BIQ Hospital: crash report & repairs

[Oni Ryuu]

This is a simple guide to help fix common bugs for mod developers.
I'd like to hear all about your bug squashing exploits to help make this a better tool.

Crashed with report

Spoiler :

Use the crash message to find the location
a) Fount it: Check the spelling or retype the effected file name/text.
b) It doesn’t exist: You’ll need a new file.
c) Nothing looks right: check that you’ve installed the mod and .biq in the correct location.

Never ending turn

Spoiler :

a) You may have a faulty upgrade path for one of your units. Make a list of the units that become available at the level of technology during the crash. If the upgrade path loops to itself the game will crash.

b) A civilisation may have been destroyed whilst it has a settler on a ship. This is unavoidable with the Conquests or Complete version of the game. The only known solution is to use Sima Qian’s multiplayer tool to hijack the player and disband the unit. Remember to deactivate the player afterwards.

c) A ship might be trying to unload an immobile unit directly onto the beach. Remove the AI strategy: offensive, defensive, explore, settle, terraform and army from immobile units.

Crashed to desktop

Spoiler :

a) A feature of your mod is fundamentally flawed.

b) You may have included faulty unit graphics. Delete the unit folder and replace it with an equivalent unit.

c) A civilisation may have been destroyed whilst it has a settler marked as a king on a ship. The only known solution is to use Sima Qian’s multiplayer tool to hijack the player and disband the unit. Remember to deactivate the player afterwards.

 

[Bluemofia]

Crash to desktop is murky, you'll need to do more analysis to figure it out. The majority of the time I encounter it is that there's something wrong with a unit animation, such as clipping to the edge of the frame, or something else weird. Other times it's because the AI is doing something stupid like trying to move an immobile unit.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’ve fixed the known bugs in my game. I’m trying to make a guide to help quickly identify and solve common problems.

The majority of the time I encounter it is that there's something wrong with a unit animation, such as clipping to the edge of the frame, or something else weird. Other times it's because the AI is doing something stupid like trying to move an immobile unit.

That’s the sort of information I’m interested in.
I’m pretty sure that landing an immobile unit causes a continuous load crash. Does it crash to desktop if it's initiated during a players turn?

I've added your information to the guide.

Crashed to desktop

You may have included faulty unit graphics. Delete the unit folder and replace it with an equivalent unit.

 

[Bluemofia]

I think it is the never ending AI turns. I thought you meant continuous load as in, when you load up the game, it never finishes loading.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

I’ll rephrase that to “Never ending turn” to avoid confusion.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I have a very specific one for Crash to Desktop.

If you destroy all of a Civ's cities in a mod, but they still have a Settler unit with the King flag on a Sea Transport, it will crash at the end of that AI Civ's turn. There may be an additional requirement that there is nowhere nearby for that Settler to land (All the nearby terrain was claimed).

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Hi MeteorPunch

Thanks for your report; I’ve added it to “Crashed to desktop”.

 

[Quintillus]

This thread is a very good idea. I don't know how many times over the years there have been threads saying, "My mod crashes/has infinite turns/etc.", and while sometimes the problem can be identified by another CFC member relatively quickly, othertimes it's quite painful - and usually by the time someone creates one of those threads they've already spent a lot of time trying to figure it out themselves. Having a thread like this that lists causes of these sorts of issues should make it easier to identify the problem.

Some, though not all, of them may also be detectable programmatically. For example, having a loop in the upgrade path would be easy to miss when editing a scenario yourself, but it would not be difficult to write an algorithm that checked every unit's upgrade path when you tried to save, and let you know if you had a loop in the upgrades.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

Some, though not all, of them may also be detectable programmatically. For example, having a loop in the upgrade path would be easy to miss when editing a scenario yourself, but it would not be difficult to write an algorithm that checked every unit's upgrade path when you tried to save, and let you know if you had a loop in the upgrades.

That’s exactly what I want but I don’t have the programming expertise and I didn’t want to mither anyone. It should be able to load the .biq and check or common errors.
If it were a little smarter; it could highlight areas of inconsistency bringing your attention to possible errors. For advanced mods you could enable customisable exclusion criteria so it doesn’t report the stuff you know works.

If you want to make the program you’ll make a lot of us much happier but I know it’s too much work for me to request it. There are uncomplimentary names for people who ask for much more than they contribute

 

[Quintillus]

That’s exactly what I want but I don’t have the programming expertise and I didn’t want to mither anyone. It should be able to load the .biq and check or common errors.
If it were a little smarter; it could highlight areas of inconsistency bringing your attention to possible errors. For advanced mods you could enable customisable exclusion criteria so it doesn’t report the stuff you know works.

If you want to make the program you’ll make a lot of us much happier but I know it’s too much work for me to request it. There are uncomplimentary names for people who ask for much more than they contribute

As it happens I was sufficiently inspired to write a check for finding this sort of loop earlier today. Although now that I'm testing it more I found that in some cases there is an infinite loop in my code that checks for infinite loops, so I'll have to fix that

No worries about ideas/suggestions for useful features. You and many others have more experience in making mods than I do, and thus a better idea of what the most useful improvements would be. I can write code to implement (some of) those improvements, but only if I know what they are.

As for contributions, this thread in slightly-more-built-out form would be quite useful for me in adding these sorts of features. Right now the knowledge on these categories of issues is mostly spread across the threads of C&C, and cataloging them would be a large undertaking. Having a single point-of-reference - even if that is in some cases a list of links to other threads - of what can go wrong and how to fix it would make it a lot easier for me to start on adding checks for them.

Specifics also are invaluable - what defines a valid unit graphic (or at least, what are common ways in which they are flawed - Bluemofia mentioned clipping to the edge of a frame, but as someone who doesn't design units, that isn't specific enough for me to add a check - or what are cases where a scenario is fundamentally flawed? Now that I have a list of issues/items to add - one of the best Civ-related organizing decisions I've made recently - it's also a little easier for me to find ideas in the future, so even if this thread were to fall off the front page I'd still have a way to keep visibility on checks that could be added.

 

[Oni Ryuu]

there is an infinite loop in my code that checks for infinite loops, so I'll have to fix that

That kind of stuff makes me giggle.

I’ll start contacting members to see if they want to help; the vets will have more technically exact information than I will.

Modding at lightning speed, here we go!

 

[Jorsalfare]

Regarding the infinite loop crash with an embarked settler belonging to a civilisation that are being wiped out: The fix (removal) can be done with Civ3MMtoolkit's "SaveGame Modifier". Also the somewhat related crash when AI attempts to disembark an immobile unit can be fixed with this tool. The tool has a filter-function in the unit-tab, and provides - in my opinion - an easier way to remove the unit in question. Just thougth you might want to know .....

Great thread, by the way!

Merry Christmas from Sigurd!

 

[Oni Ryuu]

That could prove extremely useful.
Thank you, Merry Christmas.