SC4 Dat Packer

[wouanagaine]

hey wats up im having a bit of a problem with the datpacker, all of my plugin subfolders work fine exept one, where i get this error-


can you help me out pls

One of your plugin is corrupted, if you find which one, send it to me so I can make DP aware of it and skip it instead of crashing

Firstly, my apologies if this has been previously asked and answered.  I have become quite cross-eyed looking for any mention of my issue.

I have all of my plugins in a game folder on another drive as well as the game itself.  I ran the Dat Packer program and it worked fine, found the plugins folder in the C drive "Documents and settings" (of which I have two files I hadn't moved yet) and packed them as it should.  My long winded question is this, is there any way to have the Dat Packer program frind the plugins folder on my other drive?  I ask because I have the LEX DVD and with the overwelming amount of superb content on it, my game play has slowed to an unmanageable pace.

Thank you in advance,

Les

No, DP only look for files under MyDoc plugins folder. you can move the DVD plugins into it, pack the dvd folder, then move it back
Or do you use the userdir options ? in that case just put the DVD plugins into MyDoc, run DP and choose the destination folder to be inside your userdir folder

new to sc4 and the dat packer not sure what this means
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "datPackerApp.pyo", line 2701, in OnStart
  File "datPackerApp.pyo", line 2358, in RecurseAllFilesFull
  File "datPackerApp.pyo", line 2450, in BuildIt
  File "datPackerApp.pyo", line 2175, in WriteADat
WindowsError: [Errno 8] Not enough storage is available to process this command

i have 368 gigs of free space on my hd is this program memory hungry i have 1.5 gigs of memory

This is an error that useally occurs with low RAM and big folder ( at least this is what I gather when doing the beta testing ). Try to split your biggest folder into smallers one
I have 1 gb of RAM and can run DP on the my LEXDVD plugins which is 3.6GB without problem, so I may not have correcty indentified the problem as you have more RAM than I have

[recyclerman]

No, DP only look for files under MyDoc plugins folder. you can move the DVD plugins into it, pack the dvd folder, then move it back
Or do you use the userdir options ? in that case just put the DVD plugins into MyDoc, run DP and choose the destination folder to be inside your userdir folder

Thank you, that is what I have been doing, ever so slowly.  I am seeing  a lot of improvement in speed of the game!  Thank you again.

Les

[jman47]

I found the file that was causing the problem. it was the Rax Inc building by sc5rax, i think his name was.

id would love to upload it for you but im not sure how... not so tech fancy in that area, so if you could give me instructions i think i could figure it out

oh and thanks for the help 

[BarbyW]

If you cannot post a file you can give the link to where to find it like this:
kd5rax Rax Building

[wouanagaine]

Thx I'll try to fix DP for this file this week

[High5Tower]

Couldn't help myself just had to look under the hood and see whats going on since I am trying to learn all this stuff.
What I found.
lot raxincplop 8eee90a8 has issues. DP give this info: Attribute Error - Examplar has no attribute "sig
There are some empty lot issues also. On Kd5raxincplop - Ox....... 0x0eee9687.SCDesc I removed the amounts in the "Parent Cohort" file. This cleared up the empty lot problem.
The grow lot seems to work and also the plop lot but I don't know if everything is correct for this product.
When I plopped the "empty lots"  this is the first time I have ever also seen the Building also show up on the lots.
Data packer packs all files except the above "bad" lot.
Hope this is useful info.

[JoeST]

so does datpacker prune "empty lots"? wow awesome

[BarbyW]

One of the two plop lots in this file is a mess and the best for it is the WPB. raxincplop_8eee90a8.SC4Lot has two Building exemplars but one only has one line with a Parent Cohort of 0,0,0 except it is not a correct exemplar. I haven't checked if it is a possible "grow on empty lots" but as it was made in 2005 I suspect it may be.

[turtle]

Hi,

I have been installing a lot of custom content over the last year or so, and have also been using the datpacker to pack my files. I have also installed some custom stuff after datpacking all my stuff back in november. Now I noticed when trying to install the bsc working ports, that the cleanitol didn't recognised some of the dependencies that are datpacked. This I didn't think was a problem (I would just check "manually" by going through the folder with the original files) until I realised that some of the dependency packs also fixes props in earlier prop packs. So my question is how to go about installing new custom content when a lot of the older stuff is already datpacked? How can I make sure that everything works properly? I have been suffering from some random ctd's lately and I think it's related to my plugins.

Anyways, thank you for a very good tool.

Thomas

[BarbyW]

When I datpack my plugins I keep all the original folders in another part of my HD. That way if I add content or if there are changes to packs I can get the original folder, make the changes and the re pack. Cleanitol will only recognise the original files not packed ones.
As far as CTDs are concerned, that may be related to ports already existing in cities. If you have any of the other custom ports then you should bulldoze them and save the city before removing the files. If they are all in datpacked files then you will have problems unless you also have the original files. The X-Ports folder with the upgradeable seaports and airports should not be datpacked as it is subject to updates.

