The Prop Pox!

[Diamond]

Is that correct, by the way? The bug did not appear immediately after you removed the plugin without bulldozing?

Yes. I continued playing for several days until i got to observe first affections. Maybe there are two "triggers", and the bug only resolves when both come together, or a missing plugin makes it possible for the other trigger to get in action.

[silentbreaker]

hi guys,
I played a bit around with my affected city and noticed the following:

On every LOT I built after the bug appeared, the props also disappeared after I saved and reloaded the city, even if they were in a non-affected area. So I think the bug is somehow caused by exceeding a critical mass of props.

And something about the file I mentioned in my first post (Type: 2977aa47). I swapped them around with the reader (from non-affected version to affected version and vice versa). And guess what: Many props now also dissappeared in the previously non-affected version of the city. It seems like SC4 uses this subfile to safe props too.    
Unfortunately I was not able to fix the bug just by swapping this subfile. However I'm pretty sure that this bug is related to it because it is the only subfile that causes the extreme growth of the SC4-file shortly before the bug appears. All other subfiles (nearly) stay as they are.

[snorrelli]

And something about the file I mentioned in my first post (Type: 2977aa47). I swapped them around with the reader (from non-affected version to affected version and vice versa). And guess what: Many props now also dissappeared in the previously non-affected version of the city. It seems like SC4 uses this subfile to safe props too.    
Unfortunately I was not able to fix the bug just by swapping this subfile. However I'm pretty sure that this bug is related to it because it is the only subfile that causes the extreme growth of the SC4-file shortly before the bug appears. All other subfiles (nearly) stay as they are.

I think this is particularly important. Maybe somebody with a better knowledge of the inner workings of the game code can shed some light on what this subfile is.

[Diamond]

On every LOT I built after the bug appeared, the props also disappeared after I saved and reloaded the city, even if they were in a non-affected area. So I think the bug is somehow caused by exceeding a critical mass of props.

Well, ich just removed one missing plugin with ~less than 10 props, and pulldozed like 20 lots affected by the bug, and then plopped them again. But only on three of them props disappeared after reloading the saved game. But due to the fact that there are more than ten props and the bulldozed and replopped lots i guess there's no critical mass of props imho.

[BruceAtkinson]

....Hello everyone, I'm back!  Snorrelli....I know it says on the table that I have removed plugins without bulldozing all instances, however I have not done that.  Actually I have never removed a plugin, just updated them or removed duplicates.  So I'm sure that is not the trigger for Prop Pox.
   I must apologise as well, as I mentioned that I will catalogue the lots in Wesley that have been affected by this dreadful disease...and I will, it is just that I got carried away building canals in a new city, that I haven't been back in Wesley....hopefully this weekend.  I think if we examine the lots affected, we will see some type of pattern.....
  Bruce

[snorrelli]

....Hello everyone, I'm back!  Snorrelli....I know it says on the table that I have removed plugins without bulldozing all instances, however I have not done that.  Actually I have never removed a plugin, just updated them or removed duplicates.  So I'm sure that is not the trigger for Prop Pox.
   I must apologise as well, as I mentioned that I

catalogue the lots in Wesley that have been affected by this dreadful disease...and I will, it is just that I got carried away building canals in a new city, that I haven't been back in Wesley....hopefully this weekend.  I think if we examine the lots affected, we will see some type of pattern.....
  Bruce

Hi Bruce,

Forgive me for being presumptuous, but I also noted you were getting the pop-up warning that plugins were missing when you load a given city. The game simply does not give you that warning randomly. It can only happen when you load the game with something in your plugins folder, then remove it, then load the city again.

[BruceAtkinson]

 Greetings Snorrelli!!....it is good to hear from you again......
    Yes, you are right in that I have had the Plugins missing popup occassionally, however it has been the case of missing plugins, or dependancies...not that I have removed something from my folder.  Even at present, I'm getting the pop-up in several cities, and it is because the growable GSX Microwave Tower, ( I think that is the name) is present, and I'm missing something, and so far, I've been just too lazy to go back and check what dependancy is missing.  Now, having said that, I'll find out what is missing in the course of the next couple days....
   Incidentally, I am now running all my Regions with the Colosuss Add On, but as mentioned, haven't been in any other city since downloading the mod...just my new city of Dartmouth, and it is progressing well, now at 30,000 people with a combination of Urban, Suburdan and Agriculture.  Actually I'm loading this city up on purpose, with lots of Custom content, including a Canal System, trying to trigger Prop Pox, hopefully learning what we all want to know, what is triggering it.....
  Bruce

