• Welcome to SC4 Devotion Forum Archives.

What causes Prop Pox (and how to avoid it)

Started by bap, February 24, 2009, 08:37:13 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

cowcorn

Thank you for Swamper for clearing this to me. I was just trying to provide more information but I see this was not relevant.

bap

Quote from: Tarkus on March 07, 2009, 03:36:46 PM
Upon reading your latest report just now, I had an idea--what happens if the original Maxis Static Prop Exemplar is copied into a new .dat and loaded after the problematic Timed Prop?  

Alex, if this is done after the city has been infected (i.e., lots have grown using the problematic timed prop) it will not help preventing Prop Pox. At best, this would be equivalent of removing the infected file from ones plugins. We already know this is not enough to prevent the manifestation of the pox if the 2977aa47 subfile reaches the 6 Mb limit. If this is done prior to city infection (no lots grown/plopped with the affected prop) it may help preventing the pox, but this still has to be tested. However, in this case I believe it would be better to simply delete the affected props from the prop package or to change their IIDs to avoid the conflict.

Regards,
Bap

Tarkus

bap, thank you for the quick response--I was thinking that would probably be the case, but thought I should ask.

-Alex

bap

#163
Testing Prop Pox by yourself

Basic Information

For those willing to check my experiments with Prop Pox, I uploaded three versions of the test city #2 at fileden.com. They can be downloaded at the following addresses:

City - Riquelandia 4.sc4

City - Riquelandia 5.sc4

City - Riquelandia 6.sc4


The relevant information about these cities is as follows:

filename         total size(Kb)   2977aa47 size (Kb)
Riquelandia4       15967              5926
Riquelandia5       16159              6162
Riquelandia6       15923              5742

Riquelandia4 was build exclusively with Maxis vanilla lots & props up to this point. If developed in a plugins without Maxis-modded infected props it will not show Prop Pox. There is room for further zoning in the south and east outer bounds of the city, just inside the highway belt. There is also room for development at the southeast corner outside of the highway belt.

Riquelandia5 is a further development to Riquelandia4 made while the infected props were in the plugins folder. Thus, it will get Prop Pox if you let it grow just a little bit more -- even if the infected props are no longer in the plugins folder. No big development effort is needed here because the city is on the verge to show signs of Prop Pox. Because only custom prop packages were in the plugins (not the lots), anyone can play with this city without being in risk of seeing brown boxes. All installed lots up to this point are Maxis vanilla ones.

Riquelandia6 is a saved version of Riquelandia5 just after it got Prop Pox. As you can see, the city file and the 2977aa47 file both shrank. Several props are missing at different places around the city (look for city parks, water treatment plants, farms).


Relevant warning before doing the tests

This city (all three versions) was built in a region with neighboring connections to the west, south and east. Therefore, there are a lot of sims that work at the neighboring cities as well as residents of the neighbor cities filling job positions at Riquelandia. If you install the city in an empty region it will take a few game years (and a bit of your Mayor abilities) to stabilize the city against unemployment. Increasing Airport budget to maximum helps relieving commercial/office caps and allowing more commercial buildings to grow. Reducing commercial taxes to 5.5-6 per cent, industrial taxes to 5.0 (manufacturing) and 6.5 per cent (hi tech), and residential taxes to 7 per cent also helps to speed up city grow. There are a couple of gaps in police, fire and educational coverage (south & east, the regions that need to be developed). Filling those gaps help speeding residential grow.

In order to incorporate one of the cities in an existing region (to alleviate the neighbors connections), please copy the downloaded cities into your My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions\Downloads folder, then in SC4 use the 'import' button on a large city tile.


Test #1: getting Prop Pox

Install Riquelandia5 in a test region. Either create connections to neighbor cities and/or apply your Mayor skills to stabilize the city against the sudden change in jobs filled inside/outside the city. Zone exclusively low density residentials in the empty regions. Let the city grow. Save and exit the city at about every 2000 extra habitants and check the size of the savegame file (explorer) and the 2977aa47 subfile (with Reader). If the 2977aa47 file keeps increasing in size with the city population, you still have no Prop Pox. Load the city again, let it grow, and save again. At some point after the 2977aa47 file goes above 6 Mb it will start to shrink. The next time you enter the city you will notice several props missing. The easiest places to look for missing props are city parks, water treatment plants, and farms (p.ex., Pedriana's plant has lots of props). You may keep saving the city after it got Prop Pox. Every time you enter the city you will see more and more lots with missing props. Don't be sad. This is just a test city, nor the one you spent several months carefully developing.


