Bug Reporting

[Sisiutil]

Are you using

• English Windows XP
• Standard Civ4 (vs. CivGold or CivComplete that contain all expansion packs in a single install)

These used to cause problems, but I've fixed them pretty well in the SVN version.

These other things also require special attention by the user:

• Non-English characters in your user name (á, é, ü)
• Use Civ4's /AltRoot command-line feature

I'm using Windows Vista and Standard Civ4 & BtS (purchased and installed separately, not as part of a collection). I never use non-English characters (granted, I use some Canadian spellings, but no special characters ), and I never even knew Civ4 had a command line!

I did some experimenting in hopes things would operate better or that I would at least offer you some assistance in improving the mods. Installing BUG 3.5.1 on its own works fine, except there's no "Regenerate Map" menu option available. When I replace the two files as recommended above to solve that issue, the interface disappears. Talk about making a bad situation worse...

Installing BAT on its own gives me the "Regenerate Map" option the first time I run the mod. On all attempts after that, it vanishes. Replacing the two .py files to restore the command also removes the interface, as with the BUG mod.

Renaming IG_v2.0.7.FPK causes no discernible problems. However, the game becomes unstable in its later stages, as I described above; attempting to load a save from within a running game, or opening one of the advisor screens, usually results in a crash-to-desktop on any turn following the first one after loading the game (everything works fine on that first turn; after that, it's like walking through a minefield).

So at this stage I will once again uninstall both mods and simply await the next official version of each, since I honestly have no appetite for messing around with minor iterations. At that point I'll give 'er the ol' college try once again, as I really do like almost everything both mods have to offer.

 

[EmperorFool]

Installing BUG 3.5.1 on its own works fine, except there's no "Regenerate Map" menu option available. When I replace the two files as recommended above to solve that issue, the interface disappears.

That was my fear. The replacement files I pointed you to are from the most recent version. While they didn't appear at first blush to depend on the latest code, clearly they do. It is good to see that BUG works fine (minus the Regenerate Map button) on your setup.

Installing BAT on its own gives me the "Regenerate Map" option the first time I run the mod. On all attempts after that, it vanishes.

That is truly bizarre. I hate software problems that are not consistent. The BAT CTD problems you describe are quite unfortunate. I've pointed Alerum to this discussion in the hopes that he can look into the stability issues. BAT is just a merge of BUG plus a bunch of graphics mods. We'll have to check out their threads to find the problem, whether it's a single mod or an interaction between some of them.

So at this stage I will once again uninstall both mods and simply await the next official version of each . . . as I really do like almost everything both mods have to offer.

Sweet! I hope to be putting out a release pretty soon. While we haven't added too much since 3.5, one feature (dotmapping tool) is quite awesome, and I know people will enjoy it. Plus I've fixed some of the previous installation issues with different Civ versions and Windows quirks. The holidays and a semi-unplanned move simply killed my free time. I'll let ya know when it's ready. Thanks for hanging in there!

 

[Sisiutil]

That is truly bizarre. I hate software problems that are not consistent. The BAT CTD problems you describe are quite unfortunate. I've pointed Alerum to this discussion in the hopes that he can look into the stability issues. BAT is just a merge of BUG plus a bunch of graphics mods. We'll have to check out their threads to find the problem, whether it's a single mod or an interaction between some of them.

A warning: What with all the other problems, I have not played a BUG game through to the later stages like I did with the BAT game. (The BAT game was stable in the early game--it was later, when the entire huge map was revealed and all civilizations known, that it started its CtD behaviour.) So, I can't say for sure if the same problems wouldn't occur later in a BUG game on my system--in other words, it's not safe to say based on my experience whether it's a BAT issue or a BUG issue.

I work in IT, so I know how one proceeds to troubleshoot issues like this, and I don't want anyone to waste their (unpaid) time following red herrings.

 

[EmperorFool]

I have not played a BUG game through to the later stages like I did with the BAT game.

I have played many a BUG game through to the late game with large armies, almost exclusively on Standard sized maps, however. And while I can't say I've done any rigorous testing on several system profiles, I think it's pretty safe to say it's the extra graphics used by BAT that is the issue.

