63 replies to this topic

[Ithildur]

Thanks, done and done.

 

The debug file for gen biff shows dw# files being biffed properly; pretty sure this is because these are the files I copied over from the other install (after I uninstalled gen biff), which were then biffed along with the rest of the contents in override. Unless there's a history of multiple installations all kept in there, I don't think this file is going to have any use other than showing that everything is fine now (well, not quite, but...)

Attached Files

•  BiG World Debug.7z   144.49K   156 downloads
•  SETUP-GENERALIZED_BIFFING.DEBUG   4.77MB   424 downloads

Edited by Ithildur, 17 January 2016 - 03:34 PM.

[agb1]

Clean-Up.bat includes this block:

 

:: Delete gen_biff's HUGE prod

%IF% StopLBar del StopLBar

start "pulse bar" "%BWIP%\pulse_bar.bat"

type NUL> RunningBar

rmdir /s /q "generalized_biffing\prod"

type nul >BWP.cleared

 

I looked at the contents of the generalized_biffing folder in one of my installs after running generalized biffing on all files, and I see many BCS scripts in the generalized_biffing\prod sub-folders but I see none in the backup folder.  generalized_biffing.tp2 uses WeiDU's MOVE command, and it has a backup folder, so I'm not sure why all of these files didn't get copied to the backup folder also.

 

If you were to run the cleanup script on my current install, it would delete the prod folder and sub-folders (because of the block above), and those files aren't in the original override folder now because generalized_biffing moved them, so... if I then re-installed generalized_biffing, those files would be gone.

 

I've highlighted the part above that I don't understand: the WeiDU documentation seems to imply that unless you specify that no backups should be made, every MOVE'd file should be copied to backup.

Edited by agb1, 17 January 2016 - 03:37 PM.

[The Imp]

If you were to run the cleanup script on my current install, it would delete the prod folder and sub-folders ---

You are clearing the game folder from the added files... it's to make room.
Yeah, maybe the default install shouldn't run the .bat, but if you wish to make room without disabling the whole game, then you remove the mod folders, as the data folder kept the .bif'ed files, or override, but that's biffed, so just the data folder.
And yes, this removes the possibility to ever uninstall a thing. But that should be the known factor of running the .bat file. Dah.

Edited by The Imp, 17 January 2016 - 04:06 PM.

[agb1]

Well, I'm happy to have an explanation if this fits the facts - but I am still puzzled about the gen biff backup folders not containing copies of the files that were moved from override to the prod folder.

[The Imp]

Well, I'm happy to have an explanation if this fits the facts - but I am still puzzled about the gen biff backup folders not containing copies of the files that were moved from override to the prod folder.

It does;

Until this:
rmdir /s /q "generalized_biffing\prod" of that .bat file removes them.

See the biffed file are not in the backup folder, but in the generalized_biffing\prod\0\biffs\"x" -folder... where the "x" without the quotes is the number of the .bif file that contains about the 30 MB's, that's named as "tb#x.bif" .... Well the 0/biff/ folder is there cause it's the first and only component number, unlike my improvement where the is supposed to be 2. But anyways. The backup folder itself contains other files, like the chitin.key and few others that the weidu could need to uninstall the mod:

Edited by The Imp, 17 January 2016 - 05:03 PM.

[agb1]

Let me see if I understand you here: WeiDU would only copy the original files into the backup folder if the files were actually modified. Because the original were only moved by WeiDU, not modified, WeiDU just creates an index file in the backup folder that references the location of each of the MOVE'd files (in the prod sub-folders), in case they need to be found for uninstall/reinstall.

[The Imp]

About right yeah. EDIT: Pictures added to the above.

Edited by The Imp, 17 January 2016 - 05:04 PM.

[agb1]

Makes sense. That is much more efficient than making copies of unchanged files. So I guess the remaining question is for Ithildur: did the BCS resources disappear only after uninstalling gen biff?

[The Imp]

Makes sense. That is much more efficient than making copies of unchanged files. So I guess the remaining question is for Ithildur: did the BCS resources disappear only after uninstalling gen biff?

They won't... well, all references of them will.

