Is that a Prop Pox issue or else?

[Tyberius06]

Hello!
First of all, I do appologies to my poor english, I try to explain what I've been experiencing so far, as detailed as I can. Most of the deeper technical details of SC4 are unknown to me. I understand a lot in english, but the speceial phrases are over my knowledge. I'm gonna attach some pictures to show you what the problem is, and I will explain them.

So according to my best knowledge, the main and most probable cause of prop pox is a plug-in called CDK BDK Resource Pack (I think the timed umbrella props, but I'm not so sure). Well I had prop pox an another region 2 years ago (at that time I didn't know anything about prop pox, not even knew about the exist of this bug), and after that I read some topics and met the details of this problem. So in my new region (I started this region from a new map) I didn't use this plugin pack at all. It's not in my plug in folder, It hasn't been at all since I started to play with this region and this city tile.

Little history:
My last try to build a proper city (before this) was somewhen last autum. I had multiple issues with my last city, I just started to make my own custom contents and I made some serious mistake, when I changed the plugins between my different plugin folders and I messed up a lot of things (I had some report here about missing textures ect... anyway).
So with my new city I tried to avoid these things, so I reinstall the whole game, I built a new plugin folder, I organised  my goodies. And I patched the SC4 exe file with the 4 GB patch, because all of my computers have at least 8 GB memory and multiple CPU cores, and use Win 7. Everything was good until, I got an offical CD copy of the game (SC4 Deluxe), and than I just got an official digital copy aswell.
Well I reinstalled the game again, but I forgot to patch the "exe" file with the 4GB patch. And than the funny events just have come out. I zoomed out to see the whole city and take some pictures, and saved the city on this condition. What I experienced was that the right side of my city was wiped out during the saving. I can show a new picture (it's part of the reason of this topic), because I didn't have old one from the original crashes, but I have the same experiance nowadays.





At that time I didn't have back ups, just from the very begining of the city, so I buldozed the affected area and rebuilt, but it happened again and again, when I realized that I didn't make the necessary patching. So I patched the game and did the buldoze-rebuilt combo on the affected area, and this time everything was OK. I started expand my city I built a lot, and I opened a new city tile. Everything was OK so far.
I made some custom contents, I made some new parks with unified base textures, and I replaced the old parks with these new ones. And I went back the other city. But I started experiencing funny things with this older one, when I checked back. For example missing base textures under BSC park trails and the BSC park fences. The only problem with this, that I've never moved away the supporting texture dependencies from my plugin folder (at least not from the BSC Parks, because I maybe deleted first each of the replaced park LOT from the folder – It was a common single park LOT from the STEX - and then buldozed and replaced with the new one what I made). I have a Plugin Compressed main folder for the datpacked goodies (most of the LOTs and buildings) and a Plugin WORK folder for the dependencies (it hasn't datpacked). I also have some other folder for automatas (SW77 transport automatas), the IRM (industrial revolution mod) the NAM folders, and other transportation mods as MGB's or Rivit's mods, the sudden valley terrain mod, paeng texture mod.  I've never modified the BSC park textures (but I use MGB's NGM with the TGM BSC vol. 1-3 override dat), I made custom parks based on downloaded parks (from the STEX), and put under these parks the sudden valley base texture. When I made the custom contents I used a smaller Plugin WORK folder (It is called PIM-X II), but what it is in the PIM-X II folder that it is in the original Plugin WORK folder aswell, and I used a Test Region for testing my new goodies. Anyway I was more focused on my new city then the old one (the two city use the same PW folder, but they have different Plugin Compressed folder, and they use the same other uncompressed folders such as NAM etc...)
Once I decided to fix the old city and rebuild the BSC parks, I realized that not all but some of my new parks also have missing base textures. About the BSC Parks. I wanted to use the BSC Parks trailes and fences to around my big city park and museum and chatedral system linked with the univ area. But the fences had not been built in the same time. The missing textures appeared only under the older fences and not under the newly built ones. I also used the park trails as an extension of Citynuts CCPW CAL canals, but these were built also an earlier  stage. Here is the picture.



