Adding exemplar properties corrupts file?

[whatevermind]

Hey all,

I'm working through some prototype/proof of concept level stuff on my latest project, and I seem to be corrupting my Lot files in the process.  My end goal is to have park lots that have certain properties to them.  I've chosen parks because they already have properties that most closely match the ones I want, leaving me to add as few as possible.

I'm good (I think) through taking the model, using PIM-X to create a ploppable park lot from it (following the manual), some basic LOTting for aesthetics, saving, and closing.  I then took one of the LOTs I created (as a Park-Neutral Building), opened it in Reader, and added Mayor Rating Effect.  This is a two rep property, and I did it by picking Mayor Rating Effect from the drop down menu in the add property box, entering the two values (ie 20,10) in the text box, set, apply, save, and close.  This seems to be where things go wrong.

I can use the lots in game, and they look correct, are in the right menu, etc.  Everything seems to be fine, except that it was having no effect on the Mayor Rating.  Opening it back up in Reader, I find that the LOT Exemplar is only showing one property, the Parent Cohort, the LTEXTs are unrecognized and un-decoded, and the Mayor Rating Effect has reset to 0.  Yes, a single value, not even 0,0.  Tried with another lot (Park-Park and Field type), and same thing.  Trying to open PIM-X with these modified files in my Plugins causes it to spew an exemplar error and hang during startup.

My understanding is that adding/removing properties to Building Exemplars in Reader is possible and maybe even commonplace - so I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.  Is there a step I'm missing somewhere?

Any help would be appreciated, I'm baffled.

Update: The plot thickens:
On a whim, I tried making the same mod to the Building exemplar in Reader 0.93 - works flawlessly by all appearances.  Just to make sure I wasn't skipping steps, went back into Reader 1.4, did exactly the same steps, and corrupted the file.  So...is this the sort of thing that can only be done in v0.93?  I've heard 1.4 can be buggy, perhaps this is one of them?

[Tarkus]

0.93 is vastly more stable, and I've had very little problems with it in the 6 years I've been regularly using it.  I've had no problems tweaking, adding, and replacing exemplar properties with it in all that time.  The scuttlebutt that 1.4 and the other 1.x releases have an unfortunate tendency to crash and chew up files is, from my experience, fact. 

-Alex

[vortext]

Funny thing is for some reason v.93 gave me lots of trouble and I went back to using v.14, without any problems whatsoever I should mention.

As for adding properties in v.14; it's a two-step proces because new properties tend to default to zero indeed. So first add the property, then enter the correct values.

[whatevermind]

Thanks for the replies, guys!  I've tried it a few other ways, tweaking my procedure in various ways with v1.4, and can't seem to make it work.  So it goes, at least the older version gets the job done.  Funny thing is I switched to primarily using 1.4 because the program itself crashed less often, especially with larger files.  So, we'll see how this goes.  I might end up opening a project thread for this one - could have some release potential down the road.

[NCGAIO]

Do not forget to uninstall any version or previous installation attempt of Visual C + + before deploying the Microsoft Visual C + + 2008 SP1.ou install direct the 2010 Redistributable Package depending on your choice.

[Lowkee33]

Reader 1.4 expects compressed files, something that PIMX does not make.  The way to fix this is to run DatPacker on the files that PIMX makes, ensureing that the "Compress Dat" checkbox is checked.  I believe this will fix the files that you currupted as well.