annoying phantom-esque glitch

[p_kitaro 0]

Since the day this game came out, I've been experiencing this very annoying glitch.  It involves nearly every 3d objects in SC4.

In this one instance, whenever I dispatch firefighters or cops, the 3d animations could sometimes "stick" instead of fade.  What happens is that they're essentially stuck.  I cannot erase any of them.

This also involves automata as well.  For instance, whenever I erase a piece of track while a train is passing over it, the train could get stuck.  It would look transparent (like a ghost) and I cannot erase it either.  Also, whenever a road paver is laying road and I erase it while it's on the tile, it would get stuck too.  This is much rarer compared to the firefighters, but it still occurs on a basis.

Whenever this happens, I end up exiting the game without saving, in hopes that I didn't save when the glitch occurred.  If I did, I felt I may have ran the risk of corrupting an entire city.

My solution was to simply saved often and just exit whenever the instance came up.  Now however, I'm running a CJ and I barely have any time to spare.  This simple annoyance is now becoming a huge waste of time for me.

Here's my computer specs:

Operating System: Windows Vista Home Edition SP2 (32 bit)

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+ (2.90Ghz)

RAM: 2 GB

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT

I've searched with terms like "automata ghost" and "3d ghosts" and stuff like that on Simtrop.  The closest I've ever got to the issue was the transparent building issue.  There's a plop on SC4Devotion which "kills" ghost buildings that persist even after being buldozed.  However, this issue involves 3d automata, something not ploppable.

I'm sure there is a solution for this out there somewhere.  This has happened to me on three systems so chances are it's a common issue.  It's such a hard thing to describe though I gave up looking.  I haven't seen a single post about the issue involving automata.

Thank you for helping

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This is a new one on me.  I have had buildings that were undestroyable, but you can usually get around that by plopping the same building all around it and destroying the whole lot of them.

What happens if you do a save then reload the city?

[p_kitaro 0]

The animations stay.  If I did save on a glitch, I tried any alternative I thought of to erase it, from plopping buildings to terraforming hills to hide them. My last resort is to wipe the city clean.

I cannot remember how many cities I've blown up because of this

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Most annoying.  You know, I've never seen these guys.  Do you have a fire station in your plugins?

[p_kitaro 0]

No, never did.  Actually, the problem exists on firefighters animations, train automata, cop animations, and construction automata, in ascending order.  One time, I found a semitruck had got stuck on one of the industry-zoned streets.  Had to exit out of 1 hour of zoning.

I remember almost five years ago, I recall a piece of construction automata was stuck in the earth off on the very edges of the map (where the earth appears cut to show the soil).  That was when I was on another machine WITHOUT plugins.

I don't understand what's causing this to happen and I'm struck as to how so many (including you) have not seen this.  It happened on more than one machine so it can't be just this computer I'm using.  I have a feeling though this may have to do with this sort of OCD "extra-pay-attention syndrome-ish" thing that's got to me that makes me pay attention to every single detail.

If you want to recreate it, The issue seems to occur when automata is viewable, after around a few minutes (mostly around an hour) of gameplay.  Whenever a fire randomly occurs and firefighter need to be dispatched, chances are that's when the glitch will happen.  Also, the issue occurs randomly when a piece of track that's layed out gets deleted while a train is running over it.  Those are the two most common occurances.  The rest is pure randomness.

EDIT:

Alright! After trial and error, I may have found how this glitch occurs for the firefighters.  It happens when while a fire is happening and dispatch is racing over, zoom out as far as possible until the no cars can be seen on the road.  When the truck starts hosing, zoom back in until you can see the firefighters, that would trigger the glitch.  Here's some pics of my recreation:

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

OK, I'll try and do it.  If I do, then we'll know its a bug.  I am on a different O/S and I suspect a different SKU than you are.  Are you in Asia?

EDIT:  OK, I built some industrial without fire protection (station was a long way away) and had a construction fire, of course.  After the fire was out, and the truck left, there were two little men with extinuishers on top of the scaffolding and they persisted until the scaffolding was removed at the end of the construction.  They rode it up at least five stories.  Looks like you have found a real live bug in the animation.

Since it is probably buried in the .exe, we have to live with it, but go have a look at this thread.

[p_kitaro 0]

Thanks for helping moose!  Btw, that post is one sweet idea!

If anyone finds any solutions or if they experience the same issues.  I'll leave this thread open for ideas on how to solve this problem.