Test #2: if you are skeptical

If you believe there is some unknown voo-doo with Riquelandia5, you can do the following test. Make a backup copy of Riquelandia4. Install this city in your test region. Move all files in your MyDocuments\Plugins and ProgramFiles\Plugins folders to temporary folders outside the Simcity directory tree. Now you only have the Maxis vanilla version of the game. If you develop Riquelandia4 following the same guidelines stated in test #1, at some point the save game will jump to 26 Mb because the 2977aa47 subfile has jumped to 16 Mb in size. Both files will keep increasing in size as the city grows. This city will not get Prop Pox. This test is to convince you that Riquelandia4 is a pox-free city, i.e., it is not yet infected by the Prop Pox. Remember to zone low density residentials as this helps to increase the number of props in the city and reach the desired 6 Mb limit.

Now let's infect the city. Install the peg-oww2-bdk-resource.dat file (or any other infected file that might be found) in one of your plugins folders. Install the backup copy of Riquelandia4 over the previously developed version of it, and repeat all the stabilization and developing procedures as before (at this point one may realize how boring doing this 31 times might be  &mmm). Repeat the save-exit-check size procedure as before. This time Riquelandia4 will show Prop Pox when the 2977aa47 subfile grows larger than 6 Mby. The only difference between these last two tests is the presence of an infected dat file in your plugins. Remember to zone low density residentials as this helps to increase the number of props in the city and reach the desired 6 Mb limit.

Confidence in a given experiment is only achieved if that experiment can be independently reproduced by other researchers. If you are willing to repeat the tests, we would appreciate if you post your findings here at this thread.


wouanagaine

Thanks a lot Bap  :thumbsup:

Quick followup
We have found what cause the jump in the savegame at 6mb
We might have found a way to "fix" a city with prop pox,  it won't restore the missing prop, but it might prevent the spreading of the prop pox ( only if you remove/update the modified timed prop from your plugin )

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

BarbyW

I am not sure if I am considered an independent researcher but here are my findings:
I have been trying out bap's tests and so far have confirmed the existence of prop pox in Riquelandia 5. Interestingly I found that after its arrival the 2977aa47 file drops but then rises again even though props are still absent from lots. It is also erratic in where it strikes. There are four water treatment plants in the city but only one has lost all its props. Avenues lose their medians for some stretches then get them back later along the road.
Results of test 1 - Riquelandia 5 pre pox
Population       Save game filesize         2977aa47 filesize
131857                15.9MB                   6305633
134634                16MB                     6335339
136751                15.7MB                   5874948
139772                15.7MB                   5833379
140695                15.8MB                   5866407

Now to do test 2 but using the Trail Park Engine instead of the BDK file.


I put Riquelandia 4 into the region. This is non poxed city.
I started with nothing other than vanilla SC4 - ugh. At each population change I saved then exited and took a back up of the city.
The starting population is 119K
Only Maxis
Population             Savegame                 2977aa47
124254                   15.6                   5985656
125180                   16.8                   6214666
130058                   16.1                   6310482
132158                   25.7                   16304909

Replace the original Riquelandia 4 and added Peg Trail Park Engine 305b
123063                   15.7                   6001232
125183                   15.8                   6087109
128031 *                 25.3                   16044101
No pox is showing at this stage.
Removed the Trail Park dat and put the BDK one in but did not replace the city
130648                   15.3                   5708398   
The city immediately got the pox.

Removed the BDK dat and replaced with city *
130527                   25.4                   16158393   


I have subsequently tested with many other single files in plugins and have yet to find another file that gives the pox BUT there must be others as it appeared well before the release of the OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE file. It would help if some of the sufferers could give a better idea of when it struck and what they had in plugins at the time, if this is possible.
Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. TP



Barbypedia: More alive than the original

z

First, thanks again to everyone for the work they're doing on this.

I got hit by the pox 13 months ago, with all the classic symptoms.  It was, of course, not immediately obvious what was causing it.  But I thought it might be some dodgy download from the STEX.  I remember removing a few things I had recently tried and that had low download counts, as they seemed the most suspicious.  Unfortunately, I don't remember what most of them were.  But the one I was most suspicious of, I do remember - it was BLAM UninSpire.  What made me suspicious of this building was though it looked nice, it was improperly constructed.  Hovering the cursor over it didn't show the usual information - in fact, it showed nothing at all.  I had only recently been using this building, so I bulldozed it out of all my cities, and then deleted it from my Plugins file.  The pox never appeared in any other city.

However, there is another event that I think is even more likely to be connected with my city's contracting the pox.  Right before the pox occurred, I realized for the first time that for the CAM dependencies, I needed only the model of the original building, and that leaving the other files in the dependencies in my Plugins folder had led to a lot of non-CAM versions of my CAM buildings.  So I went through each city, painstakingly finding each non-CAM building of this type, and then bulldozing it.  After I had done this with all my cities, not letting them run in the mean time, I removed everything from all my CAM building dependency files except the models.  The pox struck my city about a day after this.  I have long thought that I may have missed one building in that one city, and that that was the cause of this problem.  I don't know if that's possible or not, but I thought I'd pass it along.

