Sudden hole in region

[ZFein23 0]

I ran into some trouble during a recent save and exit to region.  It was taking quite awhile, which wasn't usual especially for a small city like this.  During the save, I minimized to windows, came back 30 seconds later, and the process was done, I was back into the region view.  The problem however, was that the city wasn't there.  It wasn't just a blank tile, there's actually a hole in the region.  The attached image illustrates this.

After importing the city into another test region, it imported the hole as well.  The config.bmp file looks normal, as it always has, there's just no way to edit the empty square.  I figure the save curopted somehow, and I will re-start the city (which is no big deal), if I can just figure out how to.  I don't understand how a currupt save would override the config.bmp.

Has anyone ever ran into this problem?

SimCity 4 Rush Hour

Windows Vista 64bit

8Gb RAM

2.83Ghz Quad-Core

GeForce 9800GTx

[ZFein23 0]

It seems replacing the corrupt file with a copy of a new city, with a renamed file name the same as the corrupt one did the trick.  I thought I'd leave this up though, in case anyone else ever runs into a similar bug, or if anyone knows *why* this would happen.

[allan_kuan1992 6]

odd... that has never happened to me before =O

At least there was sort of a workaround. Sadly I'm guessing that the city that you tried to save was completely lost.

- Allan Kuan

[tepodon 29]

if u minimize the sc3 window when a city is saving this will automatically happen. If you want the city to reappear in region mode than just save the city again without minimizing the window, in other words be patient.

[captintanqueray 0]

Tepodon is right about the minimizing window. this happened to me once during a stalled save; i saved and quit then went to work, when i got home the save box was still there (game obviously stuck). i hit the start menu key to minimize, the screen closed, nothing else was stuck on the computer, i opened it back up, it finished saving and exited the game. upon reopening there was a hole in the region. it was a custom size region, plugin folder maticulously in order, and luckily backed up..

BUT...

this wasn't the first or last time this has happened to me, which is why i back my regions up often. this has happened to me without hitting the start menu button.

i've had cities disapear, and holes created.

if this has never happened to you, say you have a downtown with 4 midtown cities attached, and the downtown disappears with the hole. not only is the city erased (the city file in your docs/sc4/regions/ IS still there), but in region view you can't even click on that part of the map. THERE'S AN ACTUAL HOLE IN YOUR REGION and you can't even start a new city in it's place. just like that the region is ruined.

i, however haven't been able to recover the city without bringing in the backup file, only been able to recover the land.

This never happened to me until i got a computer with VISTA on it. I'm not a VISTA hater (i really have no quarrel with vista except SC4) but the game does crash on occasion, and i've lost a lot of work. My computer is decent

VAIO

1.8 Centrino Duo

2G ram

512M nvidia 8400mGT

[N106 10]

I have XP, and have had this problem. I've ALMOST lost 3 cities to it. Whenever it takes a while to save and exit to region, I press CTRL ALT DELETE. If, right before it goes to the start screen, I see a smallish looking green version of the tile- I END PROGRAM IMMEDIATELY. I'd rather spend a little bit of time trying to rebuild to my save point than be horrified to see my city ruined.

[sakarr 1]

i have this same thing happen to me and im on vista. i do the same thing n106 does.

lately tho ive been saving my cities in game, and then exiting to the region seperately, and i havent had the problem at all, so maybe that has somethign to do with it -shrugs-

[villagemayor 0]

I have it happen to me before when I save the game and the computer freezes, which is the reason why I make backup copies of the region.

[Darth Apple 54]

ok... let me just say... NEVER save a city when there appears to be an industrial building on top of a road(it really isn't on top of the road - but please trust me , there is something about those strange-looking buildings.)instead - demolish the strange building - then save.I have had problems with "against newtons law" buildings several times.

try looking in your region folder , and deleting the corrupt city(if the file is still there) and see if that fixes the hole.

and ALWAYS make backups(complete ones) - you just learned what not making one can do.

is the city file still there?

Hope this helps.

[ZFein23 0]

Thanks for all the input. Also, thanks for the reminder! I do have backups of the city, so hardly anything was lost. I backup my files on a weekly (or so) basis.