So I buldozed and rebuilt these parks and fences, I rebuilt some part of the city aswell and I wanted to expand each of the industrial port area in my city (and an other aswell anyway). The city file at that time was in the original region. I made some expansion and saved the city. I usually (after the mentioned crashes) choose an unused/plain area in the city, zoom closer and than save the city with the CTRL+S hotkey combo and than leave the city and the game clicking the ,,quit without save" option.
After this (and after the last crashes what I mentioned above, I've made backups) I wanted to make a new backup when I realized that my city save file is smaller than it should be, so I went back to the game and load the city and I saw the same wiped out the city part on the right hand side (more or less the same way as on the pictures above), but this time the new developments - lots of PEG CDK3 port pieces, warehouse ports, container ports, break bulk seaport, and several container proccessing docks, and two pier seaport with the ingame water warehouse extensions – were wiped out aswell. It showed only base and overlay textures some buildings and some props, but most of the props were disappeared. After this I opened a test region and put this city file into that region to recover and figure it out what's happening. I did the industrial development several times and if I made the full procces the end was the same: missing props and my city save file was less with 0.5 MB than before the saving and again the right side of the map always was wiped out. So I made piece by piece and save, and if I built the container proccessing port and saved the game the issue appeared again, but if I just put RCI CDK3 pieces I could save safely. I could build the pier seaport aswell, but the ingame water warehouse pieces I couldn't because... (I don't repeat myself). So I decided to use FrankU container port instead of the PEG CDK3 ones, but the resolution was the same: missing props on the right hand side, missing props on the new developments. I gave up at this point this part of the map, so I started to recover an another industrial port area. Well here I experienced an other kind of issue. I could build the RCI docks, I could build the pier seaport, but not the pier warehouse pices, because after saving some part of the city got wiped out. And here is the funny thing. Before the freshly built parts were wiped aswell and the right side of the city, but now on this new part of the city, the pier warehouses still appears (the case of the other industrial port expansion these disappeared too), but an other part of the city props disappeared. I show the pictures. But another funny thing. I successfully made a state and save the city (no pier extensions, no container ports), and I just wanted to put some IRM walls and eyecandy pieces (medium wealth I think), but after saving these new developments were disappered and of course the right side of the city. Some times I don't remember in which case, but there were disappeared buildings and props in the middle of the city (that was an European W2W resindental area with 1x4 tiles long SFBT LOTs). My save file with this city is about 11.6 and/or 11.7 MB and after the issued savings it's getting 11.1 or 11.2 MB. While I was writing this post I tested an another idea, and started developing not industrial port related staffs. I put some plopable landmark an another area of the city and then saved it... Well the new buildings still there and no problem with them, but the save file was decreased to 11.2 MB and some props and buildings totally randomly disappeared...

So the question: is that the Prop Pox, and if it is, than how? Because I don't use that particular plugin...
And the pictures:
New development missing props somewhere in the city in a straigt line after saving:


Earlier stage: freshly built CDK3 port after saving...


... and the missing props




Freshly built IRM walls and the missing walls after saving and reloading




Disappearing props on the right hand side:





Thanks if you read through this and of course if you have any idea, what just happaned in my city...

- Tyberius

[vortext]

So the question: is that the Prop Pox, and if it is, than how? Because I don't use that particular plugin...

Open the city tile in Savegame Explorer and look for the line that says "Prop", this will load the prop subfile, which will tell you whether it's pox. (pox, pox free) Note it may take a while to load depending how many props the city contains - quite a few by the looks of it.

Also, pox is not just related to the particular files mentioned, I had pox in a completely custom city, i.e. all selfmade content. It's a corruption of the savegame file seemingly brought about by improper use of different RKTs for prop exemplars with the same ID, e.g. overriding an RKT1 prop with RKT3.

[Tyberius06]

Well, thank you for the quick answere and the link to the tool. And yes, it prop poxed.
What I don't understand, that I used a back up city for the rebuilding project and that city is pox free. The question is. Can I use that city file, and start the rebuilding from the begining, or it's pointless?

[vortext]

It depends whether the back up already has disabled props, so check the back up file in SavegameExplorer as well. If it has any disabled props than I'm afraid the damage is already done. 

[Tyberius06]

Thank you! The last back up contains more than 27377 of disabled props and it looks fine (well according to the numbers it does not). I found a back up before the mentioned crashes with 4 disabled but it has some development already and an older back up with 0 disabled but almost no development.
But I made a back up after the crashes and the disabled props come from that crash mostly. Because the last back up contains the same measure of d. props than the back up after the crashing.
What do these things mean?

[vortext]

But I made a back up after the crashes and the disabled props come from that crash mostly. Because the last back up contains the same measure of d. props than the back up after the crashing.
What do these things mean?

Hm, that's rather interesting. For some time I've been of the conviction prop pox actually is a symptom of general savegame corruption, which in itself could have multiple causes. Perhaps CTDs are among them as well?

Other than that, it's speculation as to why an early back-up would have 4 disabled props, though iirc the game does mark props as disabled - being disabled itself isn't the issue. It's when a disabled prop has two exemplars with different RKT but identical ID that the troubles occur - at least how I understand it.

As to what to do: the back-up with 4 disabled props might be fine, though rolling development back to the earliest back-up with zero disabled props would be your safest bet. And be cautious combining dat-packed plugins with non-datpacked / custom content. Personally I tend to forget which stuff is already dat-packed so on multiple occasions I've forgotten to remove dependencies from the work folder, which is probably how I ended up with pox as well.