How to Debug Crash to Main Menu on Load/New Game?

[Boosthungry]

I'm having a major issue getting my game to work with mods. Sometimes when I go to create a new game I get a crash to Main Menu right before it's supposed to go to the game loading screen. This only happens sometimes. Though when I go to load a saved game, it seems to always happen.

If I simply try again it works, but I then get the mod bug where localized text doesn't work. Since I use Moar Units and other mods with localized text, this is a huge inconvenience and I would rather not play this way.

I checked the various log files and I see some generic errors and such, but nothing that specifically says what went wrong or what mod caused an issue.

Is this a mod incompatibility issue? Is this a mod load order issue? I tried adding dependencies in various mods based on what I thought would be a logical load order, but I can't get it to work.

Any help or direction would be appreciated.

I've reduced down to the follow mods and would prefer not to eliminate any of these. (I'd ideally like to add back other mods, but I want to get things working first):
- 8 Ages of Pace
- Additional Buildings
- AI+
- Better Trade Screen
- Detailed Worlds
- Larger Worlds
- MOAR Units
- Quo's Rocket Boots
- TCS Customizable Warmonger Penalties
- Wondrous Wonders

If anyone has some insight into incompatibility between these mods or a suspected required load order I'd appreciate it.

 

[Cosmic Fox]

The logs should give you a decent idea where to look, find them in your documents.

Additional buildings I had issues along with these others, Wonderous Wonders, TCS Mods, these are all good mods, but for some reason don't like to reside with many other mods. I run with 20+ always normally when I am not testing for a mod. If I find a mod that isn't working it simply isn't used among the ones I play with for the time being.

Between the logs and following my own trial and errors because I love trying new things and explore them in game. I hope this helps, I did not see anyone else coming to give aid, thought I would at least try.

 

[Boosthungry]

Thanks for the response. I'll probably try to play process of elimination.

 

[Horem]

If it dumps you back to the Main Menu that is an issue of somethign missing from the database that a mod is calling for, it will be listed in database.log.

 

[sp00n]

Yeah, database.log is the first thing to inspect. XML or database errors show up there. Lua.log might be another, this deals with the actual (UI) code. And lastly GameEffects.log gives you an insight about possible unit/building modifier problems, but these shouldn't cause a crash. You'll probably find something in the database.log.

 

[Boosthungry]

Thank you! It's great to know that a crash to Main Menu on load is a database issue. I was able to find the problem!

Additional Buildings contains some commented out code to add functionality to Moar Units. I uncommented this and it was causing a conflict which was logged in the database log. Additional Buildings was trying to modify the Moar Units units before they were loaded. This doesn't really make sense because I added both a dependency and a reference in Additional Buildings modinfo. I guess the game doesn't respect load order when loading a saved game.

I resolved this by taking the files from Moar Units and copying them into Additional Buildings and merging the two modinfo files so that load order was guaranteed. Would be great if I didn't have to do this because it will make updating either of these mods more difficult.

Now time to add back the other mods I deleted and see if I can get a working game going!

 

[Horem]

Dependant or Referenced mods will be loaded first, always. Save games may not be compatible, I have never checked tbh.

 

[LeeS]

Dependancies may not be working. @Gedemon and @PlotinusRedux were unsure in the latest tutorial/reference thread on Modinfo Structure.

References are working at least for starting new games. But if either mod has

<EnabledByDefault>1</EnabledByDefault>

in their Modinfo file's <Properties> this can cause references to act erratically (ie, not be reliable for such mods) because EnabledByDefault seems to interfere with the game's ability to properly execute references.

 

[Horem]

Dependancies may not be working. @Gedemon and @PlotinusRedux were unsure in the latest tutorial/reference thread on Modinfo Structure.

References are working at least for starting new games. But if either mod has

<EnabledByDefault>1</EnabledByDefault>

in their Modinfo file's <Properties> this can cause references to act erratically (ie, not be reliable for such mods) because EnabledByDefault seems to interfere with the game's ability to properly execute references.

Intresting.