Ok so normally I use XCC Mix Editor, and while I normally have reasonably good luck by hitting SAVE before COMPACT, lately one of my mixes is always getting corrupted...
Now I have tried XCC Mixer to add files to them, but it doesn't appear to fix it. Making a new one from scratch with Editor doesn't always work out either. Since the particular mixes that get corrupted are ecache06/buildings and ecache07/voxels (buildings usually) it's rather serious.
So I tried ccmix, and made some batch files to make each mix I use, with an extracted sub-dir for neatly organizing what goes where. It appears to work, no errors (aside from saying --encrypted isn't valid when I tried) however I have a serious problem with this one too...
Using ccmix made files, RA2 loads just fine, I see the load screen from within my mix, but then takes an eternity to load a skirmish match! The progress bar goes to about 1/3 abd pauses for a good several minutes, goes some more, pauses again...
At first I thought it just froze so I killed it, but repeated attempts (and re-mixing) changed nothing. The last time I decided to leave it, I went to go make a tea. When I came back about 17min later, I was just being paradropped and the AI just built a chronosphere..
So I checked the mixes with XCC stuff and it can't figure out the filenames within, or at least not most of them. The obvious next troubleshooting step is to re-add the unknown files, and once you do that, it recognizes the names, so no duplicates are created. However my freezing isn't fixed, because now it loads equally slowly, but crashes at 2/3 bah!
Any help would be appreciated... the mix corruption is really getting to me QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 26 Apr 2003 Location: Somewhere in Germany
Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:44 pm Post subject:
I'm just guessing, but do you use longer filenames or special chars? XCC might have trouble with that.
Other than that, have you changed your OS recently?
That being said, I've had trouble with XCC Mix Editor in the past, so at some poit I just took a small original TS mix, removed all files with XCC Mixer, and used that empty mix file as foundation for all my mix files, and always uses Mixer to add files. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 4:47 pm Post subject:
1) never edit a mix with XCC Mix Editor.
2) just because XCC does not see the files, it should still work - XCC only knows filenames due to local mix database which is omitted in ccmix (so you only see filenames which are in XCC's global mix database.dat, iow which appeared in a C&C mix beforehand). RA2 can quite well deduce the filename from the ID. What I would suggest to do is to create an empty mix in Mix Editor, save, close, drop all files into it via Mixer, and use Mixer's compact option (it's in the right click options). _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
XCC Mix Editor creates corrupt mix files. Used it for years and hated the unreliable save.
Then switched to XCC Mixer and it works perfect. Never had any corrupt mix with the Mixer. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
If you use --lmd with ccmix it will add the local mix database for you. --encrypt will only work if you specify a game to build for with --game ra, --game ts or --game ra2. By default it creates mix files for td. QUICK_EDIT
Ok just to make sur eI'm the one that's sane, I decided to move out my current mod and sub in a backup from march, it works fine...
Next step is to use ccmix to re-do each ecache one by one to see when it starts crashing:
- I make ecache06 with my buildings, no problem, game still runs
- I make ecache05 with my cameos, still runs *
- I make ecache08 with weapons/anims, and it freezes at 1/3 *
Reverting to previous backup ecache08
- I make ecache07 with my units, still runs, but some things are invisible
Clearly something isn't entirely happy with the mixes, and all I did with the ccmix commandline was change --checksum to --lmd as suggested...
Looks like using encrypt and checksum at the same time is broken for some reason, I'll look into that when I get chance. The position of the flags on the command line doesn't make any difference, they can come in any order. QUICK_EDIT
Ok so I'm having very strange symptoms, I removed a lot of stuff I added this month like buildings and things... and I'm still having invisible objects, but not even related to mine specifically...
Well after a gazillion more tests, I can say one thing, everytime I pack a mix it's hit or miss, no matter which tool I use...
BUT Mix Editor is the only one that usually works...
I even switched over to using the XWIS copy just in case it was some weird conflict with my old patched/cracked/retail crap (I gave my media away long ago)
So ccmix seems to work _most_ of the time, but it still has challenges with my buildings ecache, which is the same one all the other tools generally screw up.
Blade: I don't know what we can do to test/verify if there's something wrong with my files/names to cause invalid compacting, or some incompatibility with your codebase... _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
Dunno, ccmix still isn't bug free I guess, but if other tools also have issues building a mix out of your data it suggests something is wrong with your files. How much data is there and how many files? QUICK_EDIT
The resultant mix problems always appear to manifest when the mix grows above 6mb... it appears to happen proportionally, increasingly frequent corruption on my largest, and next to never on my smallest.
The buildings mixes are 11mb, and the unit mix is 7. I have three others 5mb combined.
XCC Mix Editor has problems even with empty mix file in certain cases, so better to avoid it.
Use XCC Mixer 1.47 to create new empty mix files, open it and drag-n-drop content into it.
Even a GB size mix file isn't a problem.
I know in theory there should be no size issue, just seeing the WW mixes proves that...
All I'm saying is that the corruption occurs more often above 6mb than below. Even now I have re-created my ecache09, exactly 1 building in it is slightly corrupted, so I've commented it out in the declarations in rules.ini, and the rest loads fine.
To be clear most of the time the corruption is only 1-2 objects, whether they are voxels or shps or whatever. Maybe YR is better at handling wonky mix files than the old RA2 code, but the fact is, I can't tell the mix is bad by viewing in Mixer most of the time. Only very very rarely does Mixer show (unknown ) next to the file... QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 7:11 am Post subject:
Wait... you mod plain RA2... oh my. Why?! _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Because I already _have_ a mod for RA2, and at this time I don't feel like spending a month ripping out the garbage in YR and rebalancing it or making a new faction with another thousand lines of AI code. I may just not now.
Now I just want to get it done.
Although ORA is looking very attractive, maybe I'll look into porting it to that, since it should handle my "limited" features fine... maybe I'll even write another TCL to convert my stuff to whatever it prefers to load... _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
It is not theory, I have repackaged such myself and it works not only in RA2 but also in older TS engine.
And there are public mods having big mix files.
Are you using XCC Mixer 1.47 to make and put content into mix files?
If extracted content is different than what was packed, then it will confirm mix corruption. Otherwise, it is
problem with your content.
Have only one copy of your assets in the ecache* mix files, to track if another file that is corrupt is getting
loaded. QUICK_EDIT
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum You cannot attach files in this forum You can download files in this forum
Frustrating .mix problems...
