I got prop pox :( How should I go around this?

[nRVOUS 333]

its only in one tile so should I wipe It and just move on to another region or do more? So far i deleted all my peg lots since they seem to be considered a problem so should I do anything else?

[matias93 7,535]

Well, for starters, it's not always easy to diagnose the pox, so it could be a false positive. Did you check the tile file with the SC4Save tool? 

[nRVOUS 333]

@matias93 Yep its definitely it.

[matias93 7,535]

Oh #@&*! That's a huge lot of disabled props.

Well, luckily prop pox cannot extend itself to the rest of the region. To minimise the damage, I recommend you to make a clearly labelled backup of the tile file, to take several screenshots (including the info views) to be able to recover the design of the city, and to use the obliterate button, to keep the geography intact.

On respect of the props that could cause harm, I know they are few and will identified, but I cannot remember which ones are; both @Tyberius06 and @rsc204 know and I guess can direct you to fix the affected files, to avoid ditching them altogether.

[nRVOUS 333]

3 minutes ago, matias93 said:

I recommend you to make a clearly labelled backup of the tile file, to take several screenshots (including the info views) to be able to recover the design of the city, and to use the obliterate button, to keep the geography intact.

Already done it. and do you mean theres a list of known prop pox infected files?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

4 minutes ago, nRVOUS said:

Already done it. and do you mean theres a list of known prop pox infected files?

I believe these are the ones:

• PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit
• PEG OWW2 RebaLynns Beach Hut
• PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Restrooms

And they can be patched up, but our (silly) sacred rules say we can't alter the existing files for those downloads. @rsc204 and prolly other peeps know just what needs to be changed via iLive's Reader.

[nRVOUS 333]

16 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I believe these are the ones:

• PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit
• PEG OWW2 RebaLynns Beach Hut
• PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Restrooms

And they can be patched up, but our (silly) sacred rules say we can't alter the existing files for those downloads. @rsc204 and prolly other peeps know just what needs to be changed via iLive's Reader.

i actually have none of those.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, nRVOUS said:

i actually have none of those.

The most detailed investigation is the: What causes Prop Pox (and how to avoid it) over on Devotion. In several posts it is suggested those are not the only ones as (apparently) the pox was discovered prior to their creation. I'm uncertain if there is a full list or not. The 3 I listed are from a different discussion elsewhere.

[nRVOUS 333]

@CorinaMarie @matias93Thanks for the help.

[twalsh102 1,601]

To be clear, despite much investigation, and numerous suggestions of other possible causes, the only proven causes of Prop Pox are four props (Prop exemplars  0x29000000, 0x290D0000, 0x29110000, 0x29B20000) in PEG_OWW2_BDK_RESOURCE.DAT (one of two files in PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit).  The other two lots mentioned by @CorinaMarie use the problem props, but don't actually include the problem props in the download.  There is no full list as there is just the one positively identified problem download.  No other PEG products have been identified as causing the problem despite exhaustive research.  The investigation conducted by bap over at SC4D (the link mentioned by Cori) is pretty much THE place to go for the discussion of Prop Pox.  The real meat of the problem is discussed in the first few posts, including how to avoid the problem.

While the Prop Pox was discovered prior to the release of PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit, no other currently available culprits have been positively identified, either because those originally affected files have been corrected, or are no longer available. 

Are there other possible causes of Prop Pox?  Very possible, but until something else can be positively identified, everything is just conjecture.  Nobody else has been able to provide any research like that conducted by bap as any proof.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

In the link posted by @CorinaMarie it is said:

 

"5)   The problem is in the city game save file (city_name.sc4 in the corresponding region sub-folder at MyDocuments/SimCity 4/Plugins/Regions). The affected city sc4 file shrinks by 200-400 Kby when prop pox strikes for the first time and continues shrinking if the users keeps saving the city after it is affected ( see here ). The sc4 city file is made up of a large number of subfiles, identified by TGI (Type, Group, Instance) addresses. It was discovered ( see here ) that the props in the city (including street props) are stored in the subfile of Type 2977aa47, also called the ‘network’ subfile. This file grows in size as the city develops. When Prop Pox strikes this file shrinks in size by 200-400 Kby with respect to its size in the previous save game file, causing the sc4 city file to also shrink. The next time you open the city those 200-400 Kby of props will be missing. They were lost in the save game process."

 

I followed the discussion on the prop pox once but I forgot the most. I think the discovery, certain custom content files causing it was only done by one user and was never veryfied by others. But I may be wrong on this, can't remember.

