Map crashes at launch during generating object versions

[tayl986]

Hi Everyone

So I have a peculiar issue with a Map I was working on. Spent tons of hours importing custom models into the map. And the last time I worked on it was about 3-4 months ago and it loaded in world edit just fine. however upon trying to open it today it appears to crash during the part it shows "Generating object variations" and the error report code I get seems to change it time just saying an unexpected error has occurred.

I was wondering if there would be anyway to potentially try to export the custom model's and units from the map, into an older version that appears to still open just fine?

I also am wondering if I have maybe just hit a resource cap on the map as its file size is currently at 571MB. All though I have previously opened and worked on it before with it being that size so not sure. Any help is appreciated.

And just as a note I did not create the map from scratch nor am I taking any kind of credit for it. It is an old RPG map from the creators of the SoTD RP maps that I just enjoyed importing some custom models to and playing on my own here and there just building cities and units. and I simply imported custom models to create units, buildings and doodads. Which were all working up until recently.

 

[Uncle]

If you're on a more recent version you have the option to save your map as a folder. Then you can easily access all of the imported files and it makes importing new files a breeze. Obviously you can't even open the map but this is something you should do in the future. Also, always make backups!

If using a legacy version of Warcraft III that does not support saving maps as a folder then you will need to use a third party MPQ editor such as MPQEdit to manipulate the map data files. How to import and export data from one map to another?
I imagine this solution applies to a map you can't open as well.

 

[Retera]

about 3-4 months ago and it loaded in world edit just fine. however upon trying to open it today it appears to crash

There have been many reports that the Warcraft III Reforged Patch 1.33 released 1 month ago makes many custom maps fail to open on the World Editor.

If this is your problem, and if you never saved the map on the Patch 1.33 and never were able to open it after the game patch, then it may be that the game patch is broken and your map is not broken. One way to check this: Does the map still open ingame?

If you still have the map, or a backup of the map, then even if the game is broken in the patch and cannot open the map then because you had the original working map the Hive Workshop modders could help you update the map to open. But if you opened the map on the new map editor and saved over the old map and then had the problems, there is a chance the new editor's bugs might have broken the data in your map so that the data could be lost. I am not sure, but I am saying you should always keep a backup.

 

[tayl986]

Thanks for the help guys!

So far I like the idea of saving the map as a folder. and trying to import the data from one to another. My only issue, is that the current existing map that is not a folder, I am unable to open it to save it as a different format. Or is there another way to do that?

And just to be clear the last time I had opened it and saved was before patch 1.33. And as of right now, I have an older version of the map that currently opens without crashing. It just does not contain the imported models and custom units/doodads I had made is all. And this one was also last opened and saved before patch 1.33

 

[Retera]

And just to be clear the last time I had opened it and saved was before patch 1.33.

So, if it was me, I made a copy of Patch 1.32 before letting battlenet upgrade me to 1.33. I saw on the Public Test Realm that we would have all these issues and I assumed Activision Blizzard would not fix them at release.

So what I would do I guess would be to try opening the newer better map in the Patch 1.32 World Editor which I have on my PC available in parallel alongside Patch 1.33 World Editor. That way it would be clear if the map actually had any issue prior to Patch 1.33. And then a copy could be saved as a folder, if there were no issues on 1.32. But I'm not really sure how to give you that option. Each patch install is around 30 GB so I don't really think I could just share that to you in any sensible way.

Edit: One way to save as a folder that should always work even if the World Editor does not work would be to download the MPQEditor program from online and then extract all the map contents to a folder. So, that might be one option.

Out of curiosity, is your map using custom "Classic SD" or custom "Reforged HD" assets? There are some known issues with the "Reforged HD" assets -- basically if you have any custom PKB imports, they might possibly cause the type of issue that you are facing. So, that would be an easy thing to try to remove from the map-as-folder whenever you reach the step of trying to avoid your new map crashing. But if you were on "Classic SD" graphics, then you surely would not have any imported ".pkb" extension files.

 

[tayl986]

Hey Vendro thanks for the continued support. I downloaded the MPQ editor and have figured out how to export the files from the map that does not seem to work. I tried to import it all into the map that currently does open with no issues ( essentially the exact same map just missing custom models/units/buildings). However was prompted in the MPQ editor the there was not enough disc space to import all the files.

I was able to just up the disk space in MPQ editor just one level and was then able to import all the files.

However when trying to open the map that worked before importing files, I just got a generic "this map could not be opened" prompt.

So then I opened a fresh working copy of the map in MPQ editor. I imported just one custom Model from the old map that seems to be broken. Then closed out the MPQ editor. Then when launching the working map and checking the imported assets in world edit, it is not actually there. So I closed world Edit and opened the map up in MPQ editor again and MPQ editor shows the custom model is still in the map.

and to answer the questions on assets, it was a map that was originally created before reforged but I haven't had issues playing in reforged HD assets on it before. So unless there are certain custom models that worked in the reforged HD assets previously but now don't since patch 1.33 I don't understand how it could happen.

The only thing that comes to mind as far as sharing something that big is like for something jsut easily accessed and free is One Drive if you are willing to maybe try that with me sometime.

So far I'm thinking I may need to do a bit more research on using MPQ editor. It seems straight forward to me but I guess I might be missing something. Or find someone who knows this stuff and screen share through discord with em haha

 

[tayl986]

ok so Last update.

I was able to get a working map with all the imported models. In order to do so. I had extracted them from the broken map using MPQ editor. THen I had to open a version of the map that works. Open the asset manager and import the files from the location they were exported to using MPQ.

The only issue now. Is that all the files imported with the file path name of "war3mapimported/modelname" in the asset manager. When quite a few of the custom models require the path to have the "war3mapimported" part deleted out of the path name in order for them to display correctly. And the only way I know how to change the path names in asset manager, is one by one. >.<

I was hoping I could use MPQ to simply take the exported info where I had already deleted the path prefix for each model file in the map that no longer works. And have those added to the working map as is. But I don't appear to be able to get that to work.

So for example I have my custom models now in the Asset manager in a working map and I can apply them to units, however the textures are all white or black or missing. Then when going into asset manager and deleting the afor mentioned path name prefix, they display correctly.

 

[Retera]

I suggest using MPQEditor less. It is good for getting stuff out of your broken map. But the Warcraft III map can contain assets without the Asset Manager having those assets on the Asset Manager list. The Asset Manager has its own list in a file called "war3map.imp" if I recall, and editing this file is probably not worth your time because it is some special format that would probably break if you edit it with Notepad.

So, instead, I suggested editing your map as a folder. When you open a "map as a folder" then the World Editor will actually regenerate the Asset Manager file list based on what is in the folder or something like that. I am not as familiar with its quirks because it was new in the last few years, but I think it is the useful solution to your problem.

When you do this, you can extract many files from MPQEditor together and have them keep the file path from Asset Manager to be the folder names where those files extract. Then you can copy those folders on Windows into your "map as a folder." That way it would move over all those file paths that you need in Asset Manager like you said.

 

[tayl986]

Ok thanks, I think I got it working. Going with the files as a folder seems to have helped.

I opened the working map with no imports in world edit, then saved it as a folder.

Navigated to the exported files using MPQ on the Old broken Map.

Then just copied the individual files from the exported location, to the corresponding folder location for the working map.

And voila I am now able to save the map with all my working custom models, units and buildings even.

I have saved both a folder version and a file version ; P

Thanks for all your help here guys!!! much appreciated!!