Area editor file crash

Posted by Mitch on Wed 21 May 2008 09:41 PM — 11 posts, 43,156 views.

Mitch Wed 21 May 2008 09:41 PM #0

hello folks,

I have several areas I created in the area editor that causes the game to crash.....I ran the area check and got no errors...I cannot for the life of me figure out what is wrong please help!

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Wed 21 May 2008 10:34 PM #1

Which version of Smaug are you using? Recent versions have completely changed the format of the area file, which are then incompatible with the area editor.

Can you copy and paste the messages that appear before the crash? That way we might have some idea of what part of the area file is causing it.

Mitch Wed 21 May 2008 11:30 PM #2

Nick,

There is no error message it tries to load the area and crashes at boot we are using 1.4A version of SMAUG any help would be great

Mitch

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Thu 22 May 2008 12:13 AM #3

What I mean is, there are normally message before the crash, eg.


Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Booting Database
 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: [*****] BOOT: ---------------------[ Boot Log ]--------------------
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Initializing libdl support...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading commands...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading spec_funs...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading sysdata configuration...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading socials
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading skill table
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Sorting skill table...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Creating skill table sorted by type...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Remapping slots to sns
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading classes
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading races
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading news data
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading liquids
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading mixtures
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading herb table
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading tongues
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Making wizlist
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Initializing random number generator
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Setting time and weather.
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading holiday chart...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Loading DNS cache...
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Assigning gsn's
Wed May 21 14:37:57 2008 :: Reading in area files...
(help.are)
limbo.are     : Rooms:     2 - 99    Objs:     2 - 99    Mobs:     1 - 99
gods.are      : Rooms:  1200 - 1201  Objs:  1200 - 1200  Mobs:  1200 - 1200

... and so on ...

Can you paste those? That way we can see how far it got.

Mitch Thu 22 May 2008 12:55 AM #4

Nick,
the game loads fine then when we load the area it insta crashes we get nothing at all just poof! would it be easier if I send to you the files and you try tem or something...except I dont have an e-mail for you

Mitch

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Thu 22 May 2008 03:52 AM #5

I've sent you a forum message with my private email address in it. You can send me the area file and I'll take a look.

However what I will do is use gdb, see http://mushclient.com/gdb - it is worth getting to know how to use that, as it helps solve crashes like this.

Samson USA Thu 22 May 2008 09:05 AM #6

It sounds like you're trying to use the loadarea command to load the file after the game is booted and you've logged in, yes? If so when you do that and the game crashes, the logs will have some kind of information in them.

You mentioned using Smaug 1.4a. Have you considered using SmaugFUSS instead? A lot more stable, with tons of bug fixes.

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Thu 22 May 2008 09:52 PM #7

If he uses SmaugFUSS (recent versions) the Area Editor won't work. Although perhaps it converts old area formats?

Anyway, I thought I would take the area files Mitch sent me by email, and put them in the area directory of the Smaug 1.4 download. I then wanted to see what happened if you booted with them, so I amended the area.lst file like this:


help.are
imc-help.are
ice-help.are
gods.are
limbo.are
newacad.are
newgate.are
newdark.are
haon.are
midennir.are
sewer.are
redferne.are
grove.are
dwarven.are
daycare.are
grave.are
chapel.are
astral.are
Build.are
pixie.are
export.are
srefuge.are
manor.are
unholy.are
gallery.are
Ancient(orig).are
mine.are
$

Two new lines in bold.

