DBPFLoading, MoreBuildingStyles, LuaExtensions, Submenus, and Thumbnails of City Tiles

[thedab101 9]

Hello all, and @Null 45 and @memo, et al:

I have several issues that I couldn't find any research on, after only just noticing these problems recently. I did not want to create multiple posts, so I just threw everything here into one. Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. 

Now that I've established my sense of humour by using a funny reference, here's some of the basics before I go into each issue: 

• I'm running SimCity 4 Digital Edition on Windows 11 Pro, fully updated
• I use sc4pac to manage all my plugins, including ones I add to the 075-my-plugins folder (at last check, 43,775 files across 6,691folders, a little over 11 gb, and no duplicates so I don't think there are conflicting plugins)
• All DLL mods and relative INI's are in/were moved to the .\Plugins root
• The game has been 4GB patched

The game was crashing when loading a particular city I had been working on for a while. This city might've been corrupted on an AutoSave earlier today, as it crashed right after attempting to save. I'm not sure if it's also related to any of these issues below: I've had to restore it from a backup from a few days earlier, which does load and can be played, so I assume that city was corrupted on AutoSave. This particular city reports an error loading a missing plugin, however, no plugins were ever moved or uninstalled intentionally before or after this city tile was developed - aside from installing new or updating existing plugins. (Is there any way these days to figure out the missing plugin based on the code displayed in the Missing Plugin dialog? I don't remember if this was ever possible before.)

 

DBPFLoading:

The log file shows this - note the last two lines specifically:

SC4DBPFLoading v2.1.0
Disabled the built-in DBPF loading debug code.
Patched the DBPF Open header check.
Changed the missing plugin error message to use hexadecimal.
Installed the cRZFile hooks.
Installed the .SC4* plugin scan patch.
Failed to load: C:\Users\REDACTED\Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\050-load-first\CAM.colossus-addon-mod-core.3.4.1.sc4pac\1 CAM Core\CAM_Advanced_Water_Allert_Old.dat
Failed to load: C:\Users\REDACTED\Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\895-my-overrides\z____Tariely Mods\z3_TL Divers\TL-PROPS JRJ Yellow taxis rsc.dat

Not sure why or if this is what's causing my issue with the missing plugin error or not. 

 

SC4MoreBuildingStyles:

The log file shows this - note line 5:

SC4MoreBuildingStyles v3.6.0
Installed the building select window patch.
Installed the lot configuration manager patch.
Installed the building style algorithm patch.
Failed to read the BuildingStyles INI file: No such node (BuildingStyles)
Found 0 exemplar building styles and 0 INI file building styles.

The node does exist in the INI file which is in the .\Plugins root folder. 

 

SC4LuaExtensions:

This one's very strange and I'm not sure what's causing this, but here's the entirety of the log file. I don't know if this too is what's causing the missing plugin error on the one city. 

SC4LuaExtensions v1.0.1
Replaced the Maxis Lua print function overrides.
Installed the Lua package script name patch.
Registered the game.execute_cheat function
Registered the game.pause function
Registered the game.resume function
Registered the sc4game.budget.get_department_total_expense function.
Registered the sc4game.budget.get_department_total_income function.
Lua script error !

Run-time
Thread ID: 0
Error Type: [string "_atrg_ = function () return ((SG_DentistCou..."]:1: attempt to call global `SG_DentistCount' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
	[string "_atrg_ = function () return ((SG_DentistCou..."]:1: in function <[string "_atrg_ = function () return ((SG_DentistCou..."]:1>

==========================================================================================

c5=	true

 

submenus:

I truly love this plugin, but I noticed, from early iterations, that sometimes there are plugins I've installed that are missing... when I "disable" this plugin (I temporarily move it out of the plugins folder), they appear - even if I have to scroll for a few minutes. What's weird here is that I noticed, for the first time, the logs that are coming from submenus - it looks like some of the plugins aren't being gathered properly and I dunno if this is by design (expecting plugins of these kinds to be installed when they might not be - which is weird, because I know I've had many of the varying kinds listed below installed for a long time), or if this is not properly capturing my plugin folder:

Submenus DLL 1.1.5
12:23:37 AM Installed the Duplicate/Missing Menu Icons fix.
12:23:37 AM Installed the Submenus patch.
12:23:39 AM Installed the Exemplar Patching feature.
12:23:56 AM Loaded 38 Exemplar patches targeting, in total, 72 Exemplar files.
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0xE75D823A: submenu-CAM-fresh-water
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x13D1986E: submenu-CAM-misc-water-util
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x60B9298D: submenu-CAM-tidal-wave
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x61730DA9: submenu-CAM-geothermal
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x2FAE9226: submenu-CAM-scrubber
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x34872AFE: submenu-CAM-hydroelectric
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x37FFA051: submenu-CAM-incinerator
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x8E5B2F9C: submenu-CAM-sewage-sanitizer
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x64365D13: submenu-CAM-power-storage
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0xF034265C: submenu-fillers
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x9BACEB6F: nbvc-marina-sailboat
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0xBB531946: submenu-embankment
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0xDEFFD960: submenu-modular-parks
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x8BA49621: submenu-military
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x9F83F133: submenu-plop-R$$$
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x984E5034: submenu-plop-R$$
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x93DADFE9: submenu-plop-R$
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x1CD18678: submenu-seawall
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0xDD5DC0E7: submenu-watercraft
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0xE441B333: nbvc-marina-boat
12:24:17 AM Hiding empty submenu with Button ID 0x839C37A1: nbvc-marina-surf
12:24:17 AM Initialized 117 submenus (21 empty, 0 not reachable).

I don't know what "Hiding empty submenu" means when I do have plugins that fit these categories. Is there something I should be customizing? 

 

City Tile Thumbnails on Region Map

Finally, a side note: on occasion (more often than not), when my region opens up on game startup, the last city tile I worked on (in particular, this specific problem city that I restored from backup), shows up blank (like a deleted city from the region and is plain and blank). It also looks like this when I load the city, but the city's name and mayor name appear correctly in the region map. What it doesn't do, is show a snapshot of the transportation network and zones like the other city tiles. The city itself opens up fine (well, I suppose until a file gets corrupted!) and after saving and returning to the region map, the tile still shows up blank. I'm not sure what conditions lead to the region map showing up complete. I did notice that after removing the submenus DLL from the Plugins folder, the tile showed the networks and zones of the city. I don't know if they're related issues.

Would appreciate any help or assistance, and can provide more background if requested. Thanks Mayors.

 

[Null 45 3,114]

55 minutes ago, thedab101 said:

Is there any way these days to figure out the missing plugin based on the code displayed in the Missing Plugin dialog? I don't remember if this was ever possible before.

https://sc4proptexturecatalog.azurewebsites.net/PluginPacks

48 minutes ago, thedab101 said:

Not sure why or if this is what's causing my issue with the missing plugin error or not. 

No idea, the DLL is just reporting the failure from SC4's DBPF loading code. Getting more detailed errors would require writing a replacement DBPF loader, which would be a ton of work.

1 hour ago, thedab101 said:

The node does exist in the INI file which is in the .\Plugins root folder. 

The INI parsing library I use gets upset about empty sections (nodes), and reports it as an error.

46 minutes ago, thedab101 said:

This one's very strange and I'm not sure what's causing this, but here's the entirety of the log file. I don't know if this too is what's causing the missing plugin error on the one city. 

That is a harmless plugin error. The SG_DentistCount variable doesn't exist in the plugin Lua.

[thedab101 9]

4 hours ago, Null 45 said:

https://sc4proptexturecatalog.azurewebsites.net/PluginPacks

No idea, the DLL is just reporting the failure from SC4's DBPF loading code. Getting more detailed errors would require writing a replacement DBPF loader, which would be a ton of work.

The INI parsing library I use gets upset about empty sections (nodes), and reports it as an error.

That is a harmless plugin error. The SG_DentistCount variable doesn't exist in the plugin Lua.

Thank you for your very quick replies. DataNode and the website link was helpful. Thanks for explaining everything else; I'll ignore the errors. It looks like my only other issue is the submenus issue: if you can provide background, @memo or anyone else, that'd be much appreciated.