BUG adds functionality in the form of Python code, which being text files is fairly insignificant to load. The extra RAM needed for BUG data structures is pretty minimal as well.

BAT on the other hand expands the unit and building graphics considerably. As you meet each new rival, a whole new set of graphics needs to be loaded. Graphics (models and skins) can be quite large, and if you don't have a beefy system, you would eventually run into out-of-memory issues, causing a CTD.

How much RAM do you have? And video RAM? I have read posts by people running plain BTS that get CTDs on huge maps. Add a bunch of new graphics to the mix and pow. I also can discern a noticeable slowdown of the stock game the longer I leave it running. If I quit and restart just Civ (not my PC) and reload the game, it's zippy again. This is indicative of a memory leak.

That you continue to get CTDs after reloading the game (do you restart Civ?) tells me it's not just this that is the problem but the total RAM requirements. When you open an advisor, it needs to load the screen background and build the UI, and this probably pushes it over the edge.

I work in IT, so I know how one proceeds to troubleshoot issues like this, and I don't want anyone to waste their (unpaid) time following red herrings.

I'm a coder by trade myself, so I have a pretty good idea of what gains I can expect with a small amount of work. Not having access to the internals of the Civ engine ties my hands quite a bit, and I never did Win32 programming and am not familiar with the profiling/memory analysis tools I'd use to do what I would do if this were Java or I had access to the source code.

On top of that, since I didn't make or explore any of the graphics mods that went into BAT, I have no real clue where to look to find clashes between the mods nor any gut sense for if it's even a clash or simply a matter of too much stuffed into a single mod. (I suspect the latter).

 

[mystyfly]

Hi there

After a looooooong, unwanted beak from civ due to pc problems I yesterday finally was able to launch another game...

I downloaded the latest major release (not svn-version) and had following problem:

In the Foreign Advisor - F4 - when selecting either "Info" or "Glance", it was somehow screwed up. I couldn't do anything... especially not acess any other screen like tech overview or resources. The diplo overview (default page when opening F4), resource and tech overview worked as usual.

 

[entwood]

I have a saved BAT 1.1 game, that won't load (argh, it was a great game going also), the last two auto-saves won't boot either but the earlier 3 do...I'm not saying this has anything to do with BUG or BAT but is this something that might have been reported by other players?

It seems to be graphically related (trying to look at that 'dump' info the game provides but not sure....Are there any ways to fix a borked save game that anybody is aware of? I would really like to continue this game.

 

[Sisiutil]

How much RAM do you have? And video RAM? I have read posts by people running plain BTS that get CTDs on huge maps. Add a bunch of new graphics to the mix and pow. I also can discern a noticeable slowdown of the stock game the longer I leave it running. If I quit and restart just Civ (not my PC) and reload the game, it's zippy again. This is indicative of a memory leak.

That you continue to get CTDs after reloading the game (do you restart Civ?) tells me it's not just this that is the problem but the total RAM requirements. When you open an advisor, it needs to load the screen background and build the UI, and this probably pushes it over the edge.

Since I crashed to the desktop, I have no choice but to restart Civ.

My system:

• Dell Dimension 9200C (DXC061)
• P4 2.66 GHz
• 4 GB RAM
• 256 MB ATI Radeon X1300 video card
• Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit w/ SP1

 

[EmperorFool]

I have a saved BAT 1.1 game, that won't load.

Does the game crash to desktop when you load the save? Are you playing a huge map with lots of civs? How much system and video RAM do you have? I think we simply packed too much beef into BAT and it's overloading the video card when rendering.

I would really like to continue this game.

You can continue it without BAT by tricking Civ.

• Rename the BAT folder (Mods/BAT Mod 1.1) to something else
• Create an empty folder with the same old name (BAT Mod 1.1)
• Play your game

That works with BUG for me, but it wasn't working for Sisiutil with BAT. Can you please report back if that works for you or not?

Since I crashed to the desktop, I have no choice but to restart Civ.

