[WIP] - SH3Weather Update 1.5

[theluckyone17]

Erg.

The SH3Weather.log content is a copy & paste job, but I verified it from the original log files, and the space is not there. Must've slapped a space in there somehow either pasting it in afterwards, or editing (or maybe the cat walked across the keyboard when my back was turned... yeah, that's it! Blame it on the cat!).

I dug a little deeper... started with the corrupted campaign files, and started changing those values until I found out what SH3 was complaining about.

Line 18, which should be the WindSpeed line... if I changed that value from 0 to 3, leaving everything else the same, SH3 loads that saved game without a problem. Since the working campaign files generated by SH3Weather didn't complain about the 6, I assume any positive, non-zero value will work here. Change it to 0, and I betcha SH3 complains.

That help at all?

[Skweetis]

Seems you may be on to something. Perhaps SH3 can't handle a 0 windspeed? Odd that I haven't run into this. Let me manually change my campaign file to have 0 wind speed, and load my save game.....

if this is the case, Ill make minimum windspeed 1....

Thanks a million for helping me test and figure this out!

EDIT: By the way, if it turns out that it IS the 0 windspeed that is causing the problem, it was your cat that made me use it as a valid value.... yeah, that's it.... the cat

[theluckyone17]

I assume the units for the WindSpeed variable in the configuration file is m/s... at which point, I want to say I've seen SH3 have a dead calm before. Usually at the start of a patrol, but I think I've seen it in mid patrol, too. I could be wrong, but...

... on the other hand, SH3 could just have a problem loading a saved game when the wind is 0 m/s, while it handles a currently running game perfectly fine. That'd be an awful strange bug, though.

I don't mind helping out at all... the way I look at it, I just compared results, and that's easy. I didn't have to debug someone else's code to do it, and that makes me very happy (not a professional programmer, btw, and the chance of debugging someone else's code is why I'm not ).

As for the cat thing... well, I do believe he just earned a nickname. Bernard.

[Skweetis]

Nope. I set windspeed to 0 in all three files, to no effect. I was able to load a save without issue....

Let me see what else...

Edit: Lucky, the point you made about saving with a 0 windspeed may be valid, let me try that. Before I can start changing code, I have to reproduce it here. Currently, I only have the GW mod previous to the GWX release (ill update that tonight, and see if I can get the same results) and SH3Commander/SH3Weather. Ill be adding LRT 1.31 Lite as well once I upgrade to GWX.... I think it will be a late night for me, 'cause I can't let things go unsolved... hehe

[Skweetis]

Scratch that. I loaded a save game that was created with a windspeed of 0. Worked fine....

Id like to try launching my save game with your bad .mis files.... see what happens...

In the meantime, Im off to update to GWX....

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by Skweetis

Actually, this issue about save game crashes.... I wonder, those of you that are having it: are you saving when in the vicinity of a large convoy? I have in the past (in fact from the beginning of SH3's release) had issues where I was unable to load a save that was made while attacking or trailing a large convoy.

Just curious if these are the same circumstances under which others are experincing this problem, especially with how most of the major mods do increase the size of convoys (and by no fault of their own..) the SH3 save engine cannot handle that many objects when saving....

Just a thought.

Cheers,

Jamie

PS - Damn, im gone for a spell, come back, and I have the accursed Medic as my avatar.... *shudders*

If this info helps, I've had the save game reload problem long before using SH3Weather.

I did notice that the saved Crew_Career_00.cfg file somehow gets set to the default file from SH3 for that sub while the saved game Crew_Career_x.cfg file still has whatever crew you had when you saved the game.

Tried copying over the Patrol crew Config file to the 00.cfg file and sometimes it will reload but not all the time. I had this bug show up since stiock SH3, could never figure out the pattern to why a savegame gets corrupted. I always save on the surface, no enemies sighted, TC=1, gramaphone off.

[Skweetis]

Lucky,

When you get a chance, can you try this for me:

1)restore the MIS campaign files that cause the problem...
2)replace the [Mission] section in each "bad" file with the [Mission] section from the "good" MIS campaign files that do work

Let me know what happens...

cheers,

James

[Skweetis]

Originally Posted by Samwolf

If this info helps, I've had the save game reload problem long before using SH3Weather.

All info helps Samwolf, the more I have, the better chance I have of figuring out what the issue is, and if SH3weather is the cause. Regardless of what the cause is, finding an answer, and then possible workaround is a benifit to all the community.

I truly appreciate any and all information that is provided!

Thanks for contributing!

Cheers,

Jamie

[theluckyone17]

Originally Posted by Skweetis

Lucky,

When you get a chance, can you try this for me:

1)restore the MIS campaign files that cause the problem...
2)replace the [Mission] section in each "bad" file with the [Mission] section from the "good" MIS campaign files that do work

Let me know what happens...

cheers,

James

That works... which makes sense, because the .mis files differ in that [Mission] section only. At least, according to "Active File Compare" (a shareware Windows diff knock-off... I've never used it before, but it looks to do the job. Booting into Linux to use 'diff' would be a pain).

I'm going to try something... After I did the above, I saved a new save file (I have been right along, but always loading into the original save file that had the issue). Now that we've copied the working [Mission] block into the .mis files, I'm going to edit those .mis files to set WindSpeed to 0 again, then load the new save file, rather than the original one.

[Skweetis]

Posting way to many times in my own thread, I apologise....

Lucky,

I was reading through previous threads of yours, and you mentioned that you wanted to know what files specifically that SH3Weather writes to, so I figured Id post the source for the write command to the mis files. This is all that SH3Weather writes to any SH3 files. You will notice that it uses a WRITEINI module, since most of the SH3 cfgs use a .ini structure for their files (makes my job easier)...