[BruceAtkinson]

...hello again, first....I have yet to re-enter Wesley, so I haven't documented which lots have been affected by the Prop-pox.
    Secondly, I have a question....I have just used 'Doublekiller' and scan the actual game files in the Maxis folder, and lo and behold, it seems I have a number of duplicate files....the parameters I used were exact size, exact name, etc., but not exact date, as I wanted to see if any files were older than others.  Now, I have re-installed Simcity at one time on this current computer and of course, my Rush-hour is the add-on disk....so I'm assuming these duplicates are a result of the re-installation.  Is this correct?  Also, would it be safe to delete the duplicates that are older?
  Thanks:
     Bruce

[RippleJet]

A reinstallation of the game itself would only overwrite existing files.
Duplicate files are probably from custom content that has been "installed" into different subfolders.
And yes, you can safely delete (the older) one of those duplicate files!

[Shadow Assassin]

I've used traffic generator lots, quite a lot of them on a full city tile... and never suffered from a Prop Pox. Also have removed plugins and reloaded a city with those plugins not loaded (therefore getting the warning pop up). Also didn't suffer from it.

It could be related to XP SP2, because that prop pox only seems to happen on SP2 machines. It could be the way the system is set up.

And also, I'd like a little more info: how fragmented is the hard drive? (accessories > system tools > disk defragmenter > click Analyze) Maybe the fragmentation could cause issues - performance is affected by how fragmented the drive is. Once you've analyzed it, click the View Report button, go to Save As, and copy the first half of that text file to your post (the bit above the dashed line). It could have something to do with it - the game might not deal well with "fragmented" save files?

And once you've posted your stats, defrag the harddrive, see if that fixes the problem.

[Nardo69]

SA,

After defragmentation I could push the number of residents a bit higher until the the pox came back again. And I defragment it rather often.

Unfortunately it didn't help me ...

[snorrelli]

Yes - I defragment regularly too... It does help performance but doesn't prevent or fix the Pox...

[cowcorn]

I also have the problem...

My computer:

Win XP SP2
P4 3.2 Ghz
1GB RAM
NVidia Geforce 6600 256mb
4GB memory set
Large tile affected: yes
3.2 GB compressed custom content (some very old files in there)
Graffics all high (except draw speed to medium) Hardware rendering (software makes seasonnal trees disapear fromthe region view)
Population of affected city 260,000

I have deleted pluggins without deleting lots before but I haven't seen the missing pluggin message in 2 years.

I really hope a solution can be found.

[snorrelli]

Added you to the table, cowcorn... Unfortunately, we don't have a "fix" to offer you - only the chance to participate in our little support group...

I'm hopeful wounagaine or someone else with more knowledge of the game's inner workings will be able to identify the subfile of the .sav that silentbreaker was able to pinpoint - 2977aa47. If we can figure out what that subfile is and what it does we may have a better answer for how to prevent or fix the problem. In the meantime, welcome to the club...

[Zhensu]

I have read these topic and must admit I don't understand everything, but I have the problem too.

My comp is:
Medion Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Win XP SP2
Memory 1GB
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 TurboCache 256MB

I build more to see how something looks then to grow a city (I hope you understand what I mean). That means that I have no people in my city. But when I am, let say, building a canal some of the peaces are disappearing and looks like in the first post (brown).

I have all the files I need and in the beginning there was no problem but now when there are more and more peaces, like roads an some buildings (police and so on) it's more and more a problem.

I hope this helps a little.

Zhensu

[snorrelli]

@Zhensu: This information helps a little, but it would help more if you could provide the information for the other cells in the table. If you have any questions about how/where to find that information, let us know...

[Anthony]

Hi,

just came across this thread and i'd say i also have this "affliction". so here are some of my stats:
OS - MS Windows XP Home 2002 SP 2
RAM - 896 mb
Processor - Intel Celeron M 1.6 GHz
Vcard - ATI Radeon Express 200M Series
Bug affects large cities? no (i hardly play large cities)
Large amount of custom content? no (only about 200 mb of plugins)
Previously removed plugins w/o bulldozing all instances first? can't say for sure (i did remove certain plugins so i can't be 100% sure that i didn't miss bulldozing any instance of it... although i'm quite meticulous in following this rule)

I still have to check the answers for the rest of the queries so i'll have to come back and post later. i don't know how to check the .save file thing though so if somebody will be so kind and point me in the right direction...