Diggis

ummm... Z, have you read the thread?  Specifically the first 4 posts that outline the cause of the pox? It's not buildings, it's static maxis props that were converted to timed props without a new IID.

BarbyW

There is nothing in any of the CAM original upload files nor in the BLaM Uninspire upload that might cause the Prop Pox. As Shaun said it has been identified so far as being Maxis props that were modded without changing the IIDs. There may be other reasons but they need to be directly related to props rather than buildings.
Many of the files on the STEX are badly modded but that in itself does not cause PP.
Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. TP



Barbypedia: More alive than the original

z

#169
Yes, I understand that it's a prop problem - I just thought that if the building download was bad, it's possible that it came with some modified props that were causing the problem.  Same thing with the CAM dependencies - and I want to stress that it was the dependencies I was suspicious of, specifically files that shouldn't have been downloaded, and not anything in the CAM itself.  But since I didn't remove any prop packs, why did none of my other cities ever come down with the pox?

wouanagaine

QuoteAnd since I didn't remove any prop packs, why did none of my other cities ever come down with the pox?
The prop pox strikes at a specified size of the 29AA7747 subfile, around 6Mb, which is usually when your city will get around 150K 200K different props

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

RippleJet

#171
Quote from: z on March 12, 2009, 03:22:25 AM
I just thought that if the building download was bad, it's possible that it came with some modified props that were causing the problem.

Modifying Maxis props without changing their IID's is fortunately something not the average batter/lotter would be doing.
It requires the use of Reader, and so far we've only seen two modders (one in the past and one recently) who've done this.
Most ordinary bats/lots only might include prop exemplars of the creator's own custom bats, but not modified Maxis props.

z

#172
Quote from: wouanagaine on March 12, 2009, 03:25:59 AM
The prop pox strikes at a specified size of the 29AA7747 subfile, around 6Mb, which is usually when your city will get around 150K 200K different props

I just checked all six cities in my region.  The affected city has a subfile of 16 MB.  Three cities have subfiles under 6 MB, although one is 5.8 MB.  But one other city has a subfile of 16 MB, and another has a subfile of 17 MB.  Yet those were played for months after the pox struck the first city, and they're fine.

EDIT: I just checked a large city in another region that I have played sporadically since the pox hit.  It, too, has a subfile size of 16 MB, and has no problems.  I use the same Plugins files for all my regions.

wouanagaine

if your subfile is over 16Mb we only get one occurence where it shrink back to 6Mb caused by the prop pox
if your subfile is over 16Mb than it is almost safe
Can you post the city which is prop poxed and which have a subfile of 16MB please ? I'll decypher it

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

z

OK, here's a link to the Near West Side.  It's over 80 MB.  I've also located a version apparently from just a few days after the pox hit, if that would be helpful.  But I'm going to bed right now...

callagrafx

Quote from: z on March 12, 2009, 03:42:40 AM
EDIT: I just checked a large city in another region that I have played sporadically since the pox hit.  It, too, has a subfile size of 16 MB, and has no problems.  I use the same Plugins files for all my regions.

Yes, but you may not have used LOTs that have affected props in all the cities.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it

wouanagaine

Quote from: z on March 12, 2009, 04:19:50 AM
OK, here's a link to the Near West Side.  It's over 80 MB.  I've also located a version apparently from just a few days after the pox hit, if that would be helpful.  But I'm going to bed right now...
Your city is prop poxed for sure, but the corruption occurs after the 16Mb hence why it has not shrink to 6Mb

New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

cogeo

#177
I don't know if this has gone unnoticed, but NAM contains an overridden SC4 prop too: the $$ lamppost. The change is the addition of a Resource Key 4 xm property (the original RKT4 is unchanged). This is different to replacing RKT1 with RKT4 though (as in PEG 's props). The addition of the RKT4xm was needed for using the lamppost as a network prop (in "mirrored" tiles).

Maybe someone should check if this causes the prop pox too.

Tip: Lots using the $$ lamppost are the ingame parks and plazas.

wouanagaine

Cogeo, can you please give me the TGI of that prop ?

So far, we clearly identified that changing a static prop to a timed prop result in a change of 16 byte in savegame. We didn't notice anything about RKT4xm but such props are quite uncommon, so I prefer to check


New Horizons Productions
Berethor ♦ beskhu3epnm ♦ blade2k5 ♦ dmscopio ♦ dedgren ♦ emilin ♦ Ennedi ♦ Heblem ♦ jplumbley
M4346 ♦ moganite ♦ Papab2000 ♦ Shadow Assassin ♦ Tarkus ♦ wouanagaine
Divide wouanagaine by zero and you will in fact get one...one bad-ass that is - Alek King of SC4

BarbyW

0x6534284a, 0xc977c536, 0x1dfb0000 - C1x1x8_$$lamppost_1DFB
Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. TP



Barbypedia: More alive than the original