Crash on resized lots at 7PM -- any ideas?

[Simsample]

It doesn't change in build/ buy upon day/ night toggle, but the ambient sound does change at nightfall- from daytime sounds (dogs barking etc) to night sounds (insects chirping). The sound also changes with the weather if you have seasons, too. The sound errors I'm seeing, however, are DJ booth, Sink filling and dining chair noise. Not sure how that ties in!

[pbox]

Thank you, simsample. I think we can conclude from that it's not the audio stuff that's triggering the crash -- otherwise, why would it crash in build mode where the audio doesn't change?

[Zazazu]

Wait. I may have just had an epiphany, or I may be remembering things completely incorrectly.

What happens at 7:00 PM with a CAS sim and only a CAS sim?
The random phone call from a downtownie to go out on an outing.

[Yimmit]

Random phone call comes at 6.

[Rascal]

I don't have downtowns attached to my testing hoods so don't get these calls.  Good thought though.

[ladykat]

Actually, I would think it was a generous gift if somebody uploaded a lot that they KNEW would crash, as long as they said it was for testing.  For debugging purposes, if you can change an intermittent problem into a reproducible one, it makes everybody's life easier.  I don't think anybody here has produced lots for mass consumption by the naive public, which would be a totally different (and bad) matter.

Someone might like to try these  - they are puzzling me.  Note - I made these with base game plus all EPS, and no downloads or hacks.

First up, a rowhouse I made with no roof - just a concrete floor on the top.

http://www.the-kat.org/rowhouse.rar

There are two in the file.  The first one crashes every time.  The "new" one I made by making an alteration inside, and saving back to tthe lot bin, and it has always been fine.  At least, fine through placing a CAS sim in, saving and toggling day/night.  I haven't played through to 7pm. 

Then there are a pair of semis

http://www.the-kat.org/semi.rar

I have placed CAS sims in these 4 times each.  All 4 times the right hand side ( as you look at them from the road ) plays fine though that save and toggle routine, while the left hand one has crashed 3 times out of 4.

I tried pbox's BackdoorLane lot - it crashed first time but not the next 3 times.


kat

[Inge]

That's my experience too.  A Pbox lot inhabited fresh from the bin crashes at 18:59.  The same Pbox lot with a build tweak before moving in a sim doesn't crash at all.

I must try doing a day/night toggle in build mode.

[pbox]

I tried pbox's BackdoorLane lot - it crashed first time but not the next 3 times.

What exactly do you mean with "3 times": 3 different inhabitants, or 3 different attempts to load/toggle nighttime/save?


In other news, I conducted a few more tests with minimal lots (roof only / foundation only / wall only) and I think the roofs indeed pose a problem. I didn't even playtest the roof lots anymore as they appeared too broken to bother. Other than that, the only conclusion I have is that I see no significant correlation between crashes during building and crashes during gameplay -- one lot that had crashed 3 times in a row during building, had no crashes at all during gameplay, and vice versa. Complete report is here: http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1810485#post1810485 -- however, most of it may not be directly related to the so-called 7PM crash, as a lot of the crashes happened while loading or saving a lot, and not when switching to Night. I have no idea if they can have the same reason at all.

One more test that might be remotely useful: in order to disprove the theory that previously played, "pre-crashed" lots are safe, someone could play those and see if they can get them to crash. I have attached all of my test lots to my post in the R+D thread at mts2 (link see above) -- could somebody download "lot03+04+05+05_post-play.zip" and test lot 3, 4 and 6 to see if you can get them to crash? Those have been crashing for me, in two different ways (see report, phase 3 and 5)), and according to the "pre-crashed" theory lot 6 in particular should be safe now.


Also,

I must try doing a day/night toggle in build mode.

I think that might speed up things =) in my experience, lots that don't crash with a day/night toggle don't crash at 7PM either.

[dizzy]

It might help if you upped those lots to a site that can actually host those files too. 

[baratron]

Also, I have a question for you about Backdoor 42.  The stairs.  What stairs are those?  It says "Steadfast Empty Underneath" when I mouse over it in build mode, but I can't find it in my stairs build mode catalog.  When I choose Steadfast Stairs, it always fills it in underneath.

They are these stairs by crocobaura

Ah! The MTS2 page says:

!!! In order to make the stairs work in your game, you need to put the files 2008_CrocobauraChicModularStairs.txt; 2009_CrocobauraWoodenModularStairs.txt; 2010_CrocobauraSteadfastModularStairs.txt in your Scriptorium_ModularStairs folder if you're using the Scriptorium or you need to copy the text inside each at the bottom of the modularstairs.txt file from this path:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2\TSData\Res\Catalog\Scripts

I had been wondering why they just appeared as the normal iron stairs in my game, despite my having installed the .package file correctly. I guess that means they shouldn't be included with premade houses, as the installation instructions require tinkering with game files?

