DRD Team

I was playing the requiem megawad ported by newest GZD (1.0.15). When I finished the second level and the third started loading, I got this attached report and was kicked back to the desktop.

Recently the same thing (as I presume) has been happening with Enjay ZDoom 2001 megawad, when loading map02. I didn't get any crash report then (only the Microsoft one) but I suppose it's the same thing.

EDIT: I've checked a bit more - it seems that a lot of Requiem levels are crashing as well: map03, map04, map06, map08 - to name the first few.

This looks like the sidedef issue that has been fixed for ZDoom 2.1.1 so it should be gone in 1.0.16. At least it doesn't crash for me.

The NJZD2001 problem was probably the screenshot format crash. At the start of that level there is a coloured sector visible over at the top left corner of the screen. So presumably 1.0.15 was crashing when autosaving.

Graf Zahl wrote:This looks like the sidedef issue that has been fixed for ZDoom 2.1.1 so it should be gone in 1.0.16. At least it doesn't crash for me.

I did also never crash in previous versions of ZDoom IIRC.

Enjay, your megawad is corrupted, at least something is wrong with the ACS scripts!!!

Map07: a message telling me that the script 4 was missing alert me.
I look at all the maps, and I find SOME rare maps with a script within the BEHAVIOUR lump.
I use DB, latest update.

// Doom Builder could not detect a SCRIPTS lump in the map,
// so it has decompiled this code from the BEHAVIOR lump.
// Please verify that this code is correct, because it may
// not always work correctly with newer engines.

Here is its message, for all of the scripts found.

Anyway, I unzip the file with all the scripts, and I use DB to compile and store them.
Again, for map07, script 4 is missing.
Effectively, a study show that there is no script 4.

1) what's wrong with the missing scripts within the wad?
2) why the warning of DB about the lump
3) script 4 map07 should be updated or there is a bug?

I'm really not sure what the problem is. I just played map07 on my copy right through and it worked. There were no missing script messages. I had a look at the map in the editor - I can't see anything that tries to trigger script04. I decompiled the script lump in the WAD, there is no script 4. I checked the script lump I included in the distribution - again no script 4. As far as I can tell (or remember) there isn't, nor has there ever been, a script 4 in that level. So, quite why you are getting that error message I have no idea.

[edit]I just download the version on the idgames database - again same story. No problems found.[/edit]

Sector 53, linedef 679: action 226 (script number 4)

Why there is pretty no script stored within the wad?!? At least, DB didn't find them!!!

I noticed a slice differency between the scripts of the zip files and the ones already stored. Particulary about "Strings": in the zip files, none of the scripts have such strings (always at the end of the script), but they are in the pwad...
I guess that you forgot to update the zip file?
Or I understood nothing about ACS ?

I'll check that line when I get home from work. Thanks for telling me exactly which one it is, that'll make it easier to track down. I only searched for line type 80 (ACS_Execute) when I was looking last night.

The scripts in the WAD are all compiled lumps whereas the ones in the zip are the ACS source files. The data is logically stored in these 2 formats differently. It is entirely possible that I messed up when putting the source files into the zip and included a different/wrong version but I don't think I did. But hey, it was 5 years ago, anything could have happened.

Certainly, the script lump I decompiled last night only had 3 scripts in it. When I look at the line tonight, I might remember if I had any plans for it or if it was just an abomination of some sort.

OK, you're quite right. That line does want to execute script 4. Frankly, I have no idea what I had intended with that. Looking at its location, I suspect it was something I was going to put in there to help with deathmatch play - probably part of making the entire level accessible even if you have spawned in a random location with -nomonsters. However, for whatever reason, I messed up and didn't include a script 4. I don't even know if the line was meant to actually activate the unwritten script 4 or whether it was a typo in the line setup and it was meant to run one of the other scripts. It's hardly a complex map scripting-wise anyway.

So, I guess it'll just have to go down as a map bug. Seeing as how I can't remember what it was supposed to do, and it hasn't really broken the map I'll just leave it "as is". I don't particularly want to go back and tweak these old maps unless I really need to. Sorry.

