Clemens Katzer

Yes, you were right. Probably due to some recent maintenance. Should be up again now.

Well, Colossus and Java Web Start ( = the jnlp file) which is used to run it, is ancient, so I am surprised that anybody is even able to still run it. Colossus is written in Java and as such there is no ".exe" file. One runs java.exe with Colossus.jar as argument (plus some other stuff). Basically there's three ways to run Colossus: 1) Java Web Start 2) Double-clicking the Jar file 3) From a commandline, run the Java executable with some arguments, basically that is what the run.bat file does. So,...

You must run that being in the directory where the colossus.jar is, and there must be a directory "libs" in it which contains the jdom library. And I think it's best to run the "run.bat" command, not the java command directly. When I rename the libs folder away, I get same error: [clemens@f31clemens Colossus]$ mv libs libbss [clemens@f31clemens Colossus]$ [clemens@f31clemens Colossus]$ [clemens@f31clemens Colossus]$ ./run Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/jdom/Content...

Hm, I have no idea what could cause this. Windows updates perhaps installed a new Java version or something? I haven't even started Colossus myself for probably over a year... I assume your report is when playing locally, not the public server. That one I would understand if it's slow, haven't restarted it for ages :) to the fact that the executable jar file also doesn't work What do you mean with that - you have at some point downloaded the jar and double-click it now in Explorer? That way some...

Hello, if anything, Colossus works probably better on older browsers than newer ones. New browsers (and newer Java versions) have more tightened security settings, not allowing self-signed jars, by default not allowing certain older, considered weak and obsolete encryption types (sha1, md5, ...) and so on. I am using Firefox 82.0.2 , and I think had to tweak security settings (commenting out some config lines that disabled certain older algorithms.... (though I needed that mostly for some other purpose,...

Good to hear! (what specifically did you do, in case others run into the same problem?) T: Clemens

Yes, I am still "here". I don't have any devenv setup but overall I am "open" to the idea to do small changes if it help Colossus to go on. Since java web start seems to be being phased out, I was even toying with the idea to provide something like a docker container or minimal VM (e.g. inside Oracle Virtualbox?) where users could run Colossus inside.

The traditional way to start java applications like Colossus is/was based on "Java Web Start", that what is what the jnlp file is for; one can also run the jar file directly, see further below. In general, Java Web Start is a dying technology, so it might be that some browsers do not allow web start any more at all. You might need to try different browsers (Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Opera). This post here gives some help with the web start approach: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-desktop/i-cant-open-jnlp-files-in-windows-10-pls-help/58c9ce28-281e-4b9d-8fe2-cbe9fdffef0e...