[SOLVED] AVOID trying to download and install 7th Heaven manager from it's official site for the current time being! Get and use strictly ONLY it's zipped form from the GitHub page!

[陳躍文]

Hello to everyone.
Today I've tried to install latest currently available stable version of 7th Heaven mod manager (3.3.1), I have latest .NET 7.0 (7.0.15) and 8.0 (8.0.1) installed, and installer of 7th Heaven goes just fine without any issues roughly up to the middle point, then it suddenly stops and gives out an error message that reads as "audio_test_file.ogg can't be renamed in the destination directory, MoveFile failed; Code 5. Access Denied.", or something like that. Only options presented to me are "try again" (doesn't work - gives out same error again), "skip this file (not recommended)", and to cancel the installation. What can I do? Should I just skip, or is that file essential and would break functionality of the emulator (given it's being tagged as "not recommended" action), or is that a false-positive and everything would be fine? Or what's the way/how could I "fix" this problem? What's causing such behavior? It says "Access Denied", but there's no FireWall or AV restrictions on my system, for such files.
Also, I have (or at the very least I think I have) all C++ redistributable packages installed from 2005 and up to 2022, so those shouldn't be causing issues as well.

I've never installed or used 7th Heaven mod manager before, this is my first time, so I don't know what's causing this and how/if this can be fixed. Apparently, "FFNx" drivers need to be installed as well for FF VII/VIII modding, according to several resources, but I think I've read that versions of 7th Heaven post-2.3 include and install FFNx drivers automatically, so it shouldn't be the culprit of this particular problem of mine...or is it?

P.S.
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
Alright, everyone, I was able to figure it out/what the "issue" was by myself, through sheer trial & error methodology and pure power of stubborn perseverance. It turned out that, in all actuality, there was absolutely nothing wrong on MY end of things, with my hardware or software. Who's ACTUALLY to blame here, is solely only 7th Heaven's own official site (the https://7thheaven.rocks ) and whomever maintains distribution of 7th Heaven's "installer" on there, as the "installer" they're packaging the mod manager with IS what's actually causing the problem/error to happen to begin with! The INSTALLER is creating the "Code 5, Access Denied" error, even IF you have Administrator rights and all the necessary files at hand, regardless of anything else! So AVOID downloading this mod manager from the official 7th Heaven site, for the current time being, as it's "installer".exe is BROKEN and will NOT work properly. Get the latest version of this mod manager from it's initial GitHub page ( https://github.com/tsunamods-codes/7th-Heaven ) instead, and ONLY in a zipped up/archived variant, as it'll unpack ALL of the necessary files once you extract it from the archive, unlike the "installer".exe which WILL create an error in the middle of the installation process!

[N.E.R.M.A.L.]

I had a similar problem trying to install 7th Heaven today. Thanks for the heads up.

[陳躍文]

Also, I have found out that, when you're trying to configure/setup the 7th Heaven's "Game Driver" settings for the first time, which can be done once you run the game offline/out of Steam at least once, thus creating it's FFNx drivers hook to the 7th Heaven itself, it actually WON'T work properly right away, you won't be able to load Game Driver's settings menu, because there will be a "cannot read FFNx.toml file" error popup (which is essentially FFNx's equivalent of .ini/config file that can be edited/changed manually). As FFNx is really a DRIVER (hence the name), you have to reboot the system after it gets "installed" upon the first run of the game, just like with any typical sound/video or hardware drivers, so that your OS gets itself "accustomed with" it upon the next initialization and boot up. So don't forget to reboot the PC.

[norseman055]

Originally posted by Kawayol:

Also, I have found out that, when you're trying to configure/setup the 7th Heaven's "Game Driver" settings for the first time, which can be done once you run the game offline/out of Steam at least once, thus creating it's FFNx drivers hook to the 7th Heaven itself, it actually WON'T work properly right away, you won't be able to load Game Driver's settings menu, because there will be a "cannot read FFNx.toml file" error popup (which is essentially FFNx's equivalent of .ini/config file that can be edited/changed manually). As FFNx is really a DRIVER (hence the name), you have to reboot the system after it gets "installed" upon the first run of the game, just like with any typical sound/video or hardware drivers, so that your OS gets itself "accustomed with" it upon the next initialization and boot up. So don't forget to reboot the PC.

This. Right here. Make sure you restart AFTER running the game once through 7th Heaven prior to trying to access your Game Driver's settings menu. After restart, the game driver menu should work just fine.

[nagato_oneesan]

does anyone know if FF7 on 7th heaven can be run offline? we didn't have internet for a week, and wanted to play FF7 but it wouldnt run...says error mounting disc 1 2 3 or 4 and then nothing...i had played the game before and finished the reactor bombing mission...

[陳躍文]

Purely technically (at least according to mod manager's devs), "it should work fine with any PC release of first FF VII, including even the very first Eidos port from way back in the 1998" (with some caveats, however, if I recall correctly). This mod manager only hooks itself to and works with locally installed files, so it obviously shouldn't require online connection. It "goes online" Steam release-wise only as far as running the client and having online achievements functionality, but even then, the mod manager itself doesn't necessarily even need that, as it runs game's own original vanilla "FF7".exe by default, and just "wraps" it's own features over that (similar to how "nGlide wrapper" does it with "Tachyon - The Fringe"). Maybe you have bad dumps of discs, or discs themselves were damaged? I haven't tried the latest version of 7H yet as well, haven't updated it for a while (didn't play the game since May), so I dunno...

P.S.
The cause of the "problem" might also be SquE itself, in case if it "updated" the game's files in Steam itself, which lately been breaking a lot of their games' modding support or mods themselves. Same thing been happening with Capcom and several other companies' titles.