OT - CM4 technical problem

[QuikSand]

I seem to have a pretty serious glitch in my current CM4 game - and am hoping someone can help.

I'm in my 6th season, but suddenly when I look at a player's history, I get a messed-up set of non-data. The current season seems to record okay, but everything before that seems to be incorrect - and identical for every player.


For each player I check, I see the exact same thing:

(from bottom to top, in chronological order)

2,008 years of player hostory with "unknown club" (greyed out) and no stats -- this ends at 2006, but literally goes all the way back to year -1.

In 2008-08, the player is listed with Farnborough, currently a Third Division club.

Then, the player is listed as having been transferred for 10K to the player's curent club.

That, atop the list of data, is a correct row detailing the player's performances this season with his curent club.

- - -

Help!

I have grown a bit attached to this career, and I'd really hate to lose all my players' histories - and the ability to assess other players' past performances. Is there anythign that I can do? Is this a known bug?

[condors]

did you check the last autosave?

[QuikSand]

I work without a net. *sigh*

[condors]

well i would send an email to marc and see if he can work any magic on the file maybe someone else knows something about this

[Marc Vaughan]

A few questions if I may:

* Have you installed the latest EP?
* Have you used any editors on the game or the pre-game data?
* Have you done a scandisk for bad sectors on your hard-disk?

I can possibly strip the strange data out of your save game - but I don't think I'll be able to resurrect the real data (although I'm willing to try if you want to forward the save game to me).

[Bee]

Marc,

Would it be worth Quiksand trying to reinstall the game and the patches and then reload the saved game? For some reason, I remember someone having a problem with what looked like a corrupted save file and when you got the save file it was fine. They ended up reinstalling the game and patches and everything worked ok after that. I think this was with either 00/01 or 01/02, so it might be a completely different animal.

[QuikSand]

Marc, thanks for the look.

-I am running version 4.0.8 - to the best of my knowledge, the most recent updates are in place

-I have not used any editors in any way - only the MRM utility that prints things from the game

-I've just finished checking out the various things on my drives... but have yet to find anything that could be the cause here. I'll keep working on it.

[thirdandlong]

As I was following your Lincoln Dynasty...didn't you change from the initial versiosn to EP5 midway through your Dynasty? Maybe that would account for the problem.

[QuikSand]

It's possible that a mid-career patching is at fault... but the history problem only surfaced just now, fully 3-4 seasons after I applied the patch.

[Marc Vaughan]

Doesn't sound like its anything obvious you've done - I'd recommend scandisking but beyond that I currently am at a loss as to the cause ...

As I indicated if you can get the save game to me then I'd be interested in looking into things (and seeing if I can repair it while I'm at it).

[QuikSand]

Thank you Marc, I have emailed the compressed file (which is still pretty darned huge).

[Marc Vaughan]

I hope you sent it to [email protected] (if it went to my AOL one then it'll bounce I'm afraid - sorry should have indicated the addy before now).

[QuikSand]

I've just sent it to the proper email address - thanks.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Lincoln fans wait with bated breath.

[Marc Vaughan]

Right - I've got it now, I'm balancing attributes (or at least attempting to currently and once thats done I'll see what I can do.

[Karim]

This problem happened to one of my careers. It occured during the save process. I had another program running and I think they were both were trying to do the same thing or something because the hard drive started to crunch and the save game never was completed. I had to CTRL-ALT-DEL out and upon resuming found that the statistical history for every player was filled with garbage.

[QuikSand]

*sigh* ...no news yet...

[Karim]

It's very difficult to play CM quickly so losing a career really removes any enthusiasm in starting a new career. Several enhancement packs didn't really help matters. I suppose this was to be expected with a brand new engine and it will be several iterations before the game is as polished as the final version of CM3.

[Marc Vaughan]

Right a few things,

(1) I'm still balancing attributes but will pause on monday to take a look at the save game (to give you an idea of how long some of this stuff can take its usually on average around a week for me to balance player valuations in the games to the extent that I'm happy with them - bear in mind that this is done across 43 different countries leagues).
(2) Our next game will include some options to try and prevent problems with this sort of thing:
* Rolling auto save (ie. saving in sequence between different files, so that if one save fails you have a backup to fall onto)
* Safe save (ie. saving to a temporary file name and only placing itself over the original file name when the save is complete)
* Some 'strip' functions to delete items from the game if a problem is found (ie. histories corrupted, use 'x' to reset them).

[BucDawg40]

Marc, have you anything to report on the missing text strings that were supposed to clarify jadedness?

