Plugin Issue

BruceAtkinson · April 14, 2007, 01:56:35 PM

Hello all....I'm having some issues with BSC related lots and bats in one of my cities. I have noticed that some of the RLS Vacation Resort is missing, in particular...the Tower portion of the hotel. The city is called Wesley and I do have a plugin pack missing notice as well. The pack # is 274755764. Now, when I bulldoze the resort and re-plop it...it comes back in it's entirety and everything carries on. Once you save and exit the city and then come back again, the lot appears without the Tower. After a couple of days, I also noticed other lots/bats not appearing properly, such as the Newman campground, some Suburban Bus Stops, not all of them mind you, just some. The same thing applies, though...and that is I can bulldoze these lots/bats, re-plop them and all is fine until, of course, I exit the city and then come back.
Now in another city I have a Plugin pack missing, albeit, with a different number: 1383259789. The Vacation Resort is there, and it is fully intact all the time, and so are my Suburban Bus Stops.
I do realise that when a plugin pack missing message pops up, I do have something missing...however, I have been upgrading all of my dependancy packs, utilising the Cleanitol program, and do not think I have missed something. Further, I am not getting indication of 'smudges' on the lots, as I use that program to stop the brown boxes from appearing.
I am wondering if my game isn't being loaded properly, as the behaviour that I first described would indicate that all dependancies are there...as the lots all seem fine, they just don't stay that way.
Bruce

BarbyW · April 14, 2007, 02:28:04 PM

I have never seen this at all so maybe you should recheck what Cleanitol is doing as the Vacation Resort is not in a MEGA pack nor are the Newman Campgrounds or the bus stops. When you have the Plugin missing message look for the missing item. I suggest that while you are having problems you remove Peg's mod and look for brown boxes. This indicates that you are missing the model file of a building and you need to find it and see which model is missing.

BruceAtkinson · April 14, 2007, 02:42:09 PM

...Excellent advice Barbyw...thanks, I'll remove the Peg mod temporarily, in order to see what is missing more readily.
Regarding Cleanitol, I believe it is functioning properly, and maybe I'm a fool, however I just recently removed all the backups, to increase space taken up on my hard drive....and now I'm under the Murphy's Law syndrome

Bruce

BruceAtkinson · April 15, 2007, 01:08:16 PM

Just a follow-up....taking Barbyw's advice I found one brown box in Wesley, it was the CSX Farm Sweet Lelaine lot.
I re-installed it, as well as followed the list of dependancies, however some are locked at this time. So I re-entered Wesley and took out the farm, and saved the city.
I have listed the dependancies, and will eventually re-install them or their updated versions....in the meantime, I will be redeveloping Wesley, and replopping the affected lots, and hopefully they will stay intact.
One thing that I remeber doing, with the Cleanitol program, and it isn't the program--just the user!

I utilised the txt list for the BSC Mega Pack and without thinking backed up all the files on the report, however I should not have done that, as they were not to be removed, so I reloaded all of the dependancies and am now only missing three, and unfortunately they are locked as well! No big deal, though....I'll eventually will acquire those or their updated versions as well....
A slightly smarter Mayor:
Bruce

BarbyW · April 15, 2007, 01:46:24 PM

If you let us know what files you are missing we may be able to help as any locked files will be in a Mega pack.

BruceAtkinson · April 15, 2007, 02:31:25 PM

....Well, again many thanks....here is the list:
CSX Bat Props-2006a.dat & CSX Bat Props-2006b.dat
plus....BSC Texture Pack JES Vol2.dat & CSX Bat Props 2007a
-Bruce

sarjm · April 15, 2007, 03:57:59 PM

The 3x CSX are in CSX MEGA Props - Vol06 and BSC Texture Pack JES Vol2.dat is now part of BSC Textures Vol 02

BruceAtkinson · April 15, 2007, 05:10:05 PM

....many thanks sarjm....I have just downloaded and will re-install them.
For anyones' interest: I just exited Wesley, and upon further exploration, not only are the aforementioned lots/bats displaying improperly, but so is the Peg Pond pieces, amongst others. I will re-install these two Mega Packs, however me thinks something else is at issue here.
If these do not clear up the issue, I have a back-up of the city from two months ago, and I'll load that in the Region and see what happens....
A couple months back I had issues with absolutely no Demand for Residential and with the Cap consistently at 100% in a city called Westport in the same region. Upon some great help from Ripplejet and others, we had determined that something went amiss in possibly on of the saves of that particular city...so I did the same thing, reloaded a back-up copy, and Westport is now functioning fine.
Wesley is predominantly Agricultural with some nice Parks and Campground/Lakes....actually a beautiful city area of 70,000 happy sims!
Bruce

RippleJet · April 16, 2007, 12:30:37 AM

It's good to see you here, Bruce. A very big welcome to SC4D!
I have been watching the discussion, and I'm glad to see that you're getting help.