Now when booting the server from a command line I see this:


gods.are      : Rooms:  1200 - 1201  Objs:  1200 - 1200  Mobs:  1200 - 1200
limbo.are     : Rooms:     1 - 43    Objs:     2 - 99    Mobs:     1 - 99
newacad.are   : Rooms: 10300 - 10499 Objs: 10300 - 10499 Mobs: 10300 - 10499
newgate.are   : Rooms:   100 - 199   Objs:   100 - 199   Mobs:   100 - 199
newdark.are   : Rooms: 21000 - 21499 Objs: 21000 - 21435 Mobs: 21000 - 21499
haon.are      : Rooms:  6000 - 6156  Objs:  6000 - 6155  Mobs:  6000 - 6117
midennir.are  : Rooms:  3500 - 3590  Objs:  3500 - 3550  Mobs:  3500 - 3550
sewer.are     : Rooms:  7001 - 7445  Objs:  7190 - 7310  Mobs:  7000 - 7206
redferne.are  : Rooms:  7900 - 7918  Objs:  7909 - 7911  Mobs:  7900 - 7900
grove.are     : Rooms:  8901 - 8999  Objs:  8900 - 8919  Mobs:  8900 - 8911
dwarven.are   : Rooms:  6500 - 6554  Objs:  6502 - 6519  Mobs:  6500 - 6517
daycare.are   : Rooms:  6601 - 6651  Objs:  6600 - 6647  Mobs:  6600 - 6610
grave.are     : Rooms:  3600 - 3651  Objs:  3600 - 3613  Mobs:  3600 - 3605
chapel.are    : Rooms:  3405 - 3475  Objs:  3400 - 3430  Mobs:  3400 - 3416
astral.are    : Rooms:   800 - 899   Objs:   800 - 899   Mobs:   800 - 899
Build.are     : Rooms:  9500 - 9589  Objs:     0 - 0     Mobs:     0 - 0
pixie.are     : Rooms:  2070 - 2099  Objs:  2070 - 2076  Mobs:  2070 - 2073
export.are    : Rooms:  9810 - 9899  Objs:  9810 - 9899  Mobs:  9800 - 9899
srefuge.are   : Rooms:  1500 - 1599  Objs:  1500 - 1599  Mobs:  1500 - 1599
manor.are     : Rooms:  2400 - 2499  Objs:  2400 - 2499  Mobs:  2405 - 2484
unholy.are    : Rooms:  2101 - 2172  Objs:  2101 - 2150  Mobs:  2101 - 2120
gallery.are   : Rooms: 24800 - 24899 Objs: 24800 - 24899 Mobs: 24800 - 24899
Fri May 23 07:35:27 2008 :: [*****] FILE: Ancient(orig).are LINE: 717
Fri May 23 07:35:27 2008 :: [*****] BUG: Load_specials: 'M': vnum 5103.

Mitch tells me he isn't the person actually running the server, however what you could do, Mitch, is download the server (from the Downloads page) and try it yourself, just like I did.

Line 717 in the Ancient(orig).are file is this:


#SPECIALS
M 5103 spec_questmaster   ; A caretaker
S

Interestingly, if I remove those 3 lines from the file, it boots OK, and I can log in. So I would try that as a first move.

Also, with the unmodified area file, if I open that in the Area Editor I get an error message dialog box "Load_specials: mob 5103 special function spec_questmaster does not exist.".

I am guessing you added spec_questmaster to the smaugconfig.dat file for the Area Editor, but the server itself does not understand that. Would that be correct?

Mitch Fri 23 May 2008 04:07 AM #8

yep sure is it works no that we removed that. thanks

Samson USA Fri 23 May 2008 06:46 AM #9

Quote:
If he uses SmaugFUSS (recent versions) the Area Editor won't work. Although perhaps it converts old area formats?

Correct. The area editor can't read the new format. But SmaugFUSS can still read the old format, so you can still use area editor to do the work and then load it on the mud. At least until it gets saved by the mud.

Nick Gammon Australia Forum Administrator Fri 23 May 2008 06:57 AM #10

OK so to clarify this for anyone else who might read it - to do this your workflow would need to be:

Create your area in the Area Editor
Test it under the SMAUG server without ever saving it under Smaug (ie. don't save online)
Go back to the Area Editor to make amendments
Repeat above steps until you are happy with it

If you do this you can use all the cross-referencing and GUI features of the Area Editor, more or less indefinitely.

However you will miss out on some of the new area file improvements, such as the improved reset system, until you convert to saving under the server (after which the files become unreadable to the Area Editor).