Datpack says "examplar has no sig attribute"

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

After editing some SPAM farm fields (exemplars) to give me more anti-air pollution power, I tried to pack SPAM. Datpack errored out with the message "Examplar has no sig attribute". It doesn't specify which exemplar.

I only made changes within one of SPAM's dat files. I only touched the pollution radii and strengths. I'm using iLives reader 1.54.

What's a sig attribute, and how could it have been lost? Is iLives 1.54 buggy?

[twalsh102 1,601]

I would have taken the error to mean 'Exemplar has no significant attribute' (i.e. it may be empty).  I would go back and check that particular dat file to start.  Something may have corrupted the file.  Reader 1.54 is apparently very particular about Re-indexing and Rebuilding the Directory file after making changes, and before saving.

 

[markussaage 762]

Did you try to run SC4DataNode tool? The DataNode tool gives you a log file with errors and usually very detailed informations about the TGI, that causes the problem.

Kind regards!

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

1 hour ago, markussaage said:

Did you try to run SC4DataNode tool?

Yes, but it didn't say much. Maybe the exemplar is empty. There were some lines that were "unreadable".

However, I'm not even sure I was looking in the right place. Datpack's error is cryptic, not even giving the problem exemplar's name or number. I'm just trying to get more info so I can make more sense of it.

I had been hoping I could edit the pollution numbers within a dat file (not changing any length in any way) without reindexing etc, but no dice apparently. I've discarded my botched edit and will start over. I'll see if I can make an override-patch instead of making my own version of PEG's whole file.

If there's ever any more work done on iLives Reader, I humbly request that it automatically do whatever reindexing is needed whenever saving a file (since it seems to be a mandatory step anyway).

[rivit 3,391]

if DataNode complains about "unreadable" its found a tag saying "what follows is an exemplar" but when it tries to decode it can't make sense of it - usually a sign of file corruption. 

It issues a message to that effect on the log, and will dump the exemplar? to the \SC4Datanode\DebugData folder so that you can try to load it into Reader to see what it thinks.

As for editing the pollution numbers directly - should not be a hassle - changing these values does not change the file length.