Touching 6 squares causes the game to CTD

[igdent 27]

Hi everyone,

I hate annoying you and probably sounding like an idiot. I have read everything on CTD and have spent the entire day trying every instruction. I am at a loss. In "landscaping" my city I used grass fillers merely as a temporary colour code to mark where I had finished etc. I have now gone back over the entire tile (the largest of tiles) and bulldozed all the grass fillers. Unfortunately, there are just 6 squares (6 out of 16000+!) that, when I attempt to remove the fillers in any way whether by bulldozing or even by terrain tools, the game crashes. The last plugin I installed was a BLS rural rail station, but that was over a week ago and nothing like this has happened in the meantime. It's just 6 squares yet I had almost the entire tile covered in fillers which I have since bulldozed! I am tearing my hair out. I would really appreciate some help. Since first posting this, in desperation I covered those fillers in trees and tried to bulldoze again; again it crashes. So I tried covering in trees, saving the game, then bulldozing again with no luck. I then removed the plugin for those fillers, reloaded the game and tried to bulldoze the trees and it still crashes; and now I am stuck with the trees as well.

  Edited June 7, 2020 by igdent  
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[Raymond7cn 6,776]

Hi @igdent, I'm sorry to hear that, I used to run up against similar snag which was solved by this lot:

RJ - Immortality Killer by RippleJet

But I'm not sure whether that's the same problem, so may i ask what filler Lot do you use? Furthermore, Have you ever tried another City? since I have no idea if this is a Prop Pox Bug caused by some special Props. I believe that other experts will probably come along with much better advice, but this is what I can think of right now. 

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[igdent 27]

Thanks Raymond7cn,

I'm not sure about the immortality thing either. I have had that a couple of times with stations where I end up having to put an airport on top of them then bulldoze the lot. I appreciate your help and I am about to go and have a look at that file you suggest. The fillers are from MGB Filler Set.

[igdent 27]

No, no good. It's not an immortality thing, I'm afraid. Just something about those 6 squares. I fear I might have to go right back to the drawing board. Days and days of work down the drain. Oh well, such is life in SimCity 4.

[CorinaMarie 29,926]

@igdent

Can you just plop some fences (or something) around them and call that a restricted area? Then you could keep playing that city tile.

[igdent 27]

I'm not sure what I am going to do yet, but just for the sake of anyone reading this, it is apparently similar to immortality. I returned to an old file of the same city (I keep copies at regular intervals) and tried plopping a road at the same point of 6 squares, tried to bulldoze and the game crashed. I tried with fillers and the game crashed. So I plopped an airport over the space, saved to region, came back in and bulldozed the airport. I then tried the road again and it bulldozed fine; I tried the fillers and they too bulldozed fine. The problem I have with the more recent file is that I cannot plop an airport because the fillers are already there. Quandaries! I guess I will just have to return to an old file and rebuild but test those squares first.

Hi CorinaMarie, Yes I might end up doing that type of thing yet if I get overwhelmed with starting from scratch. It's only 6 squares after all.

[thingfishs 417]

Hi igdent,

 @rsc204 may well be able to help (they know the inner workings of the game pretty well, plus they are the creator of those filler sets so I'm sure they'll want to know).

By the way, you don't have to contact them - they will see this.

(just in case: I don't suppose you're using or have used a tree controller in this city - they can cause CTD issues if not handled carefully).

[Raymond7cn 6,776]

27 minutes ago, igdent said:

The problem I have with the more recent file is that I cannot plop an airport because the fillers are already there. Quandaries!

Hi igdent, have you ever tried to drag an area of residential or commercial over these fillers, then I found that i could bulldoze those stuffs as normal buildings in my case. I hope it helps. Anyways, I thought this issue usually appears on overhangs. Looking forward your good news!

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[rsc204 21,869]

1 hour ago, igdent said:

The fillers are from MGB Filler Set...

...It's not an immortality thing, I'm afraid.

No I can pretty much confirm it won't be if it's one of the basic 1x1 grass fillers. These contain no props whatsoever and the building is just a null key with a very tiny footprint that couldn't possibly extend beyond the lot.

I have once come across a similar situation to what you are describing, but I never actually managed to resolve the problem in my case. Instead I just plopped some random junk from MMPs into the area and accepted I'd have to avoid doing anything near the affected tiles.

I would highly recommend you check your Plugins to ensure you do not have either duplicate Slope mods or Terrain mods installed. Mismatched values that come from auto-terraforming events can cause CTDs and isn't a widely known about problem. A good test might simply be to remove any Slope mods you have and see if that changes what's happening. Otherwise, in these situations I figure some value in the save file has been set such as to cause problems when working on related areas. Using the same tricks as to remove immortal lots or corrupted garbage dump zones is your best chance of rectifying the problem. As you've already verified, if you can just "get" to the affected tiles to alter the bad data, such as:

1 hour ago, igdent said:

So I plopped an airport over the space, saved to region, came back in and bulldozed the airport. I then tried the road again and it bulldozed fine;

It doesn't matter how you alter the save file, sometimes you can zone around it, the larger the zoned area the better. But if the specific cells where the fillers are can not be altered, then you're a bit stuck. Going back to the one similar issue I had, originally it affected about 6-8 tiles, but I did get that down to only 2, but those I simply couldn't alter no matter what I tried. Just to add some context, this was a region I'd built once then returned later to re-make it by bulldozing almost everything and re-making it.

As a last resort, if you ask @smf_16 very nicely, as pretty much the only one with the knowledge to edit save file data, he may be able to pin-point and correct the corrupted/problematic part of the save file for you.

[igdent 27]

Wow, I really appreciate everyone's help. Thanks rsc204, you have clarified what I had begun to suspect. I don't think it's important enough to bother smf_16. So, after reading your reply I obliterated the city, which obliterated those fillers. I have tested that space and it seems to have done the trick. At least this way I still have all my terraforming and landscaping, whereas buildings and people can be replaced with time. Thanks again everyone. It will forever remain the mystery of SC4.

[igdent 27]

Actually, I just had a thought that I believe solves the mystery. Early in the piece I was testing a station in what was probably that very spot. I plopped a switch but accidentally got it one square inside the station instead of beside it. That caused the station to become immortal, and I had to use the airport to get rid of it. The switch is 6 tiles long. I could be wrong, but I do think it was in that spot, and even though I was then able to "use" the squares a ghost of the immortality must have remained there. An ongoing learning process. From now on, if I stumble across immortality, I am going to "airport" it twice to be sure.