For we can't exclude the corruption of the save files is caused by a faulty reading/writing algorithm under certain circumstances, it's impossible to say who's the 'culprit'. It's only suspicion.  

Prop Pox - regarding sc4 community is like a demon, a mythical figure with much talking around. Like devil for christianity, prop pox is for the sc4 community. If something evil happens it was the Propox. Someone should do a painting or write a biography of this evil guy named 'Propox' to make the legend complete.

[Tarkus 6,932]

The issue, in short, is caused by exemplar overrides, in which an existing static prop exemplar is overridden (via load order) with a timed prop exemplar at the same TGI instance.  It messes up the game's memory allocation with the save file, eventually leading to the pox.  The particular case with Pegasus is that he decided to create timed versions of four static Maxis props (including the infamous beach umbrella) for the OWW2 BDK package, but used the same TGI instance as the original from SimCity_1.dat, thereby overriding them.

It'd be interesting to see if actually merging Pegasus' modified exemplars into SimCity_1.dat and replacing the originals (such that there wouldn't be an override) would prevent the pox from occuring.  Additionally, I wonder if perhaps, a custom static prop being loaded into a city, and then adding an override that changes it to timed would cause the pox.

-Tarkus

[Fantozzi 4,067]

25 minutes ago, Tarkus said:

It messes up the game's memory allocation with the save file, eventually leading to the pox.  The particular case with Pegasus is that he decided to create timed versions of four static Maxis props (including the infamous beach umbrella)

What I don't get - why this messes up memory allocation but hundreds of other overrides don't. If it's because of different data size of the exemplar file (different amount of digits as bap explains) wouldn't that mean prop overrides with changing properties aren't possible at all - or at least: always risky to prop pox? Why should this be limited to overrides of original maxis, if memory allocations is the problem, then should happen also on overriding custom content too. No? If I understood well, that's your question too.

But also: is it limited to the RTK property or could it happen on other properties too that affect data size. Well, the name of the prop f.e. If you change the amount of letters?

But then - why prop pox is reported relative rarely?

[Tyberius06 12,189]

Well I got PropPox last spring (2016) in one of my cities (North Harbour District), and I had not used the BDK kit, but I did use a lot of uncarefully modified (with Pim-X and LE) custom lots and there also were several unfortunate circumstances. 

So yepp, you need to do and modify things very carefully, that's what I learnt. And a lot of back ups from the region.

@Scribosilynprobably, because I used a lot amounts of PEG stuff in large cities (just not the BDK ones), the restarted North Harbour has a lot modifiid (carefully) lots and PEG stuffs as well, it nearly fully developed with a 27 Mbyte big save file and it PP free and disabled props free. So not all the PEG stuff is causing problems. 

- Tyberius

  Edited July 30, 2017 by Tyberius06  

[rsc204 21,808]

10 hours ago, matias93 said:

Well, luckily prop pox cannot extend itself to the rest of the region.

Well as this isn't an infection, that might make sense, but it ignores the fact if you have files in plugins that cause prop pox, it may trigger a wider problem in every city's save which extends to backups of those cities too. In short, your whole region is basically doomed at this point, sorry.

10 hours ago, nRVOUS said:

Already done it. and do you mean theres a list of known prop pox infected files?

9 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I believe these are the ones:

• PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Development Kit
• PEG OWW2 RebaLynns Beach Hut
• PEG OWW2 BDK Beach Restrooms

9 hours ago, nRVOUS said:

i actually have none of those.

It's not that simple, only one file has EVER been confirmed as having Prop Pox, if you accept the status quo, that's the Beach Development Kit by Pegasus. The other two are only connected in that they use the BDK as a dependency, but they don't cause the problem themselves.

If you ever had the BDK in your plugins, even if you subsequently removed it, then it could have triggered the problem long ago. Removing the file won't alter that, from what we know, once it's been proven your region has the trigger, in all likelihood many of your save files will eventually run into the same problem. Hence I say your region is doomed, because if you continue, in all probability you'll just end up with more broken tiles and so it's better to cut your losses IMO.

6 hours ago, twalsh102 said:

either because those originally affected files have been corrected, or are no longer available. 

Not entirely correct, one BSC file was detected and patched, BSC MEGA Props - Misc Vol02.dat. But we can't say others are no longer available, the facts simply don't support this argument. Because frankly I doubt many suffering this problem either knew how, or bothered to properly check their plugins folder for other potential sources. Looking at the number of users without the BDK having been installed that show Prop Pox, that surely means there must be more to this?

