my mod crashes on ai turn (byzantium) without apparent reason....when a captain is movin in the strat map

[HELLEKIN]

Hello friends from tw center, the title explains all, long time i´ve been away from here and moding but i´m back to mods and here so, i´ve been taking back again my work in my personal vanilla mod and that´s a lot of work here, for years i have changed almost all the aesthetic aspects of the game and I am very proud of the result but now i´ve started to play it again and the game crashes on AI turn when afther several characters and armies from bizantines moved without any error and a captain is moving without no apparent reason it crashes, black screen..., but if restart the game...continue campaign and before end of turn i kill the faction bizantium the game doesn´t ctd and the Ai turn goes to the end and the game keep going without crashes...i´ve cheked the units i´ve added...the new strat map captains, generals and so on and can´t find any error, i´ve been searching this error for almost 05 months and i cant find it and i´m realy desperate because the loss of all this work, i really apreciate some help because I can not find out by myself the error, please can someone help me to save my mod?
I will be forever grateful.
Many thanks to all

[Gigantus]

Set your log to trace, and then compress it after the crash happens and upload it. Might be able to get an idea what it is about.

Log setting in CFG file, your log will be in the root folder of the game:

[log] 
to = system.log.txt					# path and name of log
level = * trace						# detailed log

[HELLEKIN]

Thank God Gigantus, i´ll apreciate your help, i loaded the saved game with the error instead to play another campaign and wait till the error to happen....i added 03 buildings since then (candle_maker, bee_hive, physician) and the game is in "C:\My_mood\Medieval II Total War".
There is another issue the strat.txt doesn´t change in the strat map....appears dogs, camels, elephants etc,etc...hope you can help me.
Thanks in advance

[Gigantus]

There is a gap of 20 seconds between a settlement getting occupied and the crash.

12:37:28.466 [game.script.trigger] [trace] Trigger <extermination3> fired
12:37:47.925 [system.rpt] [error] Medieval 2: Total War encountered an unspecified error and will now exit.

Any chance it was the last settlement of a faction with the FL and FH inside of it? That often leads to a crash.
Lift the fog of war and follow AI movements, that will give you an idea what faction it was.

[HELLEKIN]

Hello Gigantus, sorry my late answer, the faction of the crash is byzantium and on the AI turn and the action is a captain moving in the strat map to another place like it is in the snapshot i took from my game....it crashes at the end of the captain move.Can you figure out what is going on?I´ll be very anxious to your answer and hope you can help me.I'll be forever in debt to you.
Many thanks in advance.

[Gigantus]

The arrow indicates that he will not reach the settlement this turn. I am puzzled about the really long gap in the log.

How big is your mod? Maybe I can have a look at it.

[HELLEKIN]

Hello Gigantus thanks for the reply, of course you can, it wil be a honnor to show you my work, the thing is that my mod has 14GB, i used my vanilla folder to change everything and make my own vanilla.
If you want to see it just say how to send it to you.
Many thanks once again

[Gigantus]

Oh wei, I guess you unpacked and then edited as needed? Which means the majority of the files is unedited?

That's why we use mod folders.....
14GB must be the packs and the unpacked files, way too big for me, sorry.

Could you please try and play a new game until you get a crash? Simple click through until it happens, then load the last autosave and lift fog of war to follow the AI. When it crashes note the circumstances, compress the log and i'll have another look. Don't modify any file while doing this.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Hi

Can you please have a look at mine ? I still haven't found any valid solution ... I don't even know what causes this crash ...

system.log.rar

Thanks

[Gigantus]

Definitely a battle crash, seems to be portugal vs slaves.

Run gracul's editor to format the modelDB file
Then run bovi's checker to check for model errors in general (missing files)

[Titus le Chmakus]

How do you know it is a battle crash ?
It always crashes with other factions on the stratmap ... Mostly Russia & Byzantium, but I cannot determine why !?

I have already done bovi's checker but I cannot understand the errors as I'm not the graphic/animation guy in my mod. Attached is the file.graphics_n_units.error.rar

[Gigantus]

My conclusion came from the last two lines in the error log, it may however not involve a player. In that case it could have to do with triggers (check for the highlighted phrase to see) with a high likelihood of the 'BecomesFactionLeader' crash.

14:19:35.542 [game.script.trigger] [trace] Trigger <0072_T_Undeclared_Attack> fired
14:19:35.542 [data.transgression] [info] Applied transgression TC_UNDECLARED_ATTACK from transgressor faction 1A597C80 against faction 1A59886A

As to the graphic error file:

1) - This entry related to descr_sm_factions can be ignored, the loading symbols are never used (RTW left over) but you might want to change it to a valid symbol anyhow: "(Entry Faction normans) Reference "loading_screen/symbols/symbol128_normans.tga" does not exist."

2) - Do run gracul's checker and generate a new modeldb file - that will take care of the surplus trailing spaces and this error: "Header says there are 794 entries, while there are actually 811". Afaik that means that model entries after #794 will not be read and could thus be a crash reason.

