Stuck on June 2nd

[endgame]

Similar to the problem in this thread:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...d.php?t=148270

I am unable to complete June 2nd. I tried a backup with the same result, so obviously it's schedule related. It looks like it's locking up during a AA All-Star game - yes I did create a couple of AA leagues and later delete them, but the prevailing thought in Tech Support was that "league residue" wasn't an issue, and if a problem developed, post it. And so I am. Maybe it turns out it was. Disappointed, it goes without saying, but you take your lumps growing with the game I guess. I'm going to miss those guys. This game allows for some real immersion.

In any event, I've uploaded my .dat files to the public site with the filename egstuck.zip for consideration. Good luck to anyone else starting over. But this time, maybe it'll all go all right. Ah well.

[Comedian2004]

Loaded your league and looked at it. It looks like it is stuck trying to play a non-exisitant all-star game.

If you click FINISH DAY. .nothing happens, but if you click SIM UNTIL.... it will show you where it is stuck.

Maybe, you can re-create the deleted league and it will let you carry on?

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Comedian2004

Loaded your league and looked at it. It looks like it is stuck trying to play a non-exisitant all-star game.

If you click FINISH DAY. .nothing happens, but if you click SIM UNTIL.... it will show you where it is stuck.

Maybe, you can re-create the deleted league and it will let you carry on?

Good thought, but the mechanics seem impossible. Would a default config creating "any" additional minor league allow it to pick it up? Doubt it. And then what about subsequent years? If it did work, would I have to recreate it every year? Would I be forced to ... all overly optimisitic. I'd say the first step would be determining just how to create a false allstar game that it would believe was the one it was looking for.

Beyond that, of course, is retuning the game engine so that deleted leagues do not - if they are the cause - contribute to this problem.

Thanks for looking, though, Larry. but personally I think the league's shot. If it becomes likely that the deleted leagues are, indeed, contributing to these "hangs", then I'd certainly advocate that both mine and Fenris' threads, along with like circumstances, be assigned a TT# in order to prevent this occurence. One should be able to delete leagues without consequence.

[Zeyes]

I've looked at your savegame a bit and these are the deleted leagues (still visible in world.dat):

105 Union Colleges League
106 Golden Seasons League
107 Global Cooperative League (original)
108 SCL Double A
109 SCL Triple A
110 SCL Double A

108, 109 and 110 still have All-Star Games scheduled according to the games.csv export...interesting that it only affected the leagues on which you apparently didn't do any customization before deleting them, I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Do you recall on which dates you might have created those three? (If it helps any, leagues #111 and #112 are your active Commons College League and Global Cooperative League.)

[endgame]

Thank you for your interest, Zeyes. It definitely is the AA all-star game it is searching for, no doubt. The file I uploaded actually has it missing because I deleted it. The hang was occuring with the game completed, along with its box scores, game logs, etc... I thought deleting it might help. It didn't. So apparently, it's looking for an all-star game in the deleted AA league because it defintely references SubLeague1 and SubLeague2 (which, as you mentioned, are unmodified leagues created and deleted for the sole purpose of populating further the FA pool). --shrug--

As I mentioned in my response to Larry, I don't think there's a fix. It's just one of those bumps in the road we have to live with while we learn, I guess.

Thanks again for even taking a look, Zeyes. (Afterthought: I wonder if there is a way to delete the deleted leagues from the world.dat without harm - if that's the case it would stop looking for its target, wouldn't it?)

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by endgame

It definitely is the AA all-star game it is searching for, no doubt. The file I uploaded actually has it missing because I deleted it.

Ahh, I was wondering why that league didn't have an ASG. Yes, it's actually looking for a different Double-A all-star game (from one of the deleted leagues) when it hangs. Well, two of them. And it would most likely hang again on June 6th, that's when the deleted Triple-A league has its ASG.

Originally Posted by endgame

As I mentioned in my response to Larry, I don't think there's a fix. It's just one of those bumps in the road we have to live with while we learn, I guess.