1 hour ago, Scribosilyn said:

I used his lots in my town of Dahammas, and when my town became really big, the problem of Prop Pox appeared (this is the first and last time this has happened to me). So I had to re-do a good part of the city after that. I've made other big cities without the PEG lots, and I've never had any problems with Prop Pox.

Coincidence?

I dropped my toast on the floor this morning, so everyone's toast must all fall on floors, coincidence?

You can't argue that one instance of a thing = fact. It's simply not a sufficient amount of data to be considered as proof by any reasonable person.

1 hour ago, Fantozzi said:

But also: is it limited to the RTK property or could it happen on other properties too that affect data size. Well, the name of the prop f.e. If you change the amount of letters?

Well we know that changing the RTK property does alter the way the data is saved, but most overridden properties do not cause this behaviour. Similarly, the Nighttime State Change property has been brought up as another potential cause of the problem, although little research has been done on that.

But here is an alternative hypothesis, basically another way I think you might find your cities end up with file corruption, which prevents props from appearing. We all know that people are constantly changing their plugins folder's contents, adding and removing new items. We also know that SC4 save files are basically a massive dump from RAM into a file, which is a very bad way of handling such things, programmatically speaking. So what happens when a new lot grows in a city?, well the save file will be told where the lot is, it's ID and contain data for every single prop, texture and item on the lot. We know that overriding a texture or prop will result in the lots instantly updating upon re-loading the save file. But, what if the item no longer exists, but the save file expects it too? Its my belief that removing items from your plugins folder, which remain in your cities is certainly likely to cause problems. Adding new stuff, just fine, removing items when every instance of them is removed first from the cities, no worries. But its when you remove props/models and the like which are still referenced by the save file that I am specifically talking about. Do that too much and I think it's totally possible to screw up the integrity of the save file.

I'm not disputing Prop Pox here, just saying perhaps the RTK change for an overridden prop may not be the only possibility for problems. But the number of people who get hit by "Prop Pox", yet swear they never had the BDK installed, coupled with the fact that in all this time only 2 files were ever identified as causing the problem. Leads me to think there simply must be more to this than just the BDK. Of course it doesn't help that the problems are extremely complex, very few users really understand them, or are able to perform the necessary testing to locate any potential alternate files, that may be at fault. We simply don't have the data to prove anything, but that said, it still seems very unlikely the BDK can be the only thing to cause such problems. Yet in all this time, no one has really devoted any effort to looking for alternative causes.

 

[Fantozzi 4,067]

2 hours ago, Scribosilyn said:

Coincidence?

If I understood well @nRVOUS don't uses these files. So to get a better understanding, imho, it would be helpful to identify what the cause is in his case. To my little knowledge there are no other samples except of bap to judge if it's always the RTK property and only the RTK property. And as far as I know no one ever proofed baps findings on this - the changing of the RTK property being the only reason for prop pox. It was broadly accepted but it still was an individual solution in an individual case - still unknow if it's the 'general issue' and the 'overall solution'.

 

Prop pox was reported before the named files by Pegasus were released. To my knowledge there were never identified files causing those older reports of prop pox.

Prop pox has been reported by players only using NAM and CAM and no other additional custom content.

Some players report prop pox happens only in one city of the region while other cities keep on working fine. Other users report prop pox affecting also their small towns.

Some players report prop pox is affecting only one region while other region aren't affected.

Players sharing their cities with each other reported - one got the prop pox the other one not.

Most players report they did changes to their plugin folder before prop pox appeared. I couldn't find a player that confrmed he did no changes to the plugin folder (since he had started the region).

Severall users report replopping ploppables affected by prop pox makes all props visible again - they save and reload and still okay. They save once more and the bug 'returns'. One of the big problems seems to be that the visible effects, the symptoms of the prop pox appear randomly - the prop pox may be there without noticing it because only few props are affected.

 

To me it seems - bap found one possible reason for prop pox. But this doesn't mean he found all reasons for prop pox.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, rsc204 said:

But here is an alternative hypothesis, basically another way I think you might find your cities end up with file corruption, which prevents props from appearing. We all know that people are constantly changing their plugins folder's contents, adding and removing new items. <snip>

(I won't quote your whole explanation as you know what you said and other peeps read it above.) This makes a whole lot of sense to me (and worries me a wee little bit cause I've added and deleted some stuff in my current region).

 

1 hour ago, Fantozzi said:

To me it seems - bap found one possible reason for prop pox. But this doesn't mean he found all reasons for prop pox.

And since @nRVOUS didn't ever have the files I mentioned installed that adds support to there being other causes such as @rsc204's suggestion.

