Disappearing Cities?!?!?!

[arrchitect 0]

Help! I just loaded a region in Simcity4 and a bunch of cities where missing! When I click on them the terraforming and cities are still there, but I can't see them in Region view! Plus some cities are completely gone with big holes in the map help!

 

   

[meister1235 92]

This is a known bug of SC4, just don't touch your computer while Sc4 is saving the city. 

[SAGGG 47]

Are you sure you don't mean SC2013? This is that forum, by the way. Either that, or you have the wrong one...

[arrchitect 0]

This is SC4 Deluxe I'm dealing with, but I've never had trouble with this before. And every time I restart the game, the cities that are gone change up. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The usual cause of this is the loose nut holding the keyboard/mouse.  You must not switch away from the game when any kind of save is in progress.  The symptoms can be minor such as loss of the region snapshot or drastic such as corruption of the city image which becomes unrecoverable.  Once you start a save, hands off until the next message.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You posted this twice, but anyway, since this is the more active ...

 

1.  This is a technical thread.  Please post the details of your machine and the build level of your game.

2.  What I said in the other thread goes.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Doesn't sound like this.  He said several cities on the same region had trouble... I think he would have noticed after the first one

 

Have you tried saving one of the cities that you can still open ? Is it still invisible in the region map after a save ?

[SimCoug 5,973]

I have merged both topics - only one topic is necessary, please refrain from creating multiple posts with the same question.  Thank you.

~SimCoug - Moderator

[Lost Realist 762]

Doesn't sound like this.  He said several cities on the same region had trouble... I think he would have noticed after the first one

 

Have you tried saving one of the cities that you can still open ? Is it still invisible in the region map after a save ?

 

It took me a while to notice that that was the cause, too. If you habitually switch away from the game because you're playing windowed mode... To me it sounds like the cause has been identified.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

This is SC4 Deluxe I'm dealing with, but I've never had trouble with this before. And every time I restart the game, the cities that are gone change up. 

 

Still doesn't sound like a "saving while alt-tabing" problem

[arrchitect 0]

I do habitually put the game on tab, but never while the game is saving. My game is on a Windows 7 Dell Latitude E6400. And I can still access my cities, but sometimes I can't see them in Region view. And yes, I do know that leaving the game while a save is in progress causes the city to disappear and I don't do that. But this happens every time I exit a city, and every region in my game is behaving like this. But it's not just one, it's multiple ones, and like i said, there are also holes where unaltered squares just simply disappear leaving only the blue grid background with nothing to select.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, it is a new symptom in the game and I suspect lack of disk maintenance.  When was the last time you cleaned up your disk space?  The programs are Disk Cleanup and Disk Defragmenter and both can be found in the MyComputer -> <drive letter> -> Properties.

 

This game checker-boards your disk seriously.  Every time you do a save you have a very good chance of adding another disk extent to your disk space allocated to that file.  Many Windows applications are not well-behaved as well and leave temporary files laying about your disk, effectively reserving great blocks of garbage. 

 

If you have never run these maintenance programs before and have had your system running for a few months or more, the NTFS tables need to be cleaned up.  To do this, plan for a couple of long intervals without your machine as these programs should be run stand-alone.

 

To accomplish a full disk clean up run these in this order, and remember that they cannot be interrupted since they are manipulating your whole disk space.

 

1. Disconnect from the Internet.  No point in holding that overhead during this.
2. Run Disk Cleanup.  May take an hour or more.  When it finishes, examine the list of candidates and delete any you are sure you don't want.
3. Run Disk Defragmenter.  Plan to run this overnight if it hasn't been run in a long time.  It can take several hours.
4. Reconnect the net.

 

At this point, your problem should be gone.  If not, please post again.

 

This series of events should be run weekly.  If you do, they don't take very long at all.

[arrchitect 0]

I found the solution, a simple cleaning of the disc with soap and water has resolved the problem.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You had better make a copy of that disk while you still can.  Water and optical disks are enemies.

[BlueSharkTheOne 1]

hey, i have the same issue.

 

I do not have any plugin and I still have this issue. I deleted the game and re-install it on the same disk and I also tried on another but nothing changed! 

(I touched nothing during savings)

 

Someone helps me please ^^ 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

hey, i have the same issue.

 

I do not have any plugin and I still have this issue. I deleted the game and re-install it on the same disk and I also tried on another but nothing changed! 

(I touched nothing during savings)

 

Someone helps me please ^^ 

Did you try cleaning your disks.  Use a dry, lint free cloth and rub from the inside out.  Do not run along the grooves.  If you have scratches that cannot be polished out, you get to buy the game again.  Get the digital download copy this time.