Semi-good news: I've managed to advance your game by hex-editing the "Game played?" flag of the three phantom games. What I'm not clear on yet is whether the problem will persist in the next season (the sim is going right now), as the "Schedule All-Star Game automatically" flag is still active for those three leagues. I'll report back.

Originally Posted by endgame

Thanks again for even taking a look, Zeyes. (Afterthought: I wonder if there is a way to delete the deleted leagues from the world.dat without harm - if that's the case it would stop looking for its target, wouldn't it?)

Good question, but I doubt it. My first attempt at hex-editing the world.dat was to simply remove the three games from the schedule section, but that immediately resulted in a "corrupt database" error when trying to load the game.

[endgame]

Thanks again for all the attention you're giving this, Zeyes. You've made more progress than I'd imagined, but I won't get optimistic. Can the flag for the auto-schedule all-star game be removed without corrupting the file?

Sidenote:
Regardless, this item should get a TT#. As I commented in one of my previous posts, one should be able to delete a league without consequence.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by endgame

Thanks again for all the attention you're giving this, Zeyes. You've made more progress than I'd imagined, but I won't get optimistic. Can the flag for the auto-schedule all-star game be removed without corrupting the file?

I think so. I've compared two world.dat's from a freshly created universe, once with Auto-Schedule ASG activated, once without, and there's only a single-byte difference so it doesn't look like any checksums etc. would be affected.

Originally Posted by endgame

Regardless, this item should get a TT#. As I commented in one of my previous posts, one should be able to delete a league without consequence.

Completely agreed. This is a clear bug, though I still wonder about the exact circumstances it takes to bring it about. There's another thread from a week or two ago reporting the same issue where I tried to recreate the scenario and while I could get some surrounding effects (news still announced non-existent ASG, AI selected for unneeded ASG teams etc.), I was unable to get the lockup.

If you have any further bits of info about what exactly you did with those three leagues, I imagine it'll help in locating the gremlin. Some things that come to mind are: whether created in the pre-season or off-season of the parent league, how long did the leagues exist, and what was their exact alignment (two subleagues, 4x6 teams each?)... Maybe check out whether leagues of that alignment and level grab a schedule file from \schedules\ upon creation, or auto-generate a default schedule, as that might well have an effect on the ASG behaviour...

[endgame]

Well, I can help somewhat in the recreation. The league was already created. I never modify the configuration of minors, so simply hitting the Add Minor League button and selecting the level is all I do/did. I have to believe this was still pre-season, after the inaugural, but before game one. Create the league, delete the league dumping its players into the FA, move on, lather rinse repeat for both AA's and the AAA were deleted.

I did have a schedule hiccup and posted about its problems, but to the very best of my recollection it was before creating and dumping these leagues. In fact, it would have to have been before because I wouldn't have wanted to risk scheduling games for leagues I knew were going to be deleted. Check my posts with Nutlaw and you'll see I'm "league residue" paranoid. (Note to self: find that thread and add comment)

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by endgame

I did have a schedule hiccup and posted about its problems, but to the very best of my recollection it was before creating and dumping these leagues. In fact, it would have to have been before because I wouldn't have wanted to risk scheduling games for leagues I knew were going to be deleted.

The thing is, I think "Add Minor League" automatically generates a schedule for the new league...

BTW, are you saying that you started that universe with the year set to 2011, or did the ASG problem simply not show up until several years into the game?

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Zeyes

The thing is, I think "Add Minor League" automatically generates a schedule for the new league...

BTW, are you saying that you started that universe with the year set to 2011, or did the ASG problem simply not show up until several years into the game?

First year of the league was 2011.

[Zeyes]

Huzzah, I've reached the end of June 2012 without problems, so looks like the fix worked.

There's one small problem in that the phantom games are STILL listed in world.dat:


...even though the rest of the schedule data has been updated for the new season. Oh well, just more dead bytes for world.dat, I guess. Shouldn't break anything, at any rate.

