I've seen this error. I posted a note regarding its cause in #dosbox but i dunno if anyone noticed. I suppose I should post to the forum instead. So I shall:

[20:45:08] <zeromus> line 338 in sdl_mapper.cpp: assert(sdl_joystick=SDL_JoystickOpen(stick));
[20:45:22] <zeromus> if you compile with debug flags then SDL_JoystickOpen() does not get called

But actually i misspoke and its when you compile WITHOUT debug flags that the assert() will be ignored and that function will not be called.

I have no idea why other compilers do not get that error. Maybe its another error. Check that out and see if it is the culprit.

Thanks. Although this will be probably a different problem. Fortunately the one I was referring to was fixed by QBIX (the problem was in not allocating enough space for some strings and then copying strings there - basically corrupting heap in the process). This was fixed in CVS. Ultima 8 now works ok in both debug and release in MSVC 2003 (and we got rid of one nasty bug).

Anyway: reports of any kinds of these errors are welcomed (mainly bugfix version 0.63 is being prepared at the moment).

Mirek

@zeromus: Thank you very much for this report. , I confirmed that this bug exists, basically breaking joystick support at least in MSVC 2003 builds (the function should not be in assert - asserts are probably left out from release).
I put the information on beta board.

Good luck in further bughunting... 😀

Mirek