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CUni Installation
Basic installation
If you are running a version of the software earlier than 4.1 build 980 which was
released on Aug. 24, 2007 (any version with the name CTCUni rather than CUni), please
uninstall it prior to installing the new version. If you need to import telegrams,
custom entries under the teleports tab, or other custom settings, please
contact us for assistance before removal.
First, download the zipped
installer  ,and verify that the
system
and network requirements are met. Then follow
these steps for installation on a multi-user system:
- Unzip and run the installer with administrative privileges.
- Move the Desktop and Start Menu shortcuts to the All Users profile.
- Verify that users have read access to the shortcuts and write access to
the program folder.
- Configure the Windows firewall to allow traffic from CUni.
- The first time you run CUni, it will prompt for connection type.
Most users can choose LAN. If your network blocks outgoing connections
and you are unable to meet the required network configuration, use the
Autoconfigure option (which will use the proxy server tunnel.activeworlds.com
and port 443).
Additional Needs
Some of the web content accompanying the virtual worlds, and
resources on our web site, requires web browser plugins and other
support software and hardware. Please be sure to install or upgrade the following
if possible:
Testing
To test, log in to CUni. If you are logged in to the web site
with the user name tech, there is a CUni account
with the same name and password for you to use. If you run into
problems or do not have the tech login, please
use the account we provided or contact
us for login information. If you expect to
log in frequently to support CUni use, or if you find the test
account is in use, please contact us to resolve this as well.
Once logged in, you should see a 3D viewport,
chat window, and toolbar tabs on the sides of the screen for accessing
auto-hidden Web and Tabs windows. You can navigate the 3D space with the arrow
keys similar to many 3D games. There is a list of worlds under
the Worlds tab of the Tab Controls window; choose a couple to test
with (you won't be able to enter ones with a gray icon next to them).
Explore a bit. Try resizing the 3D viewport occasionally. Watch
for an entirely blue viewport, strange behavior resizing the
viewport, extremely low frame rate, continuing slow response,
serious rendering glitches and crashes, and failure to load
web sites.
Troubleshooting
Some issues we have seen are listed below along with suggested
solutions. You can also look through the
Active Worlds
Documentation for more possibilies.
- 3D content doesn't appear (without "file not found" icons), viewport
resize problems, rendering glitches, software crashes.
- These problems are often video-related. First make sure your
video drivers and DirectX are up to date. If that doesn't fix it,
try changing rendering mode (Options Menu, Settings, Video tab).
Software renderer is usually the most stable, but also the slowest.
If this doesn't work or performance is unacceptable, consider
changing video hardware or shrinking the 3D viewport.
- Crashes, or 3D objects don't load.
- Sometimes this is caused by problems writing to disk. Check
that the disk is not full (by default the software will use up to
250MB for caching content), and that users have write access to
the program folder.
- Users don't see or can't use program launch icons.
- The installer is not multi-user aware. The program shortcuts
must be manually moved from the Administrator's profile (the one
who installed the software) to the All Users profile. This applies
to both Desktop and Start Menu shortcuts. Alternatively, any
desired shortcuts can be created manually. Make sure users
are given read access to the shortcuts.
- Only see blue (usually) background and black triangles in
virtual worlds; some or all web pages don't appear in web panel.
- This could be caused by blocks on web content or web sites.
All of the 3D artwork is accessed via HTTP. The hosts we use are
listed on the network configuration
page.
- Browser can't connect; browser connects but no worlds are
listed, and title bar lists location as "Nowhere."
- This is usually caused by intermittent connectivity
problems, blocks on some or all of the required TCP ports, or
other firewall/networking issues.
- Software is not responsive (e.g. can't move in 3D space).
- There are various issues that can make the 3D viewport
appear unresponsive. First, try clicking the 3D
viewport then moving (to make sure it has keyboard focus) and
hold down shift while trying to move (this enables object
pass-through). If this doesn't help, or of the entire browser
(including menus, chat, etc) are unresponsive, it is likely a
networking issue. The browser often freezes briefly while
downloading large files (or smaller files with less bandwidth);
check the download progress bar on the left side of the status bar
for hints, and see if it recovers within reasonable time for
completing a file download. This could also be a video or disk
issue.
- Lab has limited bandwidth.
- Each machine that is running CUni will need to download
the artwork for each world entered. This is usually on the order
of 10MB per world (can be as much as 50MB), which can add up fast
for 10-20 computers in
use at the same time. Much of this information is cached after
the first use, but there are circumstances under which this doesn't
work. We have come up with alternative configurations to deal with
such issues; please contact us if this is a concern.
- Lab uses Deep Freeze or similar management tools.
- This is fine, but it means being careful about a few things.
First, cached content will be lost between sessions, which amplifies
any bandwidth issues. Also, any configuration settings that are changed
will be lost. So it is a bit more important to make sure the
configuration is "right" including video settings, screen layout,
teleport list, and Home location. It is also likely that configuration
changes will be helpful periodically.
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