BruceAtkinson · April 16, 2007, 09:26:18 AM

...Hey! RJ! Nice to see that you are residing here too!
Yes, as always....the help is fantastic, although I feel a little guilty as I seem to only post when I'm having an issue!
However, it seems that I do not need to use the back-up of Wesley, as I have re-plopped a couple of lots and they are staying intact. Now, I'll take the opportunity to re-design the Campground and Lake area, and continue to develop and re-develop Wesley....
It certainly is nice to be in such good company with Sim-Mayors from across the globe, to be able to converse and share ideas....one of the many reasons why Sim-City is such an awesome game!
Bruce

BruceAtkinson · April 20, 2007, 07:04:57 PM

....Hello all: just an update about Wesley, from a Mayor with a very red face! It seems that the issue with the Bus Stops and other lots not appearing properly was my graphics settings!! They are now reset to High and everything looks ok.
The first part of the issue was bonafide, but the second part, a mis-step on my part....
Bruce

BruceAtkinson · June 19, 2007, 09:29:02 AM

Hello everyone...again! Well, it is happening again in Wesley...the same issue with what appears to be missing textures. This time, though, I'm avoiding the "red-face", by making sure that my graphics settings are proper.
City Detail, Visual Effects, Texture Quality are all set to maximum, and it is hardware rendered.
I have some pictures to show the latest, and if I cannot post them here, I will on Simtropolis.
Again these missing textures or props only happen in Wesley...no other city or town in the region.
Bruce

BruceAtkinson · June 19, 2007, 09:36:40 AM

Here are a couple more pics...this one is the old water plant, and how it looked when I opened the city. The next post will be the water plant and how it looks when I re-plop it.
Bruce

BruceAtkinson · June 19, 2007, 09:39:12 AM

Here is the new one: As you can see, it plops proper, however the next time I open Wesley it will most likely look like the old one.
Bruce

stewart_garden · June 19, 2007, 10:11:03 AM

Bruce,

I'm not sure if this is the same problem, but check out this (link) thread. I hope it isn't the same problem, because there doesn't appear to be a cure. Good luck!

Stewart

BruceAtkinson · June 20, 2007, 09:22:05 AM

Thanks Stewart, for the informative reply....upon reading over both threads, the one here and on ST, I think my issue is the same, although the disappearing buildings are not localised to one part of the city, they are random, and appear throughout the area.
I have, for a time, taken N_O_Body's advice and direction, and have my swap file set at 4GB, however, I have my Building Draw speed at maximum, so I'll change that setting to medium, as well as change from Hardware Rendered to Software rendered...to see if there are any changes.
I have backed-up the city, but I have developed so much since then, that I'm reluctant to use the back-up. When in Wesley, I'll just have to rebuild those affected buildings....it'll just be a constant urban revitalisation plan!

Bruce

wouanagaine · June 20, 2007, 01:12:20 PM

I really think it is related to memory.
Can you give us the filesize of the city savegame ? This can give a good hint

BruceAtkinson · June 20, 2007, 01:56:31 PM

Most certainly....and upon doing this, I have found something interesting: with all the cities in this region, Wesley is the largest file size, however, it is not the largest city in content:
Wesley is 29,199Kb, and it is at a poulation of 80,000 and change and has a lot of undeveloped areas.
Two of my largest cities, Westport and Port Edward are 10,953Kb and 10,576Kb respectively.
All three cities are considered large in area, however the latter two have populations approaching 300,000 with more developed areas, and consequently more buildings, lots, etc.
Bruce

wouanagaine · June 20, 2007, 02:08:18 PM

around 32Mb is not that large, I recall having a 75Mb large city
I was expecting a bit more, however it should relate to one of the entry in the savegame, based on original maxis content, the developers may have took some decision that leads to some constraints we are not aware but that our custom content community had certainly exceeded

BruceAtkinson · June 20, 2007, 03:42:12 PM

This may be a silly question, however having just finished an exploration of my hard drive....I have found several Plugin folders!
The main one is in My Documents/Simcity 4/Plugins
However, under C:Program Files/Maxis...it seems I have a couple more! one in C:Program files/Maxis/SimCity 4 and then another in C:Program Files/Maxis/SimCity4/Simcity4/Plugins....is this normal?
Bruce