This is one slick bug!

[Wartower]

Alright, so after several days of sifting through bug report threads in various forums, I figured I had no choice but to come here with my problem. Well, it's not specifically my problem, but one that affects a small, but random, amount of people that play Deus Lo Vult. Technically, this "bug" has hit people that played DLV 5.0-DLV 6.0, DLV_Europa, and the DLV games for the kingdoms campaigns. Below I will post a link to the DLV_Europa thread that contains all of the things that I have done to try and get things resolved. I don't expect anyone here to waste their time reading all of it, but I hope when I post this error log, that it might jog someone's memory about a fix, or at least help us in our quest to be rid of it forever.

Error Log:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

15:59:01.932 [system.rpt] [always] CPU: SSE2
15:59:01.947 [system.rpt] [always] ==== system log start, build date: Aug 3 2007 version bld-medieval2-kingdoms-104 (45562) ===
15:59:01.947 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_0.pack
15:59:01.947 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_1.pack
15:59:01.947 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_2.pack
15:59:01.947 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_3.pack
15:59:01.947 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/data_4.pack
15:59:01.947 [system.io] [always] mounted pack packs/localized.pack
15:59:06.987 [game.script] [error] Condition parsing error in mods/DLV_Europa/data/export_descr_character_traits.txt, at line 15598, column 46
trigger not found
15:59:07.542 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

Link to pertinent thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=217669

Alright, so if you don't feel like looking through that thread here's what I can tell you for certain:

1) It causes CTD's during splashscreen, and/or after faction selection then hitting "start", during AI's turn (in one version of the game, it always seemed to crash during Hungary's turn), and sometimes, albeit more rarely, before or after battles.

2) The error log above is from another poster. Patching to 1.5 before or after the install doesn't make a difference.

3) The bug isn't OS specific. People using XP, Vista 32, and 64 bit have all reported the same error.

4) The bug seems to affect the mods in a totally random fashion. In other words, I can play DLV_5.83 just fine, while the other two guys can't get past the splash screen without the CTD. Then, those same two guys play DLV_Europa perfectly, while I get the CTD on it. For the record, DLV_Europa is based on DLV 5.3. As of this posting, repman has released DLV 6.0 which has nothing to do with DLV_Europa. They are both stand alone mods.

5) None of the known "Vista" fixes work, and that makes sense considering it affects XP users.

6) The spot in the export_descr_character_traits.txt file where the error log points to doesn't reveal any noticeable coding errors.

7) Myself, and others I'm sure, have gone through the rigamarole of redownloading, re-installing, clean fresh install of the core game + kingdoms, packing and unpacking files, deleting map.rwm file, deleting the string (.bin) files, adding/removing things from the .cfg files, etc.

8) My net framework is up to date, drivers are up to date, etc.

9) I like long walks in the park.

10) Vista users, at least the experienced ones, have run the game as administrator, turned off UAC before downloading/installing, I've disabled my virus scanner before download/install, etc. It's not the "common" things that plauge Vista users as again, this damn bug affects XP users as well.

11) I'm leaving some important things out I'm sure, but it really is covered, ad nauseum, in the thread I provided the link to.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks, in advance, and for specific questions, please ask here or PM myself, or if it's really technical, PM Harry Lime as he is much more experienced than I.

[Squid]

Could you show the contents of the EDCT around the line the log points to? What do they say in the thread you linked to as people generally don't have time to read through 10+ pages of posts?

[Wartower]

Could you show the contents of the EDCT around the line the log points to? What do they say in the thread you linked to as people generally don't have time to read through 10+ pages of posts?

Yeah, here is the entire pertinent section from the EDCT, with the error code typically pointing to the line I have highlighted. It's important to remember that the coding is identical for everyone, but a small portion of us get the CTD's.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

;---------------------- 1 SEASONAL RECOGNITION --------------------------
;------------------- Winter Campaigns--------------------------------------------
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeason
WhenToTest CharacterTurnStart
Condition I_TurnNumber = 0
and CharacterIsLocal
and not AgentType = admiral
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonSummerChildren
WhenToTest CharacterComesOfAge
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 1
and CharacterIsLocal
and not AgentType = admiral
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonWinterChildren
WhenToTest CharacterComesOfAge
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 2
and CharacterIsLocal
and not AgentType = admiral
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 2 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonSummerAdoption
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 1
and CharacterIsLocal
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonWinterAdoption
WhenToTest OfferedForAdoption
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 2
and CharacterIsLocal
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 2 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonSummerLesserAdoption
WhenToTest LesserGeneralOfferedForAdoption
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 1
and CharacterIsLocal
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonWinterLesserAdoption
WhenToTest LesserGeneralOfferedForAdoption
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 2
and CharacterIsLocal
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 2 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonSummerSuitor
WhenToTest OfferedForMarriage
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 1
and CharacterIsLocal
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger AlignSeasonWinterSuitor
WhenToTest OfferedForMarriage
Condition FactionLeaderTrait SummerWinterCampaign = 2
and CharacterIsLocal
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 2 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger ItsWinterNow
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition Trait SummerWinterCampaign = 1
and not I_IsTriggerTrue ItsSummerNow
and CharacterIsLocal
and not AgentType = admiral
Affects SummerWinterCampaign 1 Chance 100
;------------------------------------------
Trigger ItsSummerNow
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd
Condition Trait SummerWinterCampaign = 2
and not I_IsTriggerTrue ItsWinterNow
and CharacterIsLocal
and not AgentType = admiral
Affects SummerWinterCampaign -1 Chance 100

Also, notice at the bottom of the portion of the EDCT that I posted above, there's a (-1) in the line Affects SummerWinterCampaign line. Changing that has no effect.

[Squid]

My guess from looking at it would be it has to do with the recursive definition of the two triggers. When one trigger fires, it needs to check the other trigger, which needs to check the first, which needs to check the second, etc, etc.

Are the error logs the same for everyone who we think is affected by this bug?

[Wartower]

My guess from looking at it would be it has to do with the recursive definition of the two triggers. When one trigger fires, it needs to check the other trigger, which needs to check the first, which needs to check the second, etc, etc.

Are the error logs the same for everyone who we think is affected by this bug?

Yes they are. 100% of the time. The only variation comes depending on what version of DLV is being used. It still points to the Seasonal triggers, but the exact column/line may be different due to the slight variation in the EDCT file.