What causes Prop Pox (and how to avoid it)

[GMT]

can't even obliterate one of the 2 poxed cities. the game keeps crashing on me on both systems... 

[z]

Try doing a large delete on various sections of the city.  That might get around the problem enough so that you can eventually do an obliterate.

[GMT]

1 bulldozing and 2081903 simoleons later (god I love full hd resolution, gets almost an entire large city tile in zoom 1 on the screen) it still does crash upon obliterating.
wierd if you'd ask me.
well, I guess I just pull out the afore mentioned unpoxed backup copy of this file (luckily it's this city tile and not the one that's already poxed in my backups) and start from scratch here. hope I can obliterate this copy.
EDIT: oh lucky me, just moving the city out of the region folder and re-importing it ingame did help already to be able to obliterate it.

[jdenm8]

I had the prop pox in one of my older cities, caused by the BDK, but I deleted the bad prop from the prop pack and used mrtnrln's solution which worked visually.
Like he said, T21s didn't put themselves back, and there were some LOTs that didn't get their props back but it mostly worked.

SC4Savegame explorer still reports it as poxed though.

[GMT]

this approach would be working for me aswell I guess. My problem is tho, I can live with the occasional prop missing unless it's vivid (like missing fountains on a fountain plaza, missing lake on the large park and stuff) but what I can't stand at all is missing T21s. nothing worse than an ave interchange w/o traffic lights or even worse, no catenaries over railways. And since I'm prone to murphy's law, I guess I do the safe approach here
And as a bonus, I could do some minor changes I had in mind that hesitated to do cuz I was to lazy to rebuild relevant parts of a finished city tile. Now that I have to anyways, I can do it 

EDIT: witnessing the following, I got a question: what relationship to the matter at hand do have disabled props actually?
I am asking because I am developping the first recreated city tile of the 2 poxed city tiles. while growing, I did frequent quicksaves and checked them in sc4save. at a certain point slightly prior to crossing the haunted threshold, I had 1 disabled prop in town, now I crossed the 16mb and sc4save does find 0 disabled props. this made me curious...

EDIT2: AND NOW TO THE FUN PART IN THIS MY VERY STORY (sry for caps): Just now, just a few seconds ago, the unbelievable happened:
I am still letting the city grow (albeit it's almost fully developped, I wait for some higher growthstage). Still quicksaving every few minutes and analyzing the savefile. And what do my little eyes spy? "Your city is poxed".
Funny. But that's not the end to the story yet. I let development run further, saved again, and guess what? "Your city is pox free".
Now... what the frack? I did tripple check to make sure I didn't click the wrong file in sc4 and qadruplechecked the reading. 

[MandelSoft]

Bad news: the Pox has returned in my city  This time I have no idea what's causing it...

The odd thing however is that the file size stays around 25 MB and not 16 MB...

EDIT: after some demolishing it went up to 35 MB again. I hope its solved now...

[MandelSoft]

Well, I used my backup of my Poxed city of where the Prop Pox occured for the first time, which I thought I solved the problem for the first time. But guess what, it did not. While the problem may seem to be solved, it's only fighting the symptoms. The Prop Pox is still present, but does help to limit the effect for a while.

If you set your game to low detail, demolish some lots (try to demolish fillers with lots of props) and then build them up again, save the city and then turn details to high seems to mask and limit the effect.

Best,
Maarten

[Lowkee33]

Still having trouble making disabled props...

If a lot with pox inducing props is burnt down, do the props become disabled, or destroyed?  Could this prevent prop pox while making the compressed/non-compressed switch?

[bap]

A few questions.  Is there a way to guarantee a prop will become disabled?  Are disabled props the only cause of prop pox?

Props that lead to Prop Pox become disabled when their lots are demolished or upgraded.
It is correct and safe to say that disabled props cause Prop Pox. However, since there is presently only one know group of props that drive the pox, one cannot say for sure if disabled props are the only cause of the pox or not. I would feel more confortable to say that if we find another cause of the pox that works the same way as the modified BDK props: by becoming disabled props (instead of being deleted from the buffer) when their lots are demolished/upgraded.

If a lot with pox inducing props is burnt down, do the props become disabled, or destroyed?  Could this prevent prop pox while making the compressed/non-compressed switch?

This is worth testing. What I know is that demolishing a lot with a pox-driving prop is equal to letting the lot being upgraded: the pox-driving prop becomes disabled (I made the virus_detect mod with the hope that by identifying & demolishing all suspected lots I could get rid of the pox before it manifested itseft -- it didn't work; I just increased the number of disabled props).

[dahemac]

I had prop pox in 2009. I was directed to this thread. I found out that the cause was PEG-OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE.DAT and removed it from my plugins. I started a new region late last year. Just now I realized that one of the cities has props disappearing. PEG-OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE.DAT cannot be the cause because I never had it installed while working on this... What do you think?

[SC4BOY]

It is known historically that prop pox has occured for many years, and well before the Peg lot.. it is clear that there are other problems.. it might be useful for you to place your city save on some file host location (there are a number that allow free use and large files .. I use fileden) and perhaps someone can zero in on the file(s) that may have caused your specific problem..