Okay, I wanted to double-check because you said,

If I loaded a previous save while in the game, BAM! CtD.

above. I find that regular Civ becomes sluggish the longer I play it without restarting Civ itself (not my system). Reloading a game doesn't help.

Your system itself looks fine. The only thing I can think that would be system-related is that maybe 256MB RAM isn't enough for all the new graphics. If that's not the problem, then some of the mods in BAT must be conflicting. I've got 512 MB, so I'll upgrade and see what your saved game does for me.

 

[alerum68]

I hate to say it, but I'm somewhat disappointed in the stability of the BAT mod. By mid-game of a huge map/18 civ game, I was encountering crash-to-desktop on just about every turn. If I loaded a previous save while in the game, BAM! CtD. If I opened up the Diplomacy screen, BAM! CtD. If a leaderhead appeared, BAM! CtD. Not every time, but enough to be extremely frustrating. This doesn't happen to me with regular BtS 3.17. I eventually abandoned the game...

(While I'm whinging, I didn't care for the many changes to civ colours. I'm used to the old ones, and the new colour reassignments often confused me. I didn't like the tile graphics, but then again, I'm an old coot that doesn't like Blue Marble either. Other than that, though, I liked many of the graphic enhancements, especially the unique look to the various civs' units, so it's a pity I couldn't achive a stable gaming experience with them. )

I'm going to try out the BUG mod on its own to see if it's any more stable than its cosmetic counterpart. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I've attached the save in case one of you intrepid folks wants to troubleshoot.

Sisiutil, I've tried to use your save, and it gives me a runtime error. Do you have a save you can send that will load up at all?

 

[entwood]

Does the game crash to desktop when you load the save? Are you playing a huge map with lots of civs? How much system and video RAM do you have? I think we simply packed too much beef into BAT and it's overloading the video card when rendering.

You can continue it without BAT by tricking Civ.

• 
  [*]Rename the BAT folder (Mods/BAT Mod 1.1) to something else
  [*]Create an empty folder with the same old name (BAT Mod 1.1)
  [*]Play your game

That works with BUG for me, but it wasn't working for Sisiutil with BAT. Can you please report back if that works for you or not?


Thank you for helping. Unfortunately, that did not work. I uninstalled and reinstalled BAT 1.1 previous to this try also and that did not work. I have my own custom music mod (which did conflict with BAT 1.1 because BAT has a few custom sounds? and it's own AUDIODEFINES file. After removing my own music mod (which was working fine for many games) that did not solve this issue also.

The year of the game is 1380 or so. It almost loads. After the loading process is just about complete and it is about to display the map so you can proceed with play then it dumps with that standard vanilla dump message.

I have tried just about everything I can think of at this point. I am just afraid for my future games...After investing so many days and hours playing, it is highly discouraging to lose a game. I do have an auto save from some turns back, I just hate to use them because I like to continue play from exactly where I left off...so the game has sort of a pristine quality to it.

Again, thank you so much for helping and I'm willing to try other things to try to get my save game going. I included the save here in case you or somebody wants to see if they can get it to load.


View attachment Anton Toku AD-1388.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Sisiutil]

Sisiutil, I've tried to use your save, and it gives me a runtime error. Do you have a save you can send that will load up at all?

That's the only save I have from that game. It loads up fine for me, that's strange.

 

[EmperorFool]

@Sisiutil - I am able to open your save now. I opened a few advisors and hit end-turn a couple times. Is there anything in particular I can do that should definitely make it crash?

BTW, I'm running a GeForce 8500 GT w. 512MB and 2GB of system RAM.

 

[Cammagno]

Just to remember it...

The bug with the àèìòù in the autolog is still there.
The bug puts strange codes instead of the proper letters when Autolog is used the first time after a fresh BUG install (using html output).
If you enter these letters with Alt+E, they are entered properly and from that moment the new letters are entered correctly even from the autolog (the old ones stay wrong, of course).

 

[Sisiutil]

@Sisiutil - I am able to open your save now. I opened a few advisors and hit end-turn a couple times. Is there anything in particular I can do that should definitely make it crash?

BTW, I'm running a GeForce 8500 GT w. 512MB and 2GB of system RAM.