Thanks again, @Null 45.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,459]

8 hours ago, thedab101 said:

Not sure why or if this is what's causing my issue with the missing plugin error or not. 

You can ignore CAM_Advanced_Water_Allert_Old.dat, which is a legacy file, so as not to remove multilingual support. In future versions, it will be removed.

8 hours ago, thedab101 said:

I truly love this plugin, but I noticed, from early iterations, that sometimes there are plugins I've installed that are missing... when I "disable" this plugin (I temporarily move it out of the plugins folder), they appear - even if I have to scroll for a few minutes. What's weird here is that I noticed, for the first time, the logs that are coming from submenus - it looks like some of the plugins aren't being gathered properly and I dunno if this is by design (expecting plugins of these kinds to be installed when they might not be - which is weird, because I know I've had many of the varying kinds listed below installed for a long time), or if this is not properly capturing my plugin folder:

The log simply says that some submenus did not find any content, so they will be hidden. The good thing is that you found a small bug in the CAM Core file (Fresh Water Submenu), and it will be updated later. You can ignore the problem.

[memo 1,473]

On 9/17/2025 at 7:41 AM, thedab101 said:

sometimes there are plugins I've installed that are missing... when I "disable" this plugin (I temporarily move it out of the plugins folder), they appear - even if I have to scroll for a few minutes.

You might have looked in the wrong submenus or overlooked the items. Or there is a modding issue with the items, but this is less likely as the items would still appear in some menu regardless, in most cases.

On 9/17/2025 at 7:41 AM, thedab101 said:

Finally, a side note: on occasion (more often than not), when my region opens up on game startup, the last city tile I worked on (in particular, this specific problem city that I restored from backup), shows up blank (like a deleted city from the region and is plain and blank).

It doesn't strike me as an issue with the Region Thumbnail Fix DLL, as this can happen without the DLL as well. Without concrete steps to replicate the issue, there's not much that can be done.

[thedab101 9]

Thanks @Ulisse Wolf, @memo. 

[matias93 7,535]

You can also try to open the city in question with this tool, to check if the savefile is actually damaged. You'll find an error message if it is.

https://www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/downloads/download/30-gameplay-utilities/271-sc4save-by-wouanagaine

[thedab101 9]

I just wanted to make a quick note to close this issue, in case anyone else searches, reads the thread, and finds no end to this problem in the discussion.

Thank you @memo, @Null 45, @Ulisse Wolf and @matias93. In the end, I lived with the region thumbnail occasionally showing up blank. I just have to remember that, before I reopened SC4, I had to have saved my city first: everything will still be there. I'm not sure what still causes this problem, but I know the city's data has been saved, and when I save and return to Region, the thumbnail appears. This only happens if I've saved the city, exited the game, and started the game again later. It's not a big issue, and if it means a couple of clicks more, I can live with it. As we all know, being a Mayor is a lot of work, but it's the civil servants that never get their due, and Council reaps the rewards. It's nonsense. I know. 

I have a problem demolishing a prop that crashes the game, but the city runs fine otherwise without demolishing it, and, much like the City of Toronto, I'll just have to live with what I've placed there for the rest of time and eternity, and there just won't be enough money in the world to fix it, regardless of cheats or begging the province or the Feds. :-) 

Recent updates to (among others) submenus.dll and a better reorganization of my plugins folder have helped eradicate crashes considerably. I haven't packed plugins, but using Reshade makes loading and play faster - unrelated, but again, helpful for anyone reading this after the fact.

Most importantly: I've changed my AutoSave from 15 minutes to 30 minutes. I think the reason I set it to 15 minutes was a result of crashes that were routine on an older machine I used to play the game. It had an inferior graphics card, which likely contributed to routine crashes. Most of the fantastic mods available today were still in early development when I used them at the time, so I think it was just a matter of patience. I've been waiting well over 40 years for flying cars like the Jetsons promised - you Mayors are building supportive game mod shit for free. So, beggars can't be choosers. But I'm still waiting on those flying cars. If you know a guy... hook a brotha up.

Grateful for all of your assistance, Mayors. Thank you.

[Lab Rat 16]

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