[dahemac]

I think that I have figured out when the pox turned up. The city on March 27th looks fine to me while the city on March 28 has begun to lose props. On the 28th I did a thing that might have caused it. Let me know what you think.

On March 20th I updated the RTMT to V3.60. It includes model files; SG_BusStop01.dat through SG_BusStop20.dat and SG_BusStopLg.dat dated 2009/10/23. These 21 DATs had more current dates on them than the versions I had been using with simgoober/Transport/Bus Stops dated 2009/02/25. So, thinking I only wanted the more current files in my plugins I removed the older ones. After that I noticed that when I plopped SG Bus Stops they had no shelter on them. So I thought that I needed both the old and new versions in my plugins and put the older ones back. And indeed, SG Bus Stops plopped after that had shelters, but, all subsequent saves have swaths of props missing.

I notice now that while all the other 2009/10/25 DATs are the same size as the older ones, SG_BusStop16.dat from 2009/10/23 is 66 KB while the older version from 2009/02/25 is 70 KB. I understand that changes to prop size can contribute to prop pox, could this be significant?

I can't be sure of the exact timing however and this may be coincidence. I have also been editing traffic capacities of lots to match the rules set down by Z,  so, I could have screwed something up there too.

The unpoxed and poxed versions of the city are at the links below. If you know what you are looking for, as I certainly do not, you may want to examine them. I have not had the PEG-OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE.DAT in my plugins since 2009. This region was started 2010/12/21 so it is for sure a new case of pox not caused by PEG-OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE.DAT. As such it may be helpful in figuring prop pox out.

Unpoxed: http://www.davemckay.ca/_Temp/110327_21-25_unpoxed.zip
Poxed: http://www.davemckay.ca/_Temp/110328_01-07_poxed.zip

Thanks in advance.

[z]

This is certainly a  reasonably question, and one that I asked myself at one point.  However, it has been investigated thoroughly, and the consensus is that a simple change in prop size could not cause the prop pox.  Apparently, the pox requires the use of timed props and their untimed version in the same city.

Furthermore, in your particular situation, the IDs of the RTMT prop exemplars are different from SimGoober's IDs - only the models are the same.  This automatically disqualifies this situation as a possible cause for the pox.

Also, just editing traffic capacities cannot set off the pox, regardless of what numbers you put in.

[dahemac]

So, I can keep 2 sets of SG_BusStopXX.dat in my plugins?

[z]

Definitely.  You can use both the RTMT and the standalone versions of the bus stops in the same city; many people do that without any problems at all.  The game doesn't care about file names; the key is that the IDs are different.

[dahemac]

Thanks Z.

Well, if it is not that, then I have no idea. If anyone has any thoughts or think it would be useful to look at the save-games then:
Unpoxed: http://www.davemckay.ca/_Temp/110327_21-25_unpoxed.zip
Poxed: http://www.davemckay.ca/_Temp/110328_01-07_poxed.zip

[finaltable]

I have just spent the last two hours going through this thread.  Prop Pox is messed up man.  Sucks that there are even issues like this.  It's to bad SC4D can't just come out with their own SC4 game with all problems fixed!  It would be more than Maxis ever wanted to do with it, I.M.O.

Question?

So I'm starting fresh with SC4/RushHour.  I got the LEX DVD and I was wondering.  Is there a list of anything that maybe I shouldn't install, that might cause Prop Pox? 

[Lowkee33]

@Bap:  Thanks for the info.  Start to do a fair amount of modding to props, so having a city that can quickly be tested will be helpful.

@Final Table:  Nothing on the LEX DVD is known to cause prop pox.  When the RKT1 to RKT4 issue was found, the BSCers went through all their stuff looking for cases (not sure if they found any).  Also, I believe that if you start a new region and never change your plugins, then you will never get prop pox, even if you started the region with the Peg BDK.  (could be wrong though).

[z]

Also, I believe that if you start a new region and never change your plugins, then you will never get prop pox, even if you started the region with the Peg BDK.  (could be wrong though).

Unfortunately, this is not true.  If you have a lot grow with the beach umbrella, and then the lot automatically upgrades into a bigger lot, the beach umbrella will end up as a disabled prop, and it is then possible for you to get the pox.

[finaltable]

 @ Lowkee33, yea I'm still confused after reading this entire thread, but I guess what I was hinting at, was you have all these great minds here at SC4D.  It would be nice if a group of people from here, could get together, and get the rights to produce their own SC game with!  I think it would be something that would take sometime to make, but in the end result, you could weed out all problems and have a TON of things to go with the game.

I mean with purchasing SC4/RushHour, compared to what add ons that are on this site.  It is still pretty basic.  So why don't the head mods put together their own game?  A challenge in and of its self, but worthy cause no? 

You would have to ways going about it as I see it.  Getting the rights from EA or starting off fresh.  Maybe I'm just dreaming up a wild idea here. 
But the support, and friendliness of this site alone, goes beyond anything else. There is a reason why it's called sc4"D"! 

@ z back to my original question.  If I'm doing a fresh install, what should I be taking out of the folders?  Where is this umbrella you speak of?
I have had my LEX disk for almost 2 weeks now and have been picking and choosing what to install.  I haven't even fired up the game yet!  I'm taking it slow to get all things in order before firing it up for the first time.