Sorry if this has been reported before, just returned to Aurora after many years away and my searches for found nothing. . .
Problem: If the folder related to the user variable "TMP" has been deleted, Aurora will crash on start. First with an "invalid picture" error. Then if you try to open again, with an "Aurora returned -1". This crash also appears to corrupt the database.
Background: Another game I play frequently apparently also uses the "TMP" folder. When I exit that game it not only deletes the contents of the "TMP" folder but also deletes the "TMP" folder itself. If I then try opening Aurora, the missing "TMP" folder causes the crash above. If I manually recreate the "TMP" folder prior to opening Aurora, then no issues are found.
Recommended Fixes
1) Check for presence of the "TMP" folder prior to accessing it. If the folder is not present, then create the folder. (As said above, I am manually doing this now and it seems to be an effective work around. )
2) Use a different user variable name to something less obvious / more specific to Aurora. Something like "Aurora_TMP" would have much less potential overlap than "TMP" or "Temp", I'd imagine. (Just a friendly suggestion, as #1 fixes it. )
Thanks