No, that usually does it. Sounds like it might be my video card, then, in combination with the graphics.

I'll try the next BUG release sans BAT.

 

[EmperorFool]

No, that usually does it. Sounds like it might be my video card, then, in combination with the graphics.

I'm in agreement. BTW, kick-ass video cards (better than mine) are available for $100-$150.

 

[EmperorFool]

In the Foreign Advisor - F4 - when selecting either "Info" or "Glance", it was somehow screwed up.

Can you please start Civ anew, load a save, hit F4, switch INFO, switch to GLANCE (if you can), and then post here the contents of Logs/PyrhonErr.log? I haven't seen this before, so I need to know what errors you're getting.

Do you have any other mods installed in CustomAssets? What version and how did you install BUG (EXE, ZIP, SVN, and Standard or as a Mod)?

 

[EmperorFool]

On the EFA INFO tab, the trade columns ignore the effects of vassals. You can apparently have trade routes with your vassals' cities even while running Mercantilism. I don't know if it matters which of you, or both, are running it, and I don't know the effect of Open Borders.

I created the bug in the tracker.

 

[TWSqueaks]

Hey all, new to Civ IV, and all that, enjoying myself thouroughly, but I decided to try the BUG mod, since Mad Scientist plays with it, and have a few snags.

First, when I tried to install it I had use the .zip version first, which didn't work, as pressing cntrl-alt-o opened up the menu with a bunch of "xml...not found", so I undid the move and used the automatic installer. I don't know if that'll be relevant, but I figure it could be. Now the problems!

1) When I start a new game, after the loading screen, I see an incomplete tech advisor screen (incomplete meaning just a few techs display, and no pathing between them), and have to hit exit to enter the game. Nothing bad, just annoying.

2)Upon entering the game, I only see my units and the map, no menus, no displays, nothing. Alt-tabbing out and in solves this problem, oddly enough.

3) The incomplete tech advisor screen also shows up when I hit the tech advisor button, and I cannot interact with it at all, except to close it.

4) I cannot interact with my cities. If I'm prompted to build something new, it'll work, but I cannot cancel production, q1ueu up production (pictures for units/buildings/wonders don't even display). I can double click the city and get to the info screen, but the pictures don't come back there either.

Well, there's my list, any advice? I'm trying to figure out a simple uninstall for the mod, so I'll try reinstalling if I can get that out.

I'm on Vista, installed the games seperately... I have warlords isntalled as well. And I think the patch is 1.61? Whatever the latest is I'm pretty sure.

Thanks.

Edit: Two things: Unchecking both boxes in the advisors tab of bug mod doesn't change the tech screen problem. Second, score display does not work whether I click it or not, on the bottom right of the screen.

 

[EmperorFool]

@TWSqueaks - Excellent and informative bug report! While we've seen the "no interface" problem countless times (it usually means a wacky system setup we didn't anticipate or pilot error), the borked Tech Chooser window is new. I've also never seen it open up automatically before.

Side note: Civ4 draws that screen and hides it when the game starts so that it can be opened quickly from then on, so I think it is breaking while drawing the screen.​

My first guess is that when you installed and removed the ZIP first (expanded it in the "My Games\Beyond the Sword" folder (BTS), right?) you left something behind that is clashing with the mod install.

1. Do you have any other mods installed?

If no, run the BUG uninstaller (should be in the folder "Mods\BUG Mod 3.5.1\BUG Mod") and then delete the CustomAssets folder from the BTS folder. Then run the BUG installer again.

If yes, you'll need to install BUG as a mod to keep it from clashing with whatever else you have installed.

2. If the above doesn't fix it, cause the problem again and alt-tab out of the game. Go to the BTS\Logs folder and post the contents of PythonErr.log here. That will tell me where it's breaking, and we can go from there.

Welcome to Civ4, BUG and the forum!

 

[TWSqueaks]

Had no other mods installed, and I managed to find the uninstaller. Everything seems to be working cleanly now. I chose to install BUG to the mod folder, instead of standard, but I suppose we really don't have any way of knowing if that helps. Thanks a lot, this looks better already.