Next turn fails to show in Saved Games menu - CMBN

[WimO]

'Cannot see the next turn' bug.

I am playing a huge CMBN PBEM game with a fellow gamer on this site. Twice the following has happened. He sends me his turn via Dropbox and I copy it into the Game Files/Incoming Email folder. No problem so far. I boot up CMBN and open the Saved Games menu item. Surprise, the anticipated game turn is not there! It is not showing up in the Saved Games list. The preceding turns are still showing. I go back and recheck the Incoming Email folder. It is there. Reloading it again from Dropbox does not fix it. Replaying the previous turn and reloading also does not fix the bug. Also tried emptying Dropbox  of all other files to ensure there was no overflow.

Is anyone else experiencing this bug? What's going on?

Diagnostic thoughts:

1. Is the scenario too large for the program to process?

2. Is Dropbox contaminating the file?

3. Is there and issue with the program not being able to resolve 'lost boys'? Lost boys occur when you give a unit a very long move order in difficult terrain resulting in the unit stretching out and splitting up and eventually rearmost troopers stopping and being left behind. This shows up in game as an icon floating over 'no troops'. The actual troops on the ground are partially way out front of the  ions and others way behind, i.e. the lost boys.

 

 

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

Just to check, when listing the saved games you haven’t got the filter set to exclude the PBEM files have you?

MMM

[BFCElvis]

2 things come to mind. 

 

1) For some reason your opponent is now using a different version of the game. (very unlikely)

2) The file that he sent was somehow corrupted. See if they can resend the turn and/or replay the turn on their end and send a new file.

[WimO]

9 hours ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said:

Just to check, when listing the saved games you haven’t got the filter set to exclude the PBEM files have you?

MMM

No. 

[WimO]

9 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

2 things come to mind. 

 

1) For some reason your opponent is now using a different version of the game. (very unlikely)

2) The file that he sent was somehow corrupted. See if they can resend the turn and/or replay the turn on their end and send a new file.

1. I have asked him to compare his version to mine as well as installed patches and add-ons.

2. We have done multiple resends as well as backed up a few turns, replayed and resent. The problem arose with turn 032.ema. Before that all other turns loaded and played normally.

[Blazing 88's]

Yes I do believe if you first save the PBEM file into another folder somewhere... say 'downloads' and then move it to the Incoming email folder. It will show up for you now. For whatever reason, for me if I download a PBEM file directly to the incoming folder it won't show up in the game.

Try that if it seems to relate.

Edited July 14, 2022 by Blazing 88's

[WimO]

9 hours ago, Blazing 88's said:

Yes I do believe if you first save the PBEM file into another folder somewhere... say 'downloads' and then move it to the Incoming email folder. It will show up for you now. For whatever reason, for me if I download a PBEM file directly to the incoming folder it won't show up in the game.

Try that if it seems to relate.

Thank you, will give that a try when my opponent sends his next move and we try again.

[Vacillator]

On 7/14/2022 at 1:36 PM, WimO said:

Thank you, will give that a try when my opponent sends his next move and we try again.

I guess from what I've heard elsewhere (i.e. your worthy opponent, who I'm also playing in a different battle (KG Bohm) although it's taking me a while to extract my finger ) that this didn't work either Wim?

On one of your options above I've had problems in-game with the so-called 'Lost Boys', including against another worthy opponent in 'Boots on the Ground' recently, but it has not so far led to 'Lost Saves' in PBEMs.  A common factor here which springs to mind as far as having Lost Boys is the bocage, but that might be nothing to do with it as my units were supposed to be moving along a straight road between two straight lines of bocage.

[WimO]

Latest update to game Saves not appearing: I have conducted two solo play-tests so far without running into any problems.

Test #1: Two-player hot-seat on a single laptop.  All sorts of crazy moves were attempted, short moves, long moves, single sections, crowds of troopers moving through a single break in  the bocage, units in or out of C2. Purposely created 'lost boys'. Played 34 turns (17 game minutes). No issues.

Test #2: Two-player PBEM on two computers. Files moved vial Email In and Out folders and via Drop box. Again, conducted all sorts of movement including lost boys. Played 135 turns and still playing (more than one game hour). NO ISSUES.

Conclusion: The problem is not created by (1) lost-boys, (2) CMBN file compression for PBME, (3) Drop Box, (4) scenario size, (5) my computer hardware or software. 

Hypothesis: The problem may be originating at my opponent's end - hardware or software

 

 

[WimO]

A CMBN ISSUE OBSERVED:

During creation and play of huge scenarios I have consistently observed the following: Repeatedly loading one huge map after another or one huge scenario turn after another WITHOUT first completely closing the program and re-starting it, eventually causes the program to crash and exit; no lock-ups, no computer crash, just the program.

Conclusion: CMBN's code appears not to clean up the computer memory adequately after each turn or scenario.

Whether or not the foregoing contributes to the problem discussed in this forum, I do not know. Probably not.

[A Canadian Cat]

29 minutes ago, WimO said:

Conclusion: CMBN's code appears not to clean up the computer memory adequately after each turn or scenario.

Whether or not the foregoing contributes to the problem discussed in this forum, I do not know. Probably not.

It has. And internally too. Right now the recommendation is to close the program between loading of large maps or scenarios. This is not an easy one to track down.

[Artkin]

There wasn't something weird done with the naming of the file? The .ema can't have numbers in it before the 001 (Whatever turn you're on).

This is honestly the most stable game (series) I've ever played. Once you pack on certain broken mods things can get a little weird with stability.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Artkin

[A Canadian Cat]

21 minutes ago, Artkin said:

There wasn't something weird done with the naming of the file? The .ema can't have numbers in it before the 001 (Whatever turn you're on).

There is something weird about names with numbers but it is not what is causing the issue of files not appearing. If the scenario name ends in a number (e.g. "Test Scenario 1980.btt") then that number gets incremented by the auto file naming system, 1981, 1982.... You can also get odd things if you add something to the end of a file name such as "_save" then the next time you push the BRB out get a new " 001" tacked onto the end. Basically the auto naming algorithm looks at the last word in the name and if its a number bumps it up by one and if its not a number tacks on " 001" to the end. However regardless a file that is in good order will appear no matter what it ends up being named. And you can change the name on the file system manually and it will still load.

Sadly, what @WimO is experiencing is a file content corruption issue not a naming issue.

[WimO]

About scenario names and numbers. Each scenario has two names. There is one name that appears in the Scenarios folder. An example of one of my scenarios would be "WO 82N11 Shaul's Run SP.btt". This same name appears in the scenarios listing as "WO 82N11 Shaul's Run SP". But this is not the name used by the scenario .ema file. It uses the name that was entered in the Scenario Editor's 'Title' box. In this case "82N11 Shaul's Run". This is also the name that appears in the right half of the scenario selection box when you click the scenairo file name in the list in the left half of the panel. As for using numbers in scenario names, a number preceding the name appears to have no effect, whereas a number following the name, messes things up as per IanL's description above.

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by WimO

[Artkin]

Oh snap I'm mixed up then. I must be thinking of the file not showing up in a helper program if the numbers were wrong.