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

This makes a whole lot of sense to me (and worries me a wee little bit cause I've added and deleted some stuff in my current region).

The thing is, people have been doing this since the beginning of custom content.

I avoid it, because as the sort of person who's constantly messing around with content whilst modding, I know I could run afoul of problems. So when I'm messing around, I simply don't save my game afterwards. Otherwise if I know I need to save, I'm careful to use a special test region which I couldn't care less about. Of course as a modder this is all very far from the way the typical user will play.

I think the issue is that the more you alter things, the more you test the resilience of the save file system. I doubt Maxis ever pushed it as far as the average user does today. They simply could never have predicted how the modding scene and growth of computer power would transform the game. So my advice is simple, if you test an item of content you might wish to keep in your plugins folder, do it in a test region. If you decide to keep the content, leave it alone, even if you stop using it later. Some things are better changed when you start a new region, there really isn't a need to constantly remove a large amount of plugins during play. To facilitate such things, I have a separate plugins folder for every region I build. Those are created from some default "themed packs" I've put together. Such as UK Buildings, Generic EU Buildings, etc, I'm sure you get the idea. By having smaller packs or folders of content I can put together in ready to go form, new plugins folders don't take too long to put together. But of course as with all such solutions, they do require a lot of effort in the first instance to set up.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

7 hours ago, Tarkus said:

caused by exemplar overrides, in which an existing static prop exemplar is overridden (via load order) with a timed prop exemplar at the same TGI instance.

(Emphasis mine): The one exemplar at one TGI changes size between when Maxis loads and when mods load. Somewhere, the old size is lurking (I guess the Maxis programmer assumed it would not change size if modded). It doesn't bug a city until the city gets especially big.

Important safety tip: If you make a mod that will change the class of a data object, then you should create a new instance.

 

6 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

What I don't get - why this messes up memory allocation but hundreds of other overrides don't.

At a certain city size, the program changes the way it organizes its saved data to save space (and the file shrinks). It's in the "big city" format that something is informally allocated the wrong (small lurking) number of bytes in an array. The small allocation is then written with the larger modded data, which writes beyond where it belongs, corrupting the next random prop in the saved game. If I understand the analysis thread correctly, the corrupted prop gets tossed on the next load, exposing another to the next save. Each load-save cycle wipes more props (and the file continues to shrink).

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Thanks, jeffry. The domino effect on load-save cycle would also explain why the prop pox appears like a 'virus' first often not noticed then infecting more and more props.

[nRVOUS 333]

@Fantozzi Would there be anyway to find out If a tile is infected from the start with the save editor?

[RobertLM78 1,597]

Hehehe - Just when you think you've learned about all the bugs in the game you discover there is another....

I'm glad I didn't wind up using Peg's beach stuff (though it looks like it may be more complicated than that).   Well, as someone who's messed up a couple of regions and started over I'd say just start over with a new region.

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, nRVOUS said:

 Would there be anyway to find out If a tile is infected from the start with the save editor?

This is difficult, since until the save file goes above a certain threshold, which alters the save file data format, the corruption of the file doesn't occur. So for any save files with a Network Subfile above the threshold it's easy to check, but for those which haven't reached it, it's very hard to say. The sort of good news here is that for cities which never reach that threshold, it's impossible for the file to become corrupted in this way, so they would be safe. Hence this is far more likely on a large highly-populated tile than on a small or medium one.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Most users report prop pox strikes not before a certain city size - same as explained by @jeffryfisher regarding file size.

I never used the save game explorer. To my understanding on every save you had to make a backup and then checking if the file is corrupted - because when it strikes it's to late. But this not practical and kills gaming fun. I don't recommend to take this way.

Question would be if you did any backups of your saves in an earlier stage of development = before file reached the 'crticial size'?

My personal opinion is: at the moment there is no way to avoid prop pox. Still we don't know the reasons in detail and I think @rsc204 hypothesis to work with is the best. This means you can't do much (exept not changing your plugin folder in certain ways while developing a city/region) to avoid prop pox. So the best you can do is to be prepared when it happens. So to make backups of the saves regulary.

As the funnier part is building up cities. So also the better way is to rebuild the city as @matias93 suggests than spending weeks of thinking a way to recover it.To regard prop pox as a 'natural desaster' and a challenge to the major you are.

You would also need backups to narrow the issue. You would have a non corrupted backup to start over again from a certain point and testing when it appears. You would need reproducibility to find the cause. Without posibilities to reproduce the situation when your save got corrupted - it's like fumbling for something in the dark.

