Game crashing after cleaning plugins folder

[giorgos69 52]

Hi everyone,

So i decided that after 8 years of plugin downloading I would sort out my plugins folder and organise it all a bit better. In this process i deleted a few small plugins which I thought may be bogging down my game (just Resi lots I dont use).

Now when I enter SC4 and try and open ANY city it just crashes before even opening. I stupidly did a hard delete of all the files as well so I can't just restore them from my recycle bin. Does anyone know what I can do from here seeing as none of my cities seem to be opening? Is there a way of working around crashes like these??

[lhrob 213]

Have you tried a file recovery program to see which ones were deleted? If you could at least get the file names, you could re-download them. Just a thought.

[giorgos69 52]

I didnt think of that, thanks. I will try it now and let you know how I go.

I actually got excited before thinking that I had a copy of my plugins folder on my other laptop but looks like I deleted it.

[lhrob 213]

I'm not absolutely certain if this will work, but you could also try restoring your computer to a system restore point that was created right before you deleted the plugins.

[giorgos69 52]

I just tried both things, none have worked. It is really odd because there is no way I deleted anything which I used in my cities and now NO saved city will open at all. For the most part all I did was rearrange my plugins folder. Could this reordering cause a crash? If I had a few missing plugins wouldnt I just be getting brown boxes rather than CTDs?

[giorgos69 52]

I fixed the problem! I came across this post by SPA on SC4D:

Well I have found another CTD source (with help from the BSC crew!). I recently updated all my plugins. I went through and deleted some that didn't fit what I was building and adjusted the lots to use the setbacks, textures and props I like. It was a big undertaking. When I tried to use my new plugins folder, however, I wasn't able to access any of my cities that had any development in them, but the new and improved plugins worked fine if I started from scratch on a blank tile. The crashes occurred in my big cities, my farm cities, in one that only had garbage incinerators on it and one that only had roads. It puzzled me because all I had changed were lots. Missing Co, Cs and R lots shouldn't cause crashes. They should just appear as blank and they definitely shouldn't effect cities that they never even grew or were plopped in. Using the method that Jeronji described in 3 (restored the plugins and started taking out files one by one until I found the one causing the crash) I was able to trace the problem back to a single custom lot I had downloaded and deleted, Glenni's Steinsaas Taarnet. When the Taarnet was in my plugins folder, I can access my cities, but when it's not, I can't, no matter how many of the other custom content buildings I deleted! This one file has become a crucial dependency to every city I built with it in my plugins folder. Not being a technical wizard, I sent the file to the BSC crew to look under the hood and the source of the problem is the second lot file, CO$$8_4x3_Steinsaas_b23c08a6.SC4Lot. The problem is that the exempler was set to RCI instead of Lot configurations! Below is the problem as seen in the SC4tool:

Because the lot is an RCI, it is integrated into every city I built with it and I have to keep the file to access those cities. Having restored the lot, everything works perfectly again. So on the mistakes made in modding front, if you're having crashes to desktop, it would be worth checking to see if any lots that were recently deleted were set to RCI since cities that were saved with them will only be accessible if they're kept in your plugins folder. I note the Taarnet was downloaded over 4,000 times so if you've used this lot and can't access cities, redownload it and you'll be able to again. Just keep it out of your plugins folder for any new cities unless you want to keep it forever. I have pmed Glenni and I'm hoping we can get the old simtropolis upload locked and have the Taarnet fixed and reuploaed. That way it would be accessible for anyone who's used it and now needs it to access old cities, but it will stop creating new victims. This isn't meant to slag Glenni. I understand he wasn't doing his own modding at the time (someone in Blam was) and for a novice who doesn't know what they're doing, I can see how you might think that the property has to be set to RCI.

So to recap, another source of crash to desktops:

Lots that were mistakenly set as RCI's, were in the plugins folder when a city was saved and were then deleted.

Solution:

Reinstall the broken lots.

I deleted the growable version of Glennis Steinsaas Taarnet which causes all saved cities to not function. All I had to do was redownload it and everything is fine now! Boy I am lucky SPA wrote a post about the exact same Lot 4 years ago otherwise I would have lost ALL my cities!!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Not necessarily. Those pinned threads are there for your use. Have a look at

[giorgos69 52]

Did you even read my problem? Because I read your pinned post and it had no relevance to my issue at all.

As stated in my post above yours, I solved my problem thanks to Google and a post on SC4D.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You were lucky. My method is general, and would probably have led you to the problem. You might keep in it mind for future reference.

[giorgos69 52]

Thanks for the tip however this issue regarded a missing file which was untraceable once it had been deleted, not a plugin causing the crash (rather it was the lack of this particular plugin). Therefore your method was rendered useless from the get-go.

I agree though it would prove useful if you had a plugin file in the folder which needed to be found.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, sorry it was of no help. I keep a dual structure, so I can always find everything I may have deleted. So far, in 10 years, it has been useful only once, but the one time pays for all.