But cause there's no way to actually reproduce the files if you run the .bat before uninstalling the Generalized Biffing, that delete's the backups.... you shouldn't be able to uninstall the GenBif... but that's another story.

 

So ... they disappear from the game, as the uninstall of the Gen Bif restores the original chitin.key which has no location of any of the new files, nor reference to the new .bif files either.

Edited by The Imp, 17 January 2016 - 05:15 PM.

[agb1]

So the clean-up.bat works as advertised in terms of locking the install as-is, but the original problem remains -- it doesn't finish. It seems to be coded to set every important file read-only and then delete everything else. Further testing is needed to see where and why it is getting stuck.

[Ithildur]

Makes sense. That is much more efficient than making copies of unchanged files. So I guess the remaining question is for Ithildur: did the BCS resources disappear only after uninstalling gen biff?

 

Can't answer that with certainty unfortunately. They were gone at some point after the widescreen reinstallation/gen biff uninstallation; I don't know for sure whether they were gone before that, because I had no reason to check and no reason to suspect anything was wrong until much later i.e. getting a good ways into the game and finding spellcasting NPCs only running the most basic level of scripts (movement, help calls etc) but not attacking/casting spells. I then checked the cre files in NI and found (dw#) scripts 'greyed out', i.e. listed in the cre file but missing from the installation. Then I looked for these scripts via windows explorer in the override, data, and gen biff backup folders, and also compared with the earlier installation. That's when I realized every single file beginning with dw# was gone.

Edited by Ithildur, 17 January 2016 - 11:04 PM.

[agb1]

OK. Lacking specific evidence to the contrary, I will assume our theory is correct: you uninstalled gen biff after running the cleanup script, which made it impossible for gen biff to properly uninstall, although it did revert your chitin.key. Consequently biffed files were permanently lost.

This probably means your installation is lacking a lot more files than just SCS scripts. I think you should abandon it and reinstall from scratch.

Edited by agb1, 17 January 2016 - 11:13 PM.

[Ithildur]

If that's the case, the morale of the story seems to be... DO NOT use clean-up.bat. Or else you essentially cannot make ANY changes to your install (since gen biff is all the way at the end), even the most minor changes/to make repairs,etc. or even readjust the resolution of your game with Widescreen Mod, because that requires uninstalling/reinstalling gen biff.

That's really a pretty horrible restriction; I would go so far as to say if that's the case, clean-up.bat in it's present state should NOT ship with BWS and should be banned from the universe.
 
And just to clarify... clean-up.bat is or is not run by default if you let BWS finish out it's installation process? That would be even more horrifying if it was locked in to run at the end of a normal install. If this is true I would never let BWS finish out it's install, but set it to pause in the process at say, just before the LOLFixer, and finish out manually installing cre fixer instead (currently BWS doesn't give you the option to skip LOLFix component#2 and such), other components (such as Lvl1NPC's individual NPC customization which BWS isn't set up to handle), widescreen, and finally Gen Biff. That's still a truckload of work that BWS accomplishes, but it's kind of stalling out before getting to the finish line.

Edited by Ithildur, 18 January 2016 - 01:09 AM.

[agb1]

BWS does not run the cleanup script automatically. At the end of the install it displays a message suggesting that the user can run that script to reclaim some space but the message also warns that doing so will lock the installation as-is.

Lolfixer components that do more than pure fixes are optional - you can deselect them. Also generalized biffing itself can be deselected.

[Ithildur]

That's a bit more reassuring, but perhaps some details about what the ramifications of 'lock the installation as is' actually are would be helpful; if I'd known hundreds of files would disappear by making changes to widescreen/gen biff I obviously would never have opted to run clean-up.

 

re: LOLFixer: component #2 is the specific component locked in to install without option to skip currently that I'm frustrated with, as reported in the other thread (it results in lots of extra loot being dropped which the vanilla games did not have, as well as other potential problems I can forsee); imo NO component of LOLFixer - 'pure fix' or otherwise - should be force installed when more tested and 'essential' stuff like tobex, gen biff (which is pretty much required to run most setups), etc are not force installed. I appreciate LOL's hard work and all, but please don't force me to install it while at it's current stage of development, or at least give me the option to choose each component rather than just the 'non fix' ones.

