"nil is not a string" error message while starting a game

[inter5tella]

Installing the Abuse CD version and running it will show me the following error message while the game is loading the required files.

However, loading the game in the legacy DosBox will not show the error message refering to 'nil' and loads the abuse.lsp properly.

[schellingb]

I cannot reproduce this here. Can you open up the installed game and check the file "ABUSE.LSP"? You should be able to find it inside a file called something like "Abuse.pure.zip" inside the "Saves" directory of your RetroArch installation. ABUSE.LSP should be next to ABUSE.EXE and should be around 1416 bytes of size.
Alternative can you try to install the game in legacy DOSBox and then run what was installed there in DOSBox Pure? So that we can figure out if the installation is the problem or the game itself.

Alternatively you could get the game data and source from this page http://abuse.zoy.org/wiki/download and extract the "data" directory out of abuse-0.8.tar.gz. Then add the ABUSE.EXE from your DOS version to create a full package for DOS. Though I haven't tested more than just launching the first level with this. There is also https://github.com/Xenoveritas/abuse/releases/tag/v0.9.1 which has maybe even more fixes but misses the sound effect files so you'll need to start off from that 0.8 download anyway.

[inter5tella]

Hi,

here's the content of the abuse.lsp:

;; Copyright 1995 Crack dot Com,  All Rights reserved
;; See licensing information for more details on usage rights


(perm-space)

(setq load_warn nil)
(setq section 'game_section)
(if (not (load "lisp/english.lsp"))             ;; load language specific stuff
    (progn
      (print "Please make sure you unzipped the game with the -d option")
      (print "so that all directories get created properly.")      
      (print "example : pkunzip -d abusXXXX.zip")      
      (quit)))
(setq load_warn T)


(load "lisp/common.lsp")
(load "lisp/userfuns.lsp")
(load "lisp/options.lsp")     
(load "lisp/startup.lsp")
(if (not (local_load "lisp/input.lsp"))   ; get local copy first
    (load "lisp/input.lsp"))

(load "lisp/sfx.lsp")
(load "lisp/gates.lsp")
(load "lisp/duong.lsp")
(load "lisp/ant.lsp")
(load "lisp/people.lsp")
(load "lisp/weapons.lsp")
(load "lisp/explo.lsp")
(load "lisp/platform.lsp")
(load "lisp/guns.lsp")
(load "lisp/jugger.lsp")
(load "lisp/flyer.lsp")
(load "lisp/teleport.lsp")
(load "lisp/general.lsp")
(load "lisp/powerup.lsp")
(load "lisp/doors.lsp")
(load "lisp/light.lsp")
(load "lisp/ladder.lsp")
(load "lisp/switch.lsp")

(setq bad_guy_list (list DARNEL ANT_ROOF TRACK_GUN SPRAY_GUN JUGGER ROB1 WHO ROCKET FLYER GREEN_FLYER BOSS_ANT))

(gc)              ;; garbage collection perm space
(tmp-space)       ;; execute game code in tmp space which is not GC'ed

(create_players DARNEL)

I've used DosBox Pure 0.9.9 and DosBox 0.7.4 via Launchbox and the file did load without any issues.
It seems this issue is only existing while using DosBox Pure in the latest Batocera Linux on a Rasberry Pi.
I've tried to make a franken-build like you've described but it will always fail while loading the abuse.lsp.

I've checked some forums regarding "nil is not a string" and it seems to be a much high complex issue, not only related to this game.
Unfortunately, this is exceeding my knowledges about computing.

[alexb3d]

some related info if you find it useful.

The 10MB "Abuse (USA) (En,Fr,De).zip" version has weird bugs...
When I first installed it, it didn't configure MIDI.
When I rebooted it did configure MIDI and it worked fine.
The third time I ran it, it didn't show any video, the screen was black.

The "Abuse (Europe) (En,Fr,De) (Rerelease).zip" version does work fine.