Hope a "cure" will eventually be found.

[BruceAtkinson]

Hey everyone!
    It is Bruce....any more advances on the prop pox?  I haven't been in my affected city, Wesley all this time, been working on a Mega-harbour concept in another part of the same region...a city I named Pacifica.  Presently, I'm starting to go back to my other cities, and have noticed that I am not plagued by the Prop-pox in any of them, just Wesley. 
    However, I do have another issue...just the other day, I was in Pacifica and put the game on pause while I built a large Retail Centre, including a mall and a variety of Big Box stores.  While in pause, I saved the city and then proceeded to take it off pause.  It started to go through the process normally and then all of sudden, crashed straight to Desktop.  Now, it'll load only for a few seconds and crash....no other cities in the same region are affected, it is just Pacifica.  I'm wondering if I over loaded it with Special Lots, when I built the Retail super Centre.  In addition, when it does load, it is still in the pause mode, which is understandable, as the last save was when it was in that mode.  It stays for about five seconds before it crashes....any hints on how I may keep it up long enough to take it off of pause?
  I may end up deleting it and putting a back-up in and starting over....
Bruce

[Swesim]

Sorry to bump, but I stumbled upon this thread since I´ve been struck hard by the pox lately.
In my case it has grown worse over time and now affetcs the game so much it is affecting almost everything I build.
One thing I have noted though is that buildings are unaffected while props and textures are missing in great numbers and increasing.
However custom content seem to be doing better than the original Maxis stuff strangely enough.
In my case the prox is also removing and screwing up my overlay textures for almost all buildings.
Another thing I´ve noted is that the newer the plugin is, the better off it seem to be.
Unfortunately I can´t bring any screenies at the moment since my computer is off the net for the next couple of days.
I´ve also noted that the cities load a lot slower after the bug appeared, but fragmentation shouldn´t be the issue as I use diskkeeper to defrag both drives on a regular basis.

My stats are:

OS: Win XP SP2
RAM: 2GB
Processor: Intel P4 2.3Ghz
Vcard: 512MB Nvidia Geforce 7600GT
HD: 55,8GB system drive (where main plugins folder is located) + 279GB Game drive (where the game and the game´s folder plugins are located)
Virtual memory: 768MB paging file shared by all units
Bug affects large city tiles? Yes (actually it affects all my cities regardless of size and development)
Large amount of custom content? Yes, about 1,02GB containing 4788 files in 757 folders, all uncompressed.
Graphics settings: Shadows low, building renderingspeed medium, the rest set to high. 1280x1024 resolution and 32bit colour.
Affected cities populations: 149-~71.000
.sav file shrinks after bug occurs? no clue, didn´t check before the bug´s appearance...
Affected cities .sav info: Can´t find any subfolders in my Regions´ folders...
Previously removed plugins w/o bulldozing first? Yes, but not in the affected cities.

Also I´ve been experiencing problems with conflicting plugins (or so I believe) after the bug hit me, the Coit tower landmark now appears as a growable CO$$ building in my cities and the deconstructivist mall appeared on the wrong lot-size and w/o building (various walls from Tonksos Highstreet set appeared on the lot though) despite the fact that I had never installed the deconstructivist mall at all.
And recently I´ve been seeing an empty I-lot without name or building on it growing.
Also a lot named Radiotower has appeared without building, but with one or two walls stacked on top of eachother in different angles.

Hope my info helps in Your quest for the "pox vaccine"!

[snorrelli]

Yikes... it sounds like you have a particularly unpleasant case of the Pox, Swesim...

I have added your info to the table, but I'm not sure where to go from here in the search for a vaccine or a cure.



It does seem that whatever is going wrong is in the .sav file. Don't forget you have two regions folders, just like the two plugins folders - one in program files/ and one in my documents/. Check both and find the sub-folder with your region. Then there should be a .sav file with the city name in that sub folder. If you know how to use Reader, check and see if you can come up with values for the three subfiles listed in the table. Also, check on 2977aa47, which silentbreaker identified as being suspicious...

The only other advice I can offer is to backup your .sav files and use your backups to overwrite the affected .sav file when the bug occurs. If you try to bulldoze and rebuild in the affected city, the behavior you describe seems to happen - the problem returns, expands and... "mutates"...