[turtle]

Hi BarbyW
Thank you for the answer. I have yet to install the x-ports as there is a lot of dependencies I need to get for them (It seemed to be a good idea to follow the instructions carefully on this download). It was when running the cleanitol from the x-ports that I realised it didn't recognised the datpacked files. This could mean that I have installed a lot of stuff and updates that didn't excactly update because it wouldnt have known that they were in dat format. So I might have stuff in my datpacked files that I think have updated but infact are not, (hence causing some of these ctds). I know I will have to remove pegs harbors, but I don't think I actually build any, so it should be easy. anyways I tend to ramble on, especially because now I realise that I will have to reinstall most of this stuff to go through a proper updating process, and then repack in a way that will make it easy for me to update stuff in the future.

So what is a good way to organise your folders for datpacking so that you can update specific files without repacking the whole thing?

Again thank you for your answer and also all the good custum stuff you've made over the years

Thomas

[BarbyW]

If you use the installers for BSC stuff they will give you a good organisation for your plugins. For zip files without installers I make a folder for each creator and unzip into there. By keeping the folders separate for Props and Textures and each creator for the lots it is easy to keep track of any updates or additional stuff you may wish to install.
Of course the simplest way to reinstall is to donate 25€ to SC4Devotion and get the DVD with everything from the LEX up to September 2008 plus some exclusive stuff.

[turtle]

-snip good advice-
Of course the simplest way to reinstall is to donate 25€ to SC4Devotion and get the DVD with everything from the LEX up to September 2008 plus some exclusive stuff.

Hehe thats good salesmanship there. unfourtunately i'm abroad in a country where i don't expect you to deliver. Besides that's quite a hefty donation for someone like me. Maybe when I get back home, I will give it an thought. I'm happy that you guys put all this together.

Either way, say I put BSC stuff in a folder and datpacked it, so I have a BSC.dat file. So when I want to update something from BSC, I bring back the original BSC folder to plugins, run the update, datpack the folder once again and replace the old BSC.dat with the new BSC.dat. Is that correct understanding, or is it possible to only repack that particular file that was updated?

[BarbyW]

If the original folder contains the original files that is the correct way to do it.
We deliver anywhere. I have sent to remote South Pacific islands as well as big cities.

[turtle]

ok, I'll have to redo my plugins folder... again  Once I get around to do that, that is...

I dont know, how about the West Bank, Palestine...?  it would be expensive and complicated because it would have to go through Israel. besides I'm going home in a couple of months anyway.

[wouanagaine]

Remember, it is stated in the SC4Packer readme to not delete your plugins folder but to move it elsewhere when playing

[mitch]

Hello!
First off what an awesome tool, i used for the first time yesterday and it works beautifully! However I ran into I little snag involving this tool and the CAM; (hope this is the right place to post this) I started a CAM region (with an unpacked plugins folder), used the dat packer the next day, but when i tried to run the same CAM region, it was if i tried to run the region as if the CAM if had been newly installed (and if you follow the CAM, running an existing city with CAM causes problems ... residential growth  problems in my case). Otherwise, starting a new region is of no consequence and the original CAM region was crap anyways, but i thought it was worth mentioning.

Cheers

Mitch

EDIT: Sorry, I just noticed that in the TIPS section of the read-me, it recommends not compressing essential files. Maybe i should just exclude the CAM from the compression?

[wouanagaine]

Can you explain why you think CAM is not working on your preDatPacker region ?

[mitch]

Actually, the CAM city worked fine on the pre dat packed folder, it was after i dat packed it that CAM in the same city seemed to fail......then in the readme , i noticed how i should exclude mods and essential files in the packing, works beautifully now.
Sorry and thanks for your time!

[mittfh]

I'm a nutter, running SC4 Deluxe in Linux using Wine...

DatPacker 2008 doesn't want to run for me - even after installing the three dlls mentioned in the readme (Yes, I know you're shocked that someone actually reads readmes...but I did warn you I was a nutter ).

Code Select Expand

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "datPacker.py", line 1, in ?

  File "datPackerApp.pyo", line 2814, in ?

pywintypes.error: (2, 'RegOpenKeyEx', 'File not found')


But not be deterred, I tried v6 (lurking in one of my old Windows folders from before the laptop died) and that does run OK.
However, for reasons I cannot yet comprehend, as well as packing all my plugins, it also merrily packs whatever's sitting in plugins_compressed by the time the packing run reaches the folder...

Anyone running it in Windows encountered this slightly unusual error, or is it likely to be something to do with Wine?