Prop Pox: I need help!

[TekindusT 3,809]

I've read a bit about prop pox at SC4D and one thing is sure: this picture got me very worried:

As you may see, I lack a bunch of props of that side of the city. In this moment, it seems to be the only "poxed" district, but I'm truly afraid of a pox expansion to other places. It is my capital city and the last thing I want is to lose it.

What can I do? Is any way to fix this? Can I avoid the expansion? Should I keep playing with this city? Please, help me.

Some useful data about the city:

- About a 85-90% of its landmass has been constructed.

- My game is fully updated.

- This city file size is 9.43 MB.

  Edited April 14, 2012 by TekindusT  

[Titanicbuff 1,262]

To fix the prp problem you need the props that go with it

[jacksunny 741]

Have you downloaded and installed anything recently? If so try removing it.

Other than that there isn't really much you can do.

[Follarch 326]

Prop pox is a dastardly disease for which only one known cure is available. Wiping the city tile. I've had to do that myself. I've been told prop pox sets in from over developing a tile, like building and demolishing over and over again.

Edit: Thanks to jdenm, I now know better.

  Edited April 15, 2012 by Follarch  

[jdenm8 362]

Prop Pox isn't from over-developing a tile, that's untruths that some particular member of the community was pushing.

It's from having a prop override a Maxis prop in a way the game doesn't like. If that prop is called, then that city has a good chance of getting prop pox when the game converts the city's Prop Subfile from Compressed to Uncompressed (When the compression algorithm hits its limit at 16MB). A Pox Infected subfile will corrupt during this process as the game seems to mistakenly end sections in the middle of other sections due to differing sizes.

I've recently had it happen in one of my own tiles. The tile is still playable, there is nothing functionally wrong, but props just stop working. There are temporary measures you can take (Changing to Low Detail then back to High seems to make the game rebuild it temporarially) as well as more permanant ones which can have long-lasting effects (like deleting the Prop Subfile).

Flora (The type of game asset EVERY tree, shrub and grass should be) and buildings will not be affected.

  Edited April 15, 2012 by jdenm8  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Interesting. Is this then a symptom of too many objects in the game when it loads?

[Mister Giggles 310]

Explanation and (one of) the cause(s) of Prop Pox:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7066.msg224888#msg224888

Trees aren't considered props, unless they're used as such (Obviously).

[MandelSoft 2,769]

To quote myself from SC4D:

How to minimize the effect of the Prop Pox?

Currently I have three cities that show signs of the Prop Pox. Although this is very annoying, I've found three tips to minimize the effect of the Prop Pox:

1. Play in Low Detail settings!

Yeah, I know, the game looks ugly when you set your stettings low, but it has its advantages. Not only does it improve peformance, but also it makes CTDs due to camera movement to occur less frequently and it also helps against the Prop Pox. You see, the Prop Pox occurs when a certain file reaches a certain size, and when it reaches it, it begins to shrink. However, when you set your city detail level to low, a lot of props become disabled, and from my experience the game doesn't save disabled props, so the Prop Pox will occur later. And when it does occur, no need to worry. When you set your city detail settings to high again (for an MD update for instance), all props will appear, as if there were no Prop Pox at all.

2. Save in Zoom 1.

Just like the above, when you're in Zoom 1 with low detail settings, lots of props get disabled and will not be saved, limiting the effect of the Prop Pox.

3. Planted trees are not props.

Trees planted in God Mode or Mayor Mode will not dissappear due to the Prop Pox. Try to avoid tree filler lots and plant God/Mayor Mode trees instead.

I hope this information might be usefull to you

Best,

Maarten

[jdenm8 362]

Interesting. Is this then a symptom of too many objects in the game when it loads?

No, as I said, current evidence points to that it's a symptom of having a prop that replaces a Maxis Prop Exemplar (Only Maxis' Prop Exemplars seem to do this) with a larger one (Meaning the game messes up the tabling in the Prop Subfile in the savegame). Several of Pegasus' Prop Packs (Only one of which is available for download, the rest are now only available on the PLEX CD), several BSC Prop Packs (the Simtropolis versions of which aren't fixed to stop Prop Pox behaviour of some of the props inside the pack) and goodness knows what else exhibits this.

  Edited April 28, 2012 by jdenm8  

[packersfan 666]

The only way you can prevent it is to remove the offending file. There is extensive explanation on how to find this file and remove it. Hopefully you have not played any other large tiles (usually this will only affect large tiles) since downloading the offending file. As for this tile, hopefully you have a backup of it from before you downloaded the offending tile, otherwise you will have to completely restart. This happened to my main downtown tile, essentially I had developed 90% of the tile and had to revert to a backup with only 25% of the tile developed...ouch. There are some temporary cosmetic fixes you can do which will bring the props back (but all mayor mode ploppables will disappear (i.e. trees)...and you'll have to do it EVERYTIME because the pox will always infect after you save. Your best option really is to start over (FIND THE CORRUPT FILE FIRST). It sucks, but in the long-run you will be able to actually play the game and tile again...and if you learn anything from this experience it is BACKUP often, and have multiple backups, everytime you download and install something. I don't know how you can prevent downloading a bad file, so there is still risk that you will infect your city again and find out that you built most of your city since install that DAMNED file. As noted, there is extensive information on this at SC4 Devotion. Good luck.