'----Write to SCR
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "Fog", Fog
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "FogRand", FogRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "Clouds", Clouds
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "CloudsRand", CloudsRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "Precip", Rain
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "PrecipRand", PrecipRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "WindHeading", WindDir
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "WindSpeed", WindSpeed
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "WindRand", WindRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_SCR.mis", "mission", "WeatherRndInterval", Interval
'----Write to LND
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "Fog", Fog
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "FogRand", FogRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "Clouds", Clouds
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "CloudsRand", CloudsRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "Precip", Rain
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "PrecipRand", PrecipRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "WindHeading", WindDir
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "WindSpeed", WindSpeed
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "WindRand", WindRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_LND.mis", "mission", "WeatherRndInterval", Interval
'----Write to RND
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "Fog", Fog
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "FogRand", FogRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "Clouds", Clouds
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "CloudsRand", CloudsRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "Precip", Rain
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "PrecipRand", PrecipRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "WindHeading", WindDir
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "WindSpeed", WindSpeed
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "WindRand", WindRand
WriteIni App.Path & "\data\Campaigns\Campaign\Campaign_RND.mis", "mission", "WeatherRndInterval", Interval

That is a copy paste from the VB6 code (Don't show Jscones, 'cause he did give me tips on how to do the same thing with less lines of code, I just couldn't bring myself to edit the write part I had so painstakingly written out! Though let him know that all of the nested IF's I had are now CASE statements! I digress...)

The values are generated by the program, then written to the files as shown above. This is the limit of what it writes...

Hopefully this will give Lucky, and other concerned users as to what is happening to their files. I will be happy to share the source code to anyone who requests via PM, provided they make no profit (ie charge) for any part of its use....

Cheers,

James

[Skweetis]

Lucky,

guess I posted previously at the same time....

can you post the "broken" [mission] section? I'll load it into mine and see what happens....

and so I can closely reproduce... are you submerged, or surfaced when saving?

Cheers and thanks for your diligence. If we get to the bottom of this, Ill petition Neal to change your title to Bug Hunter! hehe

James

[theluckyone17]

Blech. Not for your code, but for this bug. I'm starting to get annoyed with it.

I performed the above... having overwritten the non-working [Mission] block with the block from the working .mis file, successfully loading it, then saving it again... and changing WindSpeed line to 0 in the .mis files, then loading the new saved file again... SH3 borks.

The code is fairly straight forward. It really can't be much simpler, really. I don't think this is SH3Weather's code... it just edits the .mis file, and it's kinda hard to mess that up. Invalid syntax or an invalid value, maybe... but anything else, ought to be SH3.

There must be something else to this bug than just that WindSpeed line, since changing it to zero for you doesn't replicate the bug (but it does for me).

I wonder what happens if I create a new captain using SH3Commander, use the bad .msi files, and start a new career?

[theluckyone17]

Sorry for the double post, but seein' as this is a different... line of attack, I figured it was worth it.

If you can't replicate the bug by setting WindSpeed to zero in your .mis files, then there's got to be more to the bug than just that. Samwolf's post got me thinking, so I popped on over and started checking out my crew config files, too.

Oddly enough, there is a discrepancy. I've got three saved game files... the first two were from .mis files that were valid, so SH3 loaded fine. The last saved game file was a .mis file that wouldn't work.

The first two crew_config_*.cfg files are identical. The third is different. After a quick glance, it looks like the crew had been moved around (all three saved game files should be within a minute or two of each other, since they were saved during this bug-checking). I don't remember moving crew around during all of this.

[Skweetis]

Lucky,

A garbage value is a possibility, but the values for all the variables that are created in SH3Weather are output to the log file, which as shown above, seem okay (with the exception of the space in the interval value, but you explained that. Frisky Bernard :P). All the datatypes for the variables are integers, with the exception of the 29th flotilla Boolean and the date/time stamp for the logfile (shown as "Now" in the above description.... I'm stumped...

I've been away a while, so how many other users do you recall are experiencing the "Death Dive" on load of a save? Do you recall if they are using roughly the same mods? I wonder if something that gets written by SH3Weather, and GWX or another mod is creating a subkilling concoction.... conflicting values of some sort that makes the SH3 engine barf....

I'm going to try to replicate your mod setup (since they seem to be inline with what floats my boot anyway! ) and see if I have the same experience....

The ONLY other culprit I can think of is hardware, bad ram.... do a google search for a program called MemTest... run it overnight (takes at least 8 hours to get accurate results, but the longer you go, the more accuracy) and see what results you get. The program works by testing each block in memory to see if it returns the same data that was written to it. Good to do anyway to see what is in your machine, and how well it is performing.

Cheers

James

[Samwolf]

Originally Posted by theluckyone17

Sorry for the double post, but seein' as this is a different... line of attack, I figured it was worth it.

If you can't replicate the bug by setting WindSpeed to zero in your .mis files, then there's got to be more to the bug than just that. Samwolf's post got me thinking, so I popped on over and started checking out my crew config files, too.

Oddly enough, there is a discrepancy. I've got three saved game files... the first two were from .mis files that were valid, so SH3 loaded fine. The last saved game file was a .mis file that wouldn't work.

The first two crew_config_*.cfg files are identical. The third is different. After a quick glance, it looks like the crew had been moved around (all three saved game files should be within a minute or two of each other, since they were saved during this bug-checking). I don't remember moving crew around during all of this.

I've had the crew changed around in the patrol saves and that seems to be ok. It's the Crew_Career_00.cfg file that somehow ends up with totally different crew names. The only place I find the "new" names is in the original Crew_Config_<uboat type_#>.cfg file. It seems that somehow the 00.cfg file gets replaced with the default one somewhere in the save process and it now no longer matches the patrol files. Not sure if this causes the sinking bug but it's the only file I can look at that is different when I run into the problem