog box with
> the following: "String variable is not large enough for string. Check
> the string declaration. Error 401". Does this mean that the direcotry
> paths are too long and if so, how can I change them. I am using the
> default directory settings (except changing the drive letter from C to
> D).
>

> Any idea as to what is causing the above messages?

Glad to see you got your system working.

The above message is characteristic of a flaky InstallShield script.

Don't worry about it.

-Craig

--
Craig Stuntz cstuntz@no_spam.vertexsoftware.com
---------------- -----------------------------
Delphi Developer Vertex Systems Corporation
& Cat Wrangler http://www.vertexsoftware.com