The Diplomacy Bug

[Thalassicus]

Note: it's been reported pressing Escape works to exit the diplomacy screen if there's no buttons to click on it. I'm trying to solve the underlying bug, but this is a good workaround until then.

This bug is extraordinarily difficult to find because:

• I've played 3 test games without seeing the bug myself, so it's difficult to test for.
• Those who have seen the bug show no error messages related to the bug appear in the tuner lua console (no need to copy-paste tuner output for me).
• As of v4.18 beta and up, balance - combined does not modify any of the interface files I know of that might cause buttons to disappear:
  • DiploOverview
  • DiploCurrentDeals
  • DiploRelationships
  • DiploVotePopup
  • TradeLogic
  • DiscussLeader
  • DiscussionDialog
  • LeaderHeadRoot

In other words, I haven't encountered the bug, nothing I know could cause it, and according to the tuner nothing's going wrong. Yet despite this the diplomacy screen somehow occasionally has no buttons.

This is my #1 priority right now, and I've been searching for several weeks to figure out what might cause this unusual situation.

I met Washington and he asked me for open borders and I agreed.

Then I met Isabella....



and it just froze (some considerable time) on her blank window until numerous esc presses concluded the previous conversation with Washington.,..



This was the second time it happened since my last post but I did not have screenshots of it occurring the last time.

To confirm...

New game with the beta 19 build using just the Unofficial patch and my previous noted mods. The cache was cleaned prior to starting the game and the Unofficial patch was the last mod selected.

Using .14 I believe. Also having the Diplomacy issue. I have tuner running but can't figure out how to get anything out of ot. Sorry...

What I noticed was that I was at war with Sully. He aksed for peace I tried to reply but screen stuck. I hit Esc and got through it and a pic of Monte appeared. Next time someone asked me for something the same deal that Sully asked me for was the default screen shot I saw.

So it seems to me that the old deal is not being removed from the memory for some reason.

I played 4.20 and while i clicked on Isabella's Spain, the diplo screen was freezed...

 

[Thalassicus]

I've played through two full games in the past week to look for bugs, and didn't encounter this issue with only the Balance - Combined package active. This and the fact the game doesn't output any error messages when the bug occurs makes it very difficult to track down this problem.

If you encounter this bug with only the Balance - Combined package active, please indicate if you've disabled any sub-components of the package (it might be an issue with disabling stuff).

Alternatively, I think it might be a compatibility problem with some other mod. If you experience the bug with other mods active, please post what duplicate files exist in your Mods folder.

To find the conflicting mod:

1. Do a search for *.* in this directory:
   C:\<username>\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\MODS
2. Look for duplicates of *.xml or *.lua files with the same file name.
3. If you discover any duplicate files, please post in this thread what files they are, and which mods contain the duplicates.
4. If you find no duplicates, but disabling the other mods solves the problem, there might be a more obscure mod conflict. Do a divide-and-conquer search to track down which mod is causing the issue:
   1. Enable half the mods, see if the problem happens.
   2. If it doesn't, disable those and enable the other half.
   3. Whichever half causes the problem, then enable only half of that half, and keep splitting the list in half until you have the 1 mod causing the bug.
   4. Post which mod you found causes the problem.

 

[SSgtDuke]

I've been playing 4.22 for a few hours and have accepted two open borders requests without problem. Looks like the problem might have resolved itself. Though I don't think it's mod compatibility because I was having the problem consistently in a previous version and I've never used any other mod except for BC and haven't disabled any components.

 

[Seek]

I've been playing 4.22 for a few hours and have accepted two open borders requests without problem. Looks like the problem might have resolved itself. Though I don't think it's mod compatibility because I was having the problem consistently in a previous version and I've never used any other mod except for BC and haven't disabled any components.

Ditto.

I also made sure to remove the "no" from the DLC folder this time - I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but it might.

 

[Wujo123]

I have this problem with diplomacy screen freeze too. Now I have on my disk Balance Combined 4.05 Beta version and everything is OK - no freeze in diplomacy screen. But when I install the newest version like 4.22 the bug is back. So I play only on 4.05 and checking every new version of this mod.

My mods: InfoAddict, CameraRotation, CivWillard. Few minutes ago I have disabled all of them and played 4.22 - diplomacy still freeze. With 4.05 I can play with all this mods without any bug. So something must be wrong with BC but I don`t know from which version. This is only my speculation - but maybe it helps.

By the way - thanks for your work, this is great mod. Greetings form Poland!

 

[Sneaks]

InfoAddict would be the likely culprit

 

[VimesUK]

InfoAddict would be the likely culprit

Whilst indeed it might be did you notice the post above yours where infoaddict was disabled and yet the error was still produced..?

 

[Sneaks]

There exists some weird situations where mods that are disabled still affect gameplay.

 

[VimesUK]

That could well be true.
I have just installed the build 22 and used only the unofficial patch from that combined beta and only that mod. I cleared the cache and started a game. This time I have not noticed the diplomacy bug.
There are no other mods within the mods folder, enabled or not.

 

[Thalassicus]

Welcome to CivFanatics, Wujo123!