So even if you discover when corruption started first you still not know what (which plugin?) was the cause.

 

[rsc204 21,808]

1 minute ago, Fantozzi said:

Question would be if you did any backups of your saves in an earlier stage of development = before file reached the 'crticial size'?

My personal opinion is: at the moment there is no way to avoid prop pox. Still we don't know the reasons in detail and I think @rsc204 hypothesis to work with is the best. This means you can't do much (exept not changing your plugin folder in certain ways while developing a city/region) to avoid prop pox. So the best you can do is to be prepared when it happens. So to make backups of the saves regulary.

Here's the problem, and one of the reasons why Prop Pox is so catastrophic. If the trigger is in place, the moment the Network Subfile switches the data format, the problem will always return. Provided you keep that from happening, no worries, but lets be honest here, that is always going to happen in most highly populated dense large tiles. Therefore, even the backups are basically toast here, unless you can prevent the Network Subfile from expanding beyond the initial threshold.

In essence Prop Pox is a timebomb waiting to go off, once it's there, you can never really trust the save file. Many people have spent ages messing about trying to recover their work, but the most sensible solution is probably not to waste your time, in all likelihood the files are simply doomed. As such, you are better off ditching them and starting again.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Ah, sorry. Obviously @rsc204 is right on this. But how to narrow search for the cause then? If everybody experiencing prop pox would post a list of used plugins?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 minute ago, Fantozzi said:

If everybody experiencing prop pox would post a list of used plugins?

I believe it'd be more complicated than that. Everybody would need to post a list of all plugins used and removed throughout the entire region play time. And even then it prolly wouldn't be definitive enough to actually learn anything unless we had thousands of complete reports and someone wrote a program to analyze the data every which way.

[rsc204 21,808]

20 minutes ago, Fantozzi said:

If everybody experiencing prop pox would post a list of used plugins?

That may help, but its not easy to list everything for starters. Adding to the trouble is what exactly to look for, it's somewhat helped by the fact that only certain types of override need to be checked. But I don't know of an automated solution to process that task.

17 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Everybody would need to post a list of all plugins used and removed throughout the entire region play time.

Indeed, the plugins not currently installed part of that adds a real problem to this. Few people would remember that.

18 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

And even then it prolly wouldn't be definitive enough to actually learn anything unless we had thousands of complete reports and someone wrote a program to analyze the data every which way.

In the past, many people simply suggested files they thought could be behind the problem. The issue (which is all too clear in the Prop Pox thread), is that few people really understood enough to make such suggestions more than a random blame game. Most of those files which were pointed at, didn't even turn out to be overrides, those that did never altered the RTK ID type. Frankly, I know many modders who'd love to override props with a new RTK setting, for example you could override the Maxis flora to be seasonal that way, but the very reason no-one does is the prop pox dilemma.

By and large it's so widely known that no modder since has even considered such a thing. You'd also expect if such a mod were released, someone would have spotted it. Since plenty of people do know enough that they would be inclined to check or poke about mods that override things.

The other issue is even harder to locate, what if some instances of prop pox were nothing to do with changing the RTK of an existing prop? How on earth would we begin to find the cause in that scenario?

[nRVOUS 333]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Here's the problem, and one of the reasons why Prop Pox is so catastrophic. If the trigger is in place, the moment the Network Subfile switches the data format, the problem will always return. Provided you keep that from happening, no worries, but lets be honest here, that is always going to happen in most highly populated dense large tiles. Therefore, even the backups are basically toast here, unless you can prevent the Network Subfile from expanding beyond the initial threshold

I'm realizing that this may be on me as well, The city I created was a Japanese style, And below is a fresh city on a fresh region:

This is all I have in the city, Under this is the prop info for this tile

Considering that the prop pox infected tile was larger (About 55-60% was completed) Would this be a factor?

[Fantozzi 4,067]

4 hours ago, nRVOUS said:

Considering that the prop pox infected tile was larger (About 55-60% was completed) Would this be a factor?

No. As @rsc204 explained - it's this 'timebomb' phenomenon. You can keep your save files smaller and so prop pox wouldn't strike - but this doesn't mean the 'infect' isn't there. You can imagine it like a virus encapsulated and if the city has a certain size outbreak begins. 

Therefore many players initially thought it is a limit of the game regarding plugin folder size or population size - because it striked at a certain size. But it's the symptoms of the 'illness' you see, not the 'virus' causing the 'illness'. 

It's the pest and we are still in our middle ages. And all the cures are middle age - cutting the veins, doing bloodletting. We have to wait for a Louis Pasteur to discover the virus.