Edited by Ithildur, 18 January 2016 - 10:36 AM.

[agb1]

Oops.  I thought it was component #4 that caused this, so I had marked that component as Expert.  Corrected now:

 

* BG2/BGT:  Lolfixer #4 (Inventory Overhauler) reverted to Recommended; Lolfixer #2 (Inventory Unbroker) removed from default pre-selection because it causes Obe's illusions to drop items

 

We are trying to strike a balance between user choice and baseline game stability.  BG2 Fixpack is mandatory in BWS even though some players might disagree.

 

The fact that no one else has reported the problem with Obe's illusions before does show that some parts of the game haven't been thoroughly tested with Lol's fixes and that the particular component is not a pure fix as we thought, but it doesn't break the game and it doesn't imply that the other components are faulty.  Most of Lol's fixes prevent crashes, so I'd rather not make them optional, except on a case-by-case basis if problems are found in them.

 

Edit:

 

Updated BWS end-of-installation text (not yet reflected when using BWS with German or Russian interface):

 

Spoiler

The installation is finished.

 

If you wish, you can use the BiG World Install.bat to save some disk-space. After starting it, a service-menu should pop up that gives you the option to "delete no longer needed files". If it does not give you that option, quit the batch-file to prevent it from trying to reinstall mods (which could mess up the current installation).

 

DO NOT TRY TO UNINSTALL ANY MODS AFTER RUNNING THE CLEAN UP SCRIPT! It deletes backup files so if you uninstall any mod (especially generalized biffing), your game will be missing files and you will have to reinstall everything to get them back!

 

Due to frequent updates of mods and patches, almost every installation is different, even with the same selection. You probably will encounter problems that have not been reported before. When this happens, please go to www.shsforums.net and create a new thread in the Mega Mod Help forum to report your problem.

 

Thank you for using the "BiG World Setup"!

Edited by agb1, 18 January 2016 - 11:45 AM.

[Ithildur]

Again, I do appreciate you and the current bws team's efforts to keep improving things.

 

Quick question, I'm just about at the end of the new (3rd one this week and counting) installation, and I have bws paused just before the LOLfix stuff. If I exit bws, edit the bws-selection.ini so the line that reads:

 

lolfixer=4 6 9 10 11

 

is changed to

 

lolfixer= 2 4 6 9 10 11

 

and then resume the installation, will that be sufficient to skip component #2? Examining the components that are optional vs mandatory in the selection screen lead me to believe that the listed components above are the ones that get treated as optional rather than mandatory.

 

Or do I also need to change a similar line in lolfixer.ini in the config/global folder?

Edited by Ithildur, 18 January 2016 - 11:59 AM.

[agb1]

Once you are in the middle of an install, it's the contents of User.ini that determine what will be installed, not the bws-selection.ini.  You can modify the lolfixer= line there.  I would also add '2' to the NotFixed= line in Config\Global\lolfixer.ini as I'm not sure if BWS will enforce that component otherwise.

 

Edit:  I'm not quite sure what the difference between [Current] and [Save] in User.ini is, but as they appear to contain the same values, I would adjust the lolfixer= line in both sections to include the components you DO want to install, and make sure there is a lolfixer= line under [DeSave] that lists all of the components you do NOT want to install.

 

Edit2:  After looking at code, [Current] is for backwards compatibility with older versions of BWS (!) and is apparently read only if [Save] is not present in the User.ini ... but I'm not completely confident in this analysis so I would still advise updating the [Current] section too.  User.ini [Save] = selected, enabled components for current install; User.ini [DeSave] = not selected, disabled components for current install.

Edited by agb1, 18 January 2016 - 12:07 PM.

[Fouinto]

As far as I remember, the cleanUp.bat was known to have this behavior from the beginning (sorry to read this thread only now...).

 

And BTW, AFAIR, illusions dropping stuff is an VERY old bug that existed far before lolfixer the script was supposed to strip you when going out, but I remember I have always kept few things (gold & potion)... but it was so long since I have not played this part

[Lollorian]

@Fouinto: nah the problem Ithildur reported in the bws thread was specifically caused by the lolfixer