• I believe InfoAddict is marked as "affects saved games", so if it's disabled and a savegame is loaded, Civ will actually re-enable the mod automatically.
• In addition, mod data lingers in the cache even after a mod is disabled. Try clearing the cache as described below when you start a new game:

Close CiV and delete the cache folder. It contains only temporary data and deleting it will not adversely affect CiV, but might solve problems from lingering game information:
D:\Thalassicus\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\cache

---------------------------------

There exists some weird situations where mods that are disabled still affect gameplay.

This might explain things... while investigating this I found InfoAddict does modify the DiscussionDialog and DiscussLeader parts of the diplomacy screen to add a button there, among other things.

If anyone consistently encounters this bug and is using InfoAddict, please try disabling InfoAddict, clear the civ cache, then play one or two game matches without InfoAddict active. Even if the bug still occurs afterward that would be helpful feedback, because we might be able to rule out that mod. Alternatively it might somehow be a compatibility issue between this mod and Robk's. Either way, it'll help us narrow down the cause of the problem, which is very important to me right now.

 

[antdog]

How do you disable a mod that is a part of your combined package? Do I just delete that part of the package?

 

[Torvald]

Okay, am playing v4.22 beta tonight, and just had the diplomacy bug pop up a second time in my game.

Was at war with Songhai when he offered a 10-turn peace treaty. However, when I accepted his offer, the diplomacy screen froze, and the only way to progress was to hit the escape key, which cancelled my acceptance and left me at war.

Was playing with no other mods, my cache folder had been cleared, and I'd even moved all other mods out of my mods folder to somewhere else for storage.

Here are compressed copies of my LiveTuner file info. (I tried to copy them into a word file, but it jumped to an error reporting screen and saved the info into two xml files.)

 

[Wujo123]

So, today I deleted the cache folder, removed all mods from MODS folder (except Balance Combined 4.22) and also verified game`s files by STEAM (1 file was downloaded). On turn 59 England propose Open Borders, I press accept and game freeze .

 

[Torvald]

Good Morning,

A little more info about my two Diplomacy freezes last night with v4.22 beta.

Both times, when the diplomacy screen stalled, it didn't exactly freeze, but did actually change just a little tiny bit. What happened is that the bottom of the screen where the dialogue text normally appears got blanked out. This indicates the problem might have something to do with displaying the text results of the diplomacy response. Also, each time, after hitting the escape key, the screen advanced to another diplomacy screen with another Civ, with text indicating that I'd just agreed to something with them.

Finally, I noticed the attached FireAxis error report file sitting on my computer desktop this morning, so wanted to provide it in case it will help you diagnose the diplomacy bug problem.

 

[Torvald]

Just encountered the diplomacy bug again with v4.22 beta on turn 161. This time it happened when I tried to accept an open borders deal with Russia.

Here are the screen prints showing the Russian diplomacy screen after it froze, plus the diplomacy screen with another civ that it popped over to after I hit the escape key.

I'm also attaching the FireAxis error report file, plus a zipped copy of my saved game file (if it's not too big to attach.)

 

[SSgtDuke]

Even though I wasn't having any diplomacy problems in the early game, I started hitting them again later. Except I seem to have stumbled onto a new version (at least to me) of the error. This time my friend Genghis requested some amount of gold. I accepted and it froze. I pressed escape and it took me to the trade window with Genghis with a luxury trade on the table and him saying it was unacceptable. This was the exact same luxury trade that we had already completed just a turn or two before. I hit the cancel button and that was it. After hitting escape does it always take you to the leader that you last had a conversation with? Could this be a clue?

 

[Thalassicus]

Sneaks has started to search for what might be causing this issue in the code with me, so hopefully with two sets of eyes we can find the source!

It might take a while though, this has been challenging to track down.

 

[kaomarket]

I found a way to trigger this bug in v4.22(at least bug will happen on my machine).

1. Set "Turns Between Autosave" to 1(in options screen -> interface options), for loading the turn we need later.

2. Start a new game with Thals Balance Mods - Combined (v 4) enabled.

3. Research pottery -> writing from turn 0, writing will be done at about turn 21.

4. Explore around and meet AI leaders during those turns.

5. After writing be researched some AI will offer deal of open borders, it's normal deal.

Turn 20, +6 gold per turn now, in this case.

6. Exit to main menu, load the autosave on the turn that AI will offer deal just after player end turn.


7. Follow the same actions that you done last time(maybe not necessary), but click next turn.(for faster testing, you could save game at this point)

8. Make any deal with AI, except sign the deal of open borders with the AI will offer it.

I give Wu 25 gold for 1 gold in 30 turns.

9. Click next turn, and bug happen...

Click Accept, Montezuma doesn't want to say goodbye... Then press Esc, Wu shows...

And one more observation, in the deal history, the same deal with Wu be signed twice...

I get +8 gold per turn total now.


By disable mod and rename folders, I do some testing,
I found out InfoAddict is unrelated to this bug, and so do those Balance - XX.
Something in folder Unofficial Patch leads to the bug.

Help those info will help.

 

[Sneaks]

Well done indeed!

 

[VimesUK]

Something in folder Unofficial Patch leads to the bug.

It is the only aspect of the combined package that I have been using and reproducing this diplomacy bug. So the other balance packages cannot be a contributory factor.