A consistent and growing problem: custom maps not showing up ingame

[sogjpsajdoiajsd]

I've been playing WC3 custom maps for like 15 years now. This isn't a new problem. I worked through all the standard blanket methods to fix the issue during my life. Rename the map, move it to another folder, try a different WC3 patch. Perhaps I'm just using the wrong WC3 patch? - nope, the map works on the same patch on a different PC.

But now, more and more maps that I'm downloading just don't show up anymore ingame. Like now, I downloaded like 10 maps and only 3 of them show up. Try and back up to patch 1.31 or 1.28, and SOMETIMES it shows up but can't be opened (the standard issue where the menu goes up as if to open the map, but then instantly comes back down). Googling and searching only gives me 4+ year old results that don't work.

Standardly I'm using 1.35

Since these maps work for some other people using the same warcraft 3 patch as me, I'm assuming there is something unique in this PC that could be screwing things up. Here are a few things that come to mind:

I have 13 different folders within the "maps" folder in Documents. I have over 5GB worth of custom maps. I have five different WC3 clients installed on my PC (1.24, 1.28.5, 1.31, 1.35, Korean WC3 with JNloader)

 

[Retera]

Some questions to help brainstorm possible solutions to this issue:

1. Why are you using 1.35 and not 1.36?
2. Have you carefully confirmed that the maps you downloaded had a map version the same or older than the game version you were using?
3. Do the names of the folders where you store your maps end up with a long path? Sometimes I saw it theorized that C:\Users\sogjpsajdoiajsd\Documents\Warcraft III\Maps\Frozen Throne\Really Good Ones\Favorite Maps from Hive Workshop\QdfwrqAPEMV1.5.58.w3x was too long of a file path. Maybe the developers of the game expected maps would be like C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Maps\(2)BootyBay.w3m and would only be less than X number of characters where a programmer in the year 2002 would probably have chosen X to be a power of 2, like maybe 128 characters or possibly 256 characters. In the example above, the first file path that I listed is more than 128 characters, but less than 256. So if that was the limit, maybe it would be too long.

I know the problem you are referring to but I never went and perfectly determined the cause in a way that I felt was reliable. So, maybe someone else knows.

 

[PurrsandMlems]

maps put into a \Test folder would appear always, however this was when they all resided within the same directory.

 

[sogjpsajdoiajsd]

Some questions to help brainstorm possible solutions to this issue:

1. Why are you using 1.35 and not 1.36?
2. Have you carefully confirmed that the maps you downloaded had a map version the same or older than the game version you were using?
3. Do the names of the folders where you store your maps end up with a long path? Sometimes I saw it theorized that C:\Users\sogjpsajdoiajsd\Documents\Warcraft III\Maps\Frozen Throne\Really Good Ones\Favorite Maps from Hive Workshop\QdfwrqAPEMV1.5.58.w3x was too long of a file path. Maybe the developers of the game expected maps would be like C:\Program Files\Warcraft III\Maps\(2)BootyBay.w3m and would only be less than X number of characters where a programmer in the year 2002 would probably have chosen X to be a power of 2, like maybe 128 characters or possibly 256 characters. In the example above, the first file path that I listed is more than 128 characters, but less than 256. So if that was the limit, maybe it would be too long.

I know the problem you are referring to but I never went and perfectly determined the cause in a way that I felt was reliable. So, maybe someone else knows.

Heyyy, thanks for replying.

With Reforged I tend to hold off a bit before updating. Regardless, to be sure I visit wc3maps and download a map version from there since it lists specifically the wc3 build for it. Not much of the standard warcraft 3 stuff worked. However, I did resolve the issue in the meantime, completely coincidentally and through an extremely mundane method... I had a windows 10 scheduled update pop up, and I went through with it. No idea how that worked.

 

[Luashine]

Do the names of the folders where you store your maps end up with a long path?

Just for completeness, for old Warcraft the entire map path must be like 80 characters total. No unicode (except system default 8-bit charset).