Interresting bug

[paulo]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=62655

Related to the objects disappearing bug?

[Dominus]

Yes, in a nutshell, this is what seems to happen. Schedules get objects done and objects get deleted/cached out but since we don't keep track of them the ids or so overlap or something like that.

[Exolon2]

Oh cool. So a room with like 50 NPCs with schedules for serving food on tables, baking etc might make it easy to reproduce and test this?

Did the original U7 suffer from this, or is this a bug introduced in Exult recently?

[Dominus]

Exult is NOT Ultima 7.
Exult is its own engine which doesn't use code from the original. I swear the next person asking this in the context of this bug...
It's the bug being talked about on the frontpage.

[Exolon2]

I'm aware of that, but it's obviously modelled closely on the BEHAVIOUR of Ultima 7. So if an "inevitable" bug crops up, it's possible that the U7 team made the same error.

Just trying to be helpful, hence the question about reproducing the bug.

[Dominus]

If you think so, be my guest, I wrote all there is to say on that

[Silver Venom]

Oisin, don't try to be helpful if Dominus is around, unless you are an experienced coder or you've gone through every forum post! There are other weird behaviours here that can be reproduced, and should be submitted to a bug tracker

[Dominus]

Andrea? Very similar IP address, trying to hide your name?
Anyway, Silver Venom, I'm not objecting to the helpful idea on testing the bug, I'm objecting to the idea that this bug in Exult steming from the original. It's not a usecode bug, so there is no way it's from the original.
But I'll shut up about it now and let you do the support on the forum. Have fun

[Silver B. Venom]

Yes it's me, not hiding, I just don't use my name on the internet anymore, landed on a position which make it preferable to do so.

Oh come on, I know you are right on the bug thing. But if someone is just trying to help, and didn't get exactly the "Exult contain 0% original U7 code", instead of being so harsh you may wait a couple post for someone else from this nice community to clarify the newcomer.

I am sorry, it may sound like something personal because I often happen to answer to you sarcastically. But it's not. I just... "feel" for people who don't have a complete grasp of technical subjects, except when they totally refuse to read the shortest piece of documentation. And sometime I see great support to people who doesn't even bother to read "readme.txt", and harshness to someone who's having a legitimate doubt.

End of line!

ps: and yes, Oisin could still have been right if usecode was taken into account

[Dominus]

I promise to wait a many posts to answer anything, thank you. Have your go.

(and I don't see much point in hiding ones identity when anyone can figure out that Andrea Previtera and "Silver Venom" are the same posters)

[Silver B. Venom]

Sigh, I broke it again! Hope no one saw me.
/sneaks out the backdoor

[agentorangeguy]

While working on my mod I just had an entire u7ireg file vanish, every item was deleted. Luckily I had a backup that I was able to restore that particular ireg file from. I don't know what I did or was doing in particular to cause it, but i know it was fine right before I started doing some more work. Are people experiencing this, or just random objects being deleted? For me, entire u7ireg files were being deleted. (not the physical file, but every object associated with that file)

[Exolon2]

@Silver Venom, Dominus

Hi guys,
I do have some reasonably long (which doesn't necessarily mean good programming experience and would love to help snuff this bug out if I can; hence my questions. But, probably just like you guys, I have a serious shortage of time
Is there any kind of automated testing harness in the project that could be used for trying to reproduce these kinds of bugs?

[Exolon2]

Ah, nm. Managed to compile the latest SVN snapshot and found an insightful mailing list thread on the problem.

[Dominus]

If you want to solve it head on to irc and get marzo to discuss it with you and more importantly interested in it
Since developers don't hang out here much and I'm told to shut up as well, irc is a better place to discuss it.

[KMan]

Thanks for the tip! The "solution" does seem to work, I have just finished a Black Gate playthrough with all the "create items" schedules disabled and I finished with no problems.

[Caergo]

I seem to be late to the party but this workaround isn't specifically explained how to use it and I'm no programmer.

Anyone that tried it couldn't they just upload their configuration file or something like that for Exult?

I really want to play... :/

[Dominus]

You use the f2 cheat menu, go to the npc part and edit each npc's schedule. This is risky as you might break the game by not having the npcs where they are supposed to be.
Good luck

[Caergo]

Are there no saves someone here has uploaded that has already fixed that in the beginning? It seems very risky for someone who is both new to Ultima and coding. Thanks for answer anyway, will probably settle for dosbox for now.