Education Bug

[Mbolism]

Has anyone experienced an education funding bug?  The bus funding stays the same, but the funding for every institution slowly works it way down to zero.  I reset each one individually as well as the lot of them through the finance screen, but I just sit there and watch the funding crank itself down each month until it's zero.

[RippleJet]

That's a very well known bug, which is called the Phantom Funding Sliders Bug.

This is how it's triggered:

1. You build a civic building (e.g. a school) in your city, save it and exit.
2. You install a mod that changes the monthly cost for that particular civic building.
3. When reopening the game, the old monthly cost for the building, that is read from the saved game, and the monthly cost for the actual modded building do not match.
4. Eg. a funding of 50% does not end up in the same amount of simoleans funded for the modded building as for the value recorded in the saved game file.
5. Thus, the percentual fundings are being adjusted on a city-wide level, and the funding sliders start changing automatically.
6. Each month the balance is checked, and since the percentual funding never corresponds to the values in the saved game file, the fundings will continue to change till they become either 0% or 120% (maximum value).

The only way to remedy the bug is to first bulldoze all civic buildings with modded funding you may have built after you installed the mod.
Note! Do not bulldoze any civic building you have built before installing the mod. That would only make it more impossible to correct the situation.

Then save and exit and physically remove (from your plugins folder) the mod that changes the funding for those civic buildings.

After this you should be able to restart your game with stable fundings. If that is the case, Congratulations! If not, oh dear...

If you still want to install a mod that changes the funding for civic buildings after this,
please do remember to bulldoze each and every instance of that building anywhere in your region.

There are quite a number of old mods that change the monthly cost for schools, school buses, hospitals, ambulances, police stations and fire stations, and they all cause the same Phantom Funding Sliders Bug. Before ever starting to use such a mod, you have to bulldoze each and every such building you might already have built in your cities.

[Mbolism]

Hmmm.  Well, at least that tell me what the problem is.

These are the only files I've installed (yesterday) so it has to be one of these:

Install_CSX MEGA Props - Vol 04.zip
NetworkAddonMod_Essentials_June_2007.zip
PEG_OFMN_205_SU.zip

Install_BSC Civic - Library1.zip
Install_CSX Museum - Modern Literature.zip
Install_HKSAS_Primary_School_by_Bixel.zip
JBSimio_Schoolpack_Vol01.zip
JBSimio_Schoolpack_Vol02.zip
JBSimio_Schoolpack_Vol03.zip
ShenzhenChildrensPalace.zip

Install_CSX Powerplant - Gas Depot.zip
Install_CSX WFK - Natural Gas Cookery.zip
Install_CSX_Dam_Katze.zip
PEGPRODhydrodam.zip

DEDWD_RTBusStops_v101.zip
DEDWD_RTSubwayStops_v102.zip
DEDWD_SimCityRailUtils_v103.zip
DEDWD_TransitHub_GLHwy1_v103.zip
DEDWD_TransitHub_GLHwy2_v103.zip

I had no mass transit in the city before I installed these
I had the Memorial Hospital as my only hospital
I had regular Maxis schools/libs, etc. only (I had the Main Library and big Museum rewards placed as well)
I had 2 Hamster power power plants.
I also added 3 car/ped ferry's, a space port, airport, a hydro dam (which is very cool!), the gas depot and cookery, and then some of the schools above, as well as the bus/subway on road transits.

Pretty sure thats it.  Let me know if you need any more info.  I'll try to carefully tinker with it a bit as per your instructions too.
Thanks to you guys and your expert help, I AM starting to get the hang of this, even though it may not look like it.

[Mbolism]

Ok, I got it figured out.  Turns out it wasn't a mod after all (well, maybe, but...).

Turns out I accidentally destroyed my Large High School (maxis) when I was doing some minor terraforming work to put in my ferry.  After I demolished all the custom schools, I was looking at my education data window, and it showed a large blue square where the Large High School used to be, and upon looking, I realized it wasn't actually there anymore.  So, the game thought it was there, and like you said, couldn't resolve the diversion of funds to that institution, since it wasn't actually there.

I replaced it, and things seemed to work fine.  I went around and adjusted all my education buildings back to normal and they are holding at the funding level I specified.

However, if I destroy that high school, the game still shows it's there under the education data window.  So now my question is how do I get rid of that, or do I basically just have to keep that school in place permanently to avoid this bug?

Thanks again for your help!

[Unassigned]

Had the Phantom Funding Sliders Bug with health buildings recently. One symptom was a bulldozed building still showing up as a greenish square in the health overview window, like you describe with your high school. I'd say you have the bug in some form, time to revert to your backup, and demolish all edu buildings before (re-)applying your new edu plugins.

Hamster power?  Gief linkie/reference!

[FrankU]

Not sure if this is smart, but I also have an educational bug. Is it a bug?

Before I started my recent region I edited all schools that I had downloaded. So no confusion with old and new files.
I made them cheaper (sorry for cheating) and gave them a larger area and a larger capacity. All of them have numbers that are equivalent to each other, so no school is cheaper than another. This was not the case in the original schools.
Some of them now seem are used hardly. In really nice inhabited parts of town I only find 2 or 5 childeren attending. Instead of the severeal hundreds that would be expected.
Despite that educational levels seem to rise in a normal speed. So my schools are very very cheap now. Still it feels not OK.
Does anyone have a clue?

[Mbolism]

Check your Population by Age graph.  Sometimes I've found, especially when you're health is very high (lifespan near 100) your pop by age will be almost all the 51-60 group, with almost no young people.  Naturally, your elementary schools end up only having a few kids in them.  Not many in the high schools either.

That's about all I know, and I'm not sure if it's a bug.  I'm pretty sure though that if you let health funding drop for a few decades, it will take care of itself, but I'm not totally sure on that.

[FrankU]

No, it's no issue with age. The low funding also works when the city is just established.