In case you haven't junked the league yet and are interested in the fixed file, endgame, send me an email through my profile (or PM me your email address, whichever you prefer), and it's on the way to you.

[Fenris]

Hi Zeyes,

as you know I have the same problem, could you tell me what you edited where and into what? But for me it's only the AAA game on 06/06/07.
Rightnow I see a glimmer of hope to rescue my leagues, too.

[Zeyes]

Originally Posted by Fenris

Hi Zeyes,

as you know I have the same problem, could you tell me what you edited where and into what? But for me it's only the AAA game on 06/06/07.
Rightnow I see a glimmer of hope to rescue my leagues, too.

Well, if you're comfortable doing hex-editing, sure.

First, go to Database Info and create a data export of your stuck universe (format doesn't matter, but csv is probably easiest to use). You need games_basic and leagues_basic. Then close OOTP. The exported files will be in the import_export subfolder of your savegame.

From the exported leagues.csv, you'll be able to see which league IDs belong to your active leagues so you won't accidentally change one of their All-Star Games. Then, open up games.csv and sort it by the game_type column. All the games with a value of 4 (as in the screenshot in the post above) will be All-Star Games, and at least one of them should have a league_id that does not appear in leagues.csv.

Take note of the game_id for that game/those games. Convert it into hex, then search world.dat for that value. (I suggest working on a copy of world.dat, not the original, just in case.) You'll probably have additional hits (population numbers for cities etc.), but the correct one should be towards the bottom of the file. Schedule data seems to occupy 155 bytes for each game. The 44th byte in the block is the "Game Played" flag...change this one from 00 to 01. See the screenshot below...the block I've marked belongs to game #16667 from endgame's universe, the underlined value is the one I've changed.



Replace the stuck world.dat with the fixed one, reload the universe, and it should hopefully get moving again.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by Zeyes

Well, if you're comfortable doing hex-editing, sure.

I have done that in the past, so I will give it a try when I'm home.
If I can't get it straight then I will upload them and maybe you could lend me a hand there.

I will post as soon as there are news.

[Zeyes]

Question for you guys: Which patch were you running when you deleted those troublesome leagues? (Not when you reached the lockup.) I've just tried it with patch 2 and a variety of league configurations, and the ASG's were all properly cleared from the schedule list.

[Zeyes]

dola,

holy crap, I spoke too soon. I think I've just figured out how it happens.

When you add leagues, and then delete them again, the ASGs are first cleared properly. However, once you add another new league, the ASGs from the previously deleted leagues make a comeback for some reason, and at that point they're impossible to get out of the schedule. Even deleting the second round of league additions will only clear those leagues' ASGs, not the phantom games from the first set of leagues.

[Fenris]

that makes sense, I added Japan after I deleted the AAA.

if it is still a usefull information I used 2.0.1 when I created the first and 2.0.2 beta for the second.

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Fenris

that makes sense, I added Japan after I deleted the AAA.

if it is still a usefull information I used 2.0.1 when I created the first and 2.0.2 beta for the second.

A few return comments:

I "may" have added the feeder leagues (college) after the deletions, but I can't verify it or recall with confidence that it was handled in that manner.

The league was created before the first patch, but obviously the lockup didn't occur until after the second. But that's a function of the timing of patch release. I'm certain it would have locked up with the first patch as well.

Personally, I don't care if there are minor league all-star games. I don't believe they're stored in the player histories and if they're stored in the minor league histories - given I play out all my major league games - I doubt I'd ever have the time to delve into those personal player merits at that level. It is possible to simply shut off minor league All-Star games, isn't it? Would you just leave the auto-schedule all-star box unchecked for those levels?

And curiously, while it may have no bearing at all, why are only the all-star games causally related? Is it the "4" flag? Why wouldn't any of the other scheduled games ever come into play? How are they effectively deleted without consequence?

[Fenris]

It worked like a charm.

AWESOME. Big BIG THHANK YOU!