I said to you that debugging was one of my strong points... But, apparently, you didn't trust me and said that I was wrong...
I was the debugger for all the latest releases of ZenNode, during the last years, and for most of the Legacy's ones, most essentially for the last official one, the very latest which will ever be released. And I debug all of the pwads for DLW, which is a huge amount of bugs in the dustbin...

Ok, I'll delete this action and the tag, so that DLW's users won't have to disclaim about it
Hey, I claim that I certify all of the pwads at DLW...
Even Paul Schmitt made his own bugs, but, like you, he wasn't ready to rectify his work.

I could also advise you about sectors which were intended to have a height different of the ceiling and the floor ones (you put textures on lower and upper linedefs), but... (ok, ok : it was the sector 78, Map11)
Hehehe...
I was more jocking than something else!!!
It was not a bug. But it's funny to follow your ideas...

Heh, no problem with any of the above. Perhaps you should mention in the text file that you have made modifications. I dunno, just in case people are trying to multiplayer with 2 different versions or something (however unlikely that might be).

As for the unneeded upper/lower textures, you've got to remember, some of those levels are very old and a lot of those textures could be there simply because I didn't know what I was doing. I remember, "back in the day" whenever I made a sector with a height difference I would put textures on both sides of the upper/lower sides because I could never work out which sides they were supposed to go on Sometimes I would use DeePsea to strip out unnecessary textures, but every now and then needed ones on moving sectors would disappear too, so I stopped bothering. Rather have a few extra and up the size of the WAD by a few bytes than end up with HOMs when platforms move. Sometimes, of course, it would represent a change of plan as you guessed.

I did notice a few minor errors at the console when loading some of the maps for checking today too. nothing that breaks anything though. However, like I said, it's a project I deemed "finished" 5 years ago so unless there is something truly showstoppingly bad, it'll stay the way it is. This bug has taken 5 years to surface as it is.

Glad to see you are so thorough though. Having someone as picky as you going through stuff id actually very useful.

I'lm sorry for having let you think that I'll release something without your approval, just because I decided it...
Oh no!!!
I'm used to put EXACTLY, like I wrote it above, all of my editions. Once made, I send an email to the author explaining those changes, and I ask the authorization to release the changed pwad.
Sometimes, authors don't agree, like Paul Schmitt or Ty Alderman. But, pretty all the time, I receive the authorization. And when I don't receive any answer, I release the modified pwad with a warning explaining that it's a modified version. In fact, nothing had been really modified. The reality is that I have removed the bugs, added missing textures, added a missing tag or action, etc... But nothing that could let you think that the pwad is modified. My changes are transparent: you have a pwad without any bug, and like it was intended by its author, nothing else.
For now, the only problem with your pwad, which is revealed to be a bug, is in fact without any bad effect on the gameplay and could remain without any problem at all.
But... I dislike to leave it like that, when I know how to do to correct it. So, I'll do the explained edition, with a warning to let the user know that, in case of a multiplayer game, he will have to advise his partner to use the same modified version, or to use himself an unmodified version.

Anyway, we are really far away from GZDoom...
But it was useful to talk about it in a thread dedicated to your work.

About Requiem, it's full of problems and bugs!!! Legacy is unable to play it properly (graphically), but I don't know for GZDoom. It could happen that some of the tricks used to make it may hang the engine, for some very specific situations, unusual.
I didn't really check it, but what I already saw was enough to let me think that it should be fixed.
Same thing for Eternall III, using numerous cheats with the edition's recommandations, and with a lot of bugs: the patch SEPI1 is missing, numerous textures are missing, etc...

"It did also never crash in previous versions of ZDoom IIRC." That's the most annoying part of some weird bugs, not occuring everytime, but only when some very specific situations are present.
And here is the real work of a debugger: to track all the possible situations.
"What will happen if the player has the strange idea to jump here?" is a question that should be asked by an author.
"What may happen with the engine if I don't remove this overlaping linedef?" It's exactly the kind of question never asked by me. I remove it, and I check the map without it, because it's a source of possible crash for an engine or for a nodes builder. Period!

Sorry for this too long comment.