is there a list of debug messages?

[ritaxis]

I get certain error messages from time to time, and I don't understand them, so all I can do is pick a response by the pricklign of my thumbs, or the color of the moon, or something.  I'd like to be more intelligent in the way I respond to those things.  Is there a list with commentary anywhere?  I hate to cart all that stuff into a thread every time when the game appears not to be actually broken.

(one I can recall getting rather often is "too many iterations" when a sim is queued up to do stuff, and a reset makes the queue go away and the sim may or may not have a little tantrum about some damn thing or another and everythng goes on as usual from there)

[Austere]

Well, I got you a list of Object Errors here, but I'm not sure what others there could be. Most weird errors like that have to do with a hack conflict anyway, so...if it happens again, take out all your hacks and see if it works without them.

[seelindarun]

(one I can recall getting rather often is "too many iterations" when a sim is queued up to do stuff, and a reset makes the queue go away and the sim may or may not have a little tantrum about some damn thing or another and everythng goes on as usual from there)

Trying to choose a more intelligent response requires actually _being_ more intelligent.  I'm not trying to be glib, it's just that the 'right' answer depends rather critically on the error message, what your sim was doing at the time, and whatever CC you have.  It would be a waste of time learning about all the possible combinations, when choosing 'Reset' doesn't typically harm anything anyway.  On top of that, the little bit of text that you're given in the dialogue is usually insufficient to get to the bottom of the issue.

One thing I can help with though, is the "too many iterations" error.  Assuming that it's a random thing that you cannot reproduce, it's harmless.  The FOJ himself informed me that it's EA stupidity, the few times I troubled him about it.

Other errors usually stem from bad CC of some kind, or corruption.  The intelligent way to deal with them is to do a binary search of your CC whenever you get them, before adding any more CC.  The reason for dealing with it right away is because binary search loses its efficiency if you have multiple sets of bad CC.

[aqualectrix]

The most-likely-to-be-helpful thing an error message tells you is the location of the log it generated.  Take a look at the log (this can be done even while still running the game) and there will be a lot more information than the pop-up gave you.  Much of it is indecipherable to us peasants, but usually enough is understandable to give you a hint about what precisely caused the error.  Your attempts to do something about it (fix it, make it go away) will then be, although still perhaps a shot in the dark, better aimed.

[ritaxis]

Trying to choose a more intelligent response requires actually _being_ more intelligent.  I'm not trying to be glib, it's just that the 'right' answer depends rather critically on the error message, what your sim was doing at the time, and whatever CC you have.  It would be a waste of time learning about all the possible combinations, when choosing 'Reset' doesn't typically harm anything anyway.  On top of that, the little bit of text that you're given in the dialogue is usually insufficient to get to the bottom of the issue.

I wasn't asking for somebody to interpret a particular error message for me: I was, in fact, asking for information to aid me in educating myself in reading the messages myself.  The bold part is what I have chosen to educate myself about at this moment.  Which I can do now with the handy reference I've gotten by asking for it.

edit: alas, the list has explanations for people who are writing code, but not for people who are merely playing.  As in:

. Too many iterations This occurs when a node in a BHAV is run more than 10,000 times. It often occurs when a node is linked to itself, or in Set To Next searches that are too broad(resulting in more than 10,000 items). It can be fixed by using concise searches, and by making sure that no nodes make loops that will cause them to be run 10,000 times.

Which I can parse, and get on a very primitive and at the same time abstract level, but it doesn't tell me what to do on the player's level (unless I see that it happens repeatedly with the same object, which I could not demonstrate with current experience).


Thanks, everybody!