Also, the fact that to put anything under them requires moveobjects on explains why the "privacy window" bug occurs - those windows hate moveobjects on! They randomly go buggy in basements anyway, and if you have to use moveobjects to place them, they almost never work.

Wait. I may have just had an epiphany, or I may be remembering things completely incorrectly.

What happens at 7:00 PM with a CAS sim and only a CAS sim?
The random phone call from a downtownie to go out on an outing.

In my game, this most definitely occurs between 18:05 and 18:09. It's happened every time. I even tried going on the outing in case it was a portal problem, and the arrival of the taxi which was triggering the crash! Sorry .

To everyone:
I'm willing to test more people's lots, but when you post lots for testing, please say what combination of games you have installed - or if you used the BaseGameStarter to make them. I don't want to add spurious data by crashes that occur because I don't have Seasons or BV yet! With the thread being up to 7 pages, it's rather hard to go back through everyone's posts to remember how they made the lots.

[pbox]

It might help if you upped those lots to a site that can actually host those files too. 

Dizzy, the files *are* in the mts2 thread .. I'm not sure what you mean, do you have difficulties downloading them?


Baratron, sorry for the confusion -- I've only just realised that I forgot to put the standard stairs blurb into my last 3 Backdoor Lane posts. Here goes: "If you want to install the stairs properly, please follow the directions given in the thread linked above. This lot will work just fine if you don't, but you won't be able to select or change the stairs or use them in other lots (they won't show up in the catalogue, which is what the installation procedure is for)." Will go and fix this, thanks for the heads-up.

Clear now? The stairs *should* show up fine, they're included in the lot file after all -- you only can't select them. (The ones in front *are* the regular IronSomething stairs -- crocobaura's I've only used inside, for the stairs that lead upstairs).

I guess that means they shouldn't be included with premade houses, as the installation instructions require tinkering with game files?

I think, if I hadn't forgotten the info, it would have been perfectly fine. You don't need to tinker with game files in order to have the lot show up OK. 

The "privacy window bug" has nothing to do with the stairs or the moveobjects cheat (although it results in the same glitch) -- the windows look filled in because the ground outside is sloped (stairs or no stairs). In my game, I only see filled-in windows maybe 1 time out of 10 and it often goes away next time I enter the lot; apparently for some other people the windows look glitchy *all* the time -- I had no idea about that, until simsample (I think?) mentioned it here. For the record, I don't use moveobjects to place the windows: I flatten the ground outside, then put in the windows, then move the ground back up.

Hope this clears it up. Thanks for the feedback about the windows .. like I said, I never knew that they look consistently broken for others.

[dizzy]

I can't even get the crashlogs, let alone the lots. That's after an hour of trying both the chii and freya servers.

EDIT: Never mind. It's just Firefox being bitchy again. 

[pbox]

EDIT: Never mind. It's just Firefox being bitchy again. 

So you have them now? I can upload them elsewhere otherwise, or email them or something. (Sorry about that, I keep forgetting that I'm on the speshul server and the site might suck for others, downloading-wise .. it's saturday night after all)

Thank you for looking at this =).

[dizzy]

Yeah, I have them, but I'm really more interested in what's causing the game to crash than in trying to get walls on the edges of lots. I'm just morbidly curious.

[Zazazu]

Ok, Plasticbox.

Lot 3 - Toggle = crash,  Natural progression = crash
Lots 4-6 - Toggle = no crash, Natural progression = no crash

Just placed CAS sim and did the test, no other changes.

[pbox]

Thanks Zazazu =)


I just had an idea about the CAS sims (that all the crashes have been happening with CAS sims so far) .. from what Mootilda says here about memory possibly being corrupted, qutoe: "If I am correct and the problem is that some objects are off-the-lot, then the game could easily corrupt other things by just accessing whatever happens to be in these off-the-lot memory locations. (..) The one thing that mitigates this somewhat is that I believe that the game only loads one lot at a time. However, if you save multiple lots during one run of the game, then all of those lots can be affected"

-- maybe it's not so much the fact that they're CAS sims, but the fact that they're NEW (= made in the same gameplay session) that makes them crash? The game has just saved them somewhere, and then during/after the shrinking it meddles with that same somewhere? Still doesn't really explain the night thing, but .. roofs do block light, and if it's saved roof code where sim code should be (or the other way around?), I can see how something would go wrong at that point.


