Hi Newsgroup Members,
I'd like to share my experience and solution to the "Unable to initialize
catalog" error. When I first began to work with Platform Builder, this error
cost me weeks. I, by trial-and-error and some chance, could solve the
problem. However, I occasionally receive e-mails from people who have the
same error and saw my name while researching the google postings. I hope
people, who look for this error in the wince* groups of google, will see
this answer from now on.
I live in Turkey and by default I install the operating system using Turkish
regional settings. There's nothing abnormal in doing this. However, if you
try to install PB using Turkish regional settings, you receive "Unable to
initialize catalog" error in the first couple of minutes of your
installation process. Although PB seems to complete the installation, it is
not installed completely and correctly and any platform build command will
result in a critical error at the very beginning of the sysgen phase. My
solution is to set the following in the Regional Settings:
Regional Options tab:
Standards and formats: English (United States)
Location : Turkey
Advanced tab:
Language for non-unicode programs: Turkish
The most important setting of the above is the "Standards and formats"
selection. Apparently PB uses only English (US) settings and gives the
mentioned error if this condition is not satisfied. The solution is simple:
Uninstall PB completely from your system, change your regional settings,
install PB again.
I can't say that this is the only cause of "Unable to initialize catalog"
error, and hence it may not be the only solution. I guess that people who
have different date-number-currency formats in their country and use that
format by default will receive this error, and can disregard it by applying
my solution. So far it worked with those whom I advised.
I could not find this error and its solution documented anywhere, so I hope
I will be helpful to those who seek for an answer in vain.
Good luck with your work,
--
Selin Metin
selinm_at_esit_dot_com_dot_tr