[Buccaneer]

It always had been critical when doing any computer work (including playing games) to save often. It amazes me that some do not get in the habit of doing this. For example, in the past week of playing my first season in TCY, I have over 14 separate saves. WHen making a complex map at work, I would save over a hundred times (usually overwriting though). Those may be overkill but it is a habit I have long gotten into after several very bad experiences at work and at home.

[ice4277]

I save after every game I play in every sports sim I play; it may add a bit of time but its worth it.

[Karim]

I would save often, and other sims like OOTP5 make this easy (only a few seconds). CM4's save process takes too long to save often (although I do it every game week). I'm running AMD Athlon @ 1.2 GHz so it's not that bad but the improvements Marc is mentioning will be welcome.

[Bee]

Originally posted by BucDawg40
Marc, have you anything to report on the missing text strings that were supposed to clarify jadedness?

I'd also like to know what happened to the missing text strings for jaded players, it would be a big help to know "why" they are feeling jaded.

[The Afoci]

One thing I have also noticed that is really weird, as right when I got EP5, my scout would say things like the normal and then add, he also noticed the player is very determined or something like that. I haven't seen that in a while. I also did get one or two messages early on, like in the first week about players being upset they were pulled out of a game, but haven't seen it in the next 3 seasons.

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
It always had been critical when doing any computer work (including playing games) to save often. It amazes me that some do not get in the habit of doing this. For example, in the past week of playing my first season in TCY, I have over 14 separate saves. WHen making a complex map at work, I would save over a hundred times (usually overwriting though). Those may be overkill but it is a habit I have long gotten into after several very bad experiences at work and at home.

I usually do this as well, but when I did so with my first CM career, I ended up with a full hard drive and then a stack of zipdisks, as the save games are mammoth-sized items.

Since I am playing my current CM career on a work computer that I also get for personal use, I was trying to be more respectful. Certainly doesn't let me off the hook (I should have at least used alternating save games), but the logistics of saving in CM are a little different than with any other game I know.

Alas... I suspect I'm putting this one to bed.

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by QuikSand
Alas... I suspect I'm putting this one to bed.

That would be a real shame. I've loved following your Lincoln dynasty, and often thought it was great advertising for CM4 even though the program lacked some basic dynasty-friendly (and just plain gamer-friendly) functionality (print to file, attribute tracking, training effects, etc.). Losing all of your very public hard work in the blink of an eye, however, strikes me as very, very bad advertising. I know Marc wants to help, and perhaps I'm being overly optimistic here, but for those two reasons I'm holding out hope that Lincoln will return.

[QuikSand]

Thanks for the kind words, Arthur.

I'm not trying to exert any pressure onto Marc - it was very gracious for him to offer to help, but it sounded like a longshot anyway.

[Karim]

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed your Lincoln dynasty. I was actually more interested in how you faired than in my own career and stopped playing CM4 when your dynasty reports began.

Hopefully CM 03/04 will smooth out the rough edges...

[Marc Vaughan]

I'm afraid initial examination of the save game doesn't look promising (sorry for the delay in replying).

I'm off on holiday (time off for good behaviour?) next week so won't get a chance to do much more until I'm back (as my wife has made me promise not to take my portable with me ).

After that I'm going to try and roll back through versions to see if that helps me work out the root of the problem, but to be frank I don't retain much confidence.

Sorry to be so negative, I just want to be honest about the situation as I see it.

Marc

[QuikSand]

Fair enough. Thank you for checking it out.

Enjoy your holiday.

[Buccaneer]

Originally posted by QuikSand
I usually do this as well, but when I did so with my first CM career, I ended up with a full hard drive and then a stack of zipdisks, as the save games are mammoth-sized items.

Since I am playing my current CM career on a work computer that I also get for personal use, I was trying to be more respectful. Certainly doesn't let me off the hook (I should have at least used alternating save games), but the logistics of saving in CM are a little different than with any other game I know.

Alas... I suspect I'm putting this one to bed.

I did not realize the saves were so large.

I am sad about the demise because the only interest in CM and soccer I ever had came from your Lincoln dynasties.

[MIJB#19]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
I did not realize the saves were so large.

I am sad about the demise because the only interest in CM and soccer I ever had came from your Lincoln dynasties.

[off topic discussion]
Sounds like a good reason for Da Dutchboy to get involved into a soccer related dynasty.

How about a dynasty report on my fantasy team I just submitted to play against about 15000 other people reading the same regional newspaper?
[/off topic discussion]