(Mind that it's rather late in this timezone again and I'm all decaffeinated, so no warranties on the logicalness of the above)

[baratron]

I downloaded & unzipped lot03+04+05+05_post-play.zip. I played:
lot 6 until 10:00 on Wednesday
lot 5 until 14:46 on Tuesday
lot 4 until 14:00 on Tuesday

In each case I moved in a freshly-made CAS sim & added basic objects needed for the first few days. I began each test by toggling Day/Night mode a few times, then proceeded to play through the day normally, without using the Insimenator to advance the hour. I can tell you that a game with no hacks is freaking unplayable - the sims are so unbelievably moronic! None of the "pre-crashed" lots crashed in my game (Sims 2 + Uni + NL + OFB + Pets), with no Downloads and groups.cache removed before beginning test.

I haven't tested lot 3, and I haven't tested the files in lot03+04+05+05_post-shrink.zip to see whether they will crash my game or not. (After all, if the "pre-crash" lots do nothing, then it wouldn't be a surprise that the "post-crash" lots were safe!). But it is officially Too Late in this timezone for me to want to try any more considering I have work tomorrow morning. I'll test the rest tomorrow sometime.

[Doc Doofus]

Pescado:
But the walls can't be put up against the edges of the lot for a REASON!

Pbox:
Pffft .. if we only did things we "can" do, according to EA, we'd all still be playing with vanilla Maxian games.

I feel like I've heard this dialogue before.  Don't they always say things like that in horror movies just before the hockey mask guy impales them?

[dizzy]

Okay, my curiosity is satisfied. What I'm getting here is what's called an Access Violation error. It's caused by something giving a negative index. The code simply loads a dword blindly out of a table with said index without bounds checking, and kaboom. So, there you go. You can't do this.

[Emma]

Pescado:
But the walls can't be put up against the edges of the lot for a REASON!

Pbox:
Pffft .. if we only did things we "can" do, according to EA, we'd all still be playing with vanilla Maxian games.

I feel like I've heard this dialogue before.  Don't they always say things like that in horror movies just before the hockey mask guy impales them?

 

Okay, my curiosity is satisfied. What I'm getting here is what's called an Access Violation error. It's caused by something giving a negative index. The code simply loads a dword blindly out of a table with said index without bounds checking, and kaboom. So, there you go. You can't do this.

So shrinking lots so that the walls are on the boundary is not safe to do?

[Zazazu]

...and if so, what about one space from? The difference between having houses 4 spaces apart and having houses 2 spaces apart is considerable.

[Doc Doofus]

I have been placing objects outside the boundaries for a long time.  Who hasn't?

Haven't you ever tried to set up a home bowling alley?  They take up an enormous amount of space, but if you use the moveobjects on cheat, you can put them right on the very edge of your backyard so that they extend about six squares out into imposter-land.  Looks pretty cool.  And it works just fine.  I've been doing that since Nightlife came out.

I haven't tried doing it on a shrunken row-house, but I suppose you could, using the same principle, lay a bowling alley right into your neighbor's bathroom. 

[Emma]

Haven't you ever tried to set up a home bowling alley?  They take up an enormous amount of space, but if you use the moveobjects on cheat, you can put them right on the very edge of your backyard so that they extend about six squares out into imposter-land.  Looks pretty cool.  And it works just fine.  I've been doing that since Nightlife came out.

I haven't ever tried that, but I will now

[dizzy]

So shrinking lots so that the walls are on the boundary is not safe to do?

I'm saying it's probably unsafe. If the index (-192 in my case) is coming from the lot data itself, you may be able to do something about it, but this value changes in different instances of the crashing. In some cases, it's the multiplier (81 in this instance) overflowing (the value 19496 in one of pbox's logs). In either case, it's the same EIP, so this suggests to me that the errant value is being calculated. In other words, the bad offset is probably not coming straight out of the lot file, but rather as a result of a miscalculation because of the walls and their situation.

If you are not getting the error, it is not safe to assume that this miscalculation isn't occurring. In fact, you may well be corrupting valuable data (highly likely, considering the visible corruption of shadows and such at the outset).

In my experience, one errant bit can cause a program to crash, so how much more damage if we're talking 32 errant bits?

[Emma]

So by downloading a shrunken lot and adding it to your game you may be corrupting your game data files?

[edit] What about if you are shrinking pre-existing lots,and never moving them or putting them in the lot bin-does that have the same potentially damaging effect?