Hey people:

I've reached the 4th scenario of the Fiery Moon chapter of Heroes Chronicles and when it tries to load this fourth scenario (titled The Fiery Moon), the game crashes with a Runtime error - "abnormal program termination" message. It mentions the MP3DEC.ASI file as the fault module.

No problem with the first three scenarios of this one. I don't think it has something to do with the Dual Processor problems as Heroes 3 ran without any crashes (Chronicles sometimes crashes, but all the previous Heroes Chronicles chapters would only occasionally crash in game, never when loading). Couldn't find a dsound.ini file to modify per previous post....

Any suggestions??

Disable ingame sound effects and music then try loading again. Looks like problem with your sound device or sound driver,

Thanks for reply, Tarnum.

I did try that but no luck. Also tried various compatibility modes and the imagecfg.exe dual processor fix and it still crashes - only when loading that scenario - everything else has run fine.

The best post I could find about this problem is here:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TID=18269

Not sure, however, where Heroes Chronicles is in the registry (and I'd be nervous about changing stuff in there).

Tried that as well, even replayed the 3rd scenario, but the same crash when starting the 4th. Very strange.

This might be a little late, but I also got this error and, after days of frustration, finally found a solution. The issue apparently occurs when transferring some heroes (I suspect the non-stronghold ones) to the 4th map. Do you have an Inferno hero from the second map still in your party? If yes, try disbanding him before finishing the 3rd map and the error should no longer appear. It worked for me.

oooohh thanks a lot, that saved me from a lot of frustration :)

This fixed it for me. Lost a hard earned powerful hero but allowed me to finish the campaign.