3) - And here might be another crash reason (unless that model isn't used):

17409: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_3qplate_halfplate/venetian_heavy_infantry_lod0.mesh" does not exist.
17410: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_3qplate_halfplate/venetian_heavy_infantry_lod1.mesh" does not exist.
17411: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_3qplate_halfplate/venetian_heavy_infantry_lod2.mesh" does not exist.
17430: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod0.mesh" does not exist.
17431: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod1.mesh" does not exist.
17432: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod2.mesh" does not exist.
17433: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod3.mesh" does not exist.

4) - You have a long list of silver surfers (you can ignore the ship related ones), make a copy of that section, non ship stuff starts at line 3372, for later reference and fixing.

5) - 'File is not referenced' means you can safely remove those files from your mod - in some mods I recently ported that amounted sometimes to 150MB or more.

6) - Ignore the 'battlemodel never used' entries, that's for good housekeeping only and involves only text entries. Those may lead to 'file not referenced' cases but as descr_strat and campaign_script are not available there is a possibility that those models marked are used in there.

[HELLEKIN]

Hello Gigantus sorry my late answer but i was waiting the weekend to play my game and do as you instructed.
I played the game and it crashed again in Byzantium faction on the AI turn....and when i killed the Byzantium faction with the surrender_regions cheat the game keep going on without crash....well i cant understand what´s going on.
Send you the log as you instructed me, hope you can figure out and help me in this.
Thanks in advance for your help, may the God of strategy games help you to solve this .

[Gigantus]

From what I can see in the log a battle took place and the invader lost and seems to be fleeing. And then it crashes.

Is it possible it was a battle in which the last family members got killed? Because that can cause a trait related crash. To figure that out simply make a copy of the EDCT file and then remove the lower, trigger only part and try again.

If that works then simply restore the original EDCT after that turn.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Thanks and sorry for my late reply, I was on holidays !

I will pass this on to my graphic team as I have no clue of what you are talking about !

[Titus le Chmakus]

My conclusion came from the last two lines in the error log, it may however not involve a player. In that case it could have to do with triggers (check for the highlighted phrase to see) with a high likelihood of the 'BecomesFactionLeader' crash. What do you mean ? I completely removed all the traits linked with BecomesFactionLeader. Can it be linked to this ? Is it complusory to have traits/triggers with BecomesFactionLeader ? The crash occures on strat map, IA turn (not always the same faction).

14:19:35.542 [game.script.trigger] [trace] Trigger <0072_T_Undeclared_Attack> fired
14:19:35.542 [data.transgression] [info] Applied transgression TC_UNDECLARED_ATTACK from transgressor faction 1A597C80 against faction 1A59886A

As to the graphic error file:

1) - This entry related to descr_sm_factions can be ignored, the loading symbols are never used (RTW left over) but you might want to change it to a valid symbol anyhow: "(Entry Faction normans) Reference "loading_screen/symbols/symbol128_normans.tga" does not exist." my mod mate says it is not a crasher.

2) - Do run gracul's checker and generate a new modeldb file - that will take care of the surplus trailing spaces and this error: "Header says there are 794 entries, while there are actually 811". Afaik that means that model entries after #794 will not be read and could thus be a crash reason. He's working on that file these days, so he'll have a look at it.

3) - And here might be another crash reason (unless that model isn't used): I don't think we use these models. He'll check for it too.

17409: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_3qplate_halfplate/venetian_heavy_infantry_lod0.mesh" does not exist.
17410: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_3qplate_halfplate/venetian_heavy_infantry_lod1.mesh" does not exist.
17411: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_3qplate_halfplate/venetian_heavy_infantry_lod2.mesh" does not exist.
17430: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod0.mesh" does not exist.
17431: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod1.mesh" does not exist.
17432: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod2.mesh" does not exist.
17433: (Entry venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1) Reference "unit_models/_units/ln_brigandine_heavy/venetian_heavy_infantry_ug1_lod3.mesh" does not exist.

4) - You have a long list of silver surfers (you can ignore the ship related ones), make a copy of that section, non ship stuff starts at line 3372, for later reference and fixing. Well I've had many tests with Silver Surfers and it never was a problem ...

5) - 'File is not referenced' means you can safely remove those files from your mod - in some mods I recently ported that amounted sometimes to 150MB or more. What are these files you are talking about ?

[Warcrafthero]

Hi Titus, i can give an answer to point 5):

File is not referenced means that is not used by the game, for example i have given a look at the file you posted:

File "unit_models/mounts/barded_horse/mount_order_barded_horse_lod2.mesh" is not referenced in the Model DB
File "unit_models/mounts/barded_horse/textures/horse_barding_antioch.texture" is not referenced in the Model DB

Here for example it means that these two files, a mesh model and an unit texture aren't referenced in battle_models.modeldb; there aren't any strings for them in this particular file so the game don't use them. As Gigantus wrote they can be safely deleted.

[Titus le Chmakus]

Thanks Warcraft ! But I tought you would miraculously have a solution to my crash