Invalid solid removes every entity from map

[Tom Hoen]

Invalid solid removes every entity from map [FIXED]

I'm near to release beta 2 of frostfell and now I've hitted a new obstacle. When I load my map it says it has 2 invalid solids. So of course I let the hammer to delete them and save the file. After this hammer crahses and I try to reopen the file. On reopening this saved file I get the error:

Orphane objects were found and placed into the "_orphaned hidden" visgroup.

Clicking OK reveals that it has lost all Entities from the map.

I think I could prevent this orphaned objects part if I could locate the 2 invalid solids from original file. Any idea how to find these? Or should I do something else?

------------

SOLUTION that worked for me:

I realized that the hammer will fix the invalid solids no matter if it crashes so I downloaded a program that can compare two separate files and tell the differences. I knew that my invalid solids were the ones in skybox I created yesterday and with transfering data from file to file I could pinpoint the error causing lines. Using WinMerge to compare the files I noticed that almost all the lines were couple of rows off so I could search the missing rows. I copied 135 540 lines and pasted them over 146 507 lines. This seemed to fix it and opening the new edited file I noticed half of my skybox was moved to "orphaned visgroup" so I just deleted it as it wasn't needed anymore (it was just for reference).

 

[tyler]

You have to look back through the autosaves and hope one works. Really nasty bug that's been popping up lately.

 

[Tom Hoen]

Oddly I only have one autosave which has been overwritten everytime hammer autosaves, so all my 4 other autosaves are from over 2 weeks back when I started doing beta 2. This one autosave has also this same problem so I can't rely on it.

 

[tyler]

Wow, I dunno. I know other people have solved this so I hope someone remembers how.

 

[Spacek531]

If you are using windows 7 or (maybe) windows vista, there is a file rollback system that sometimes works.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

I haz solution

Turn everything except entities off in a version very similar to your current one.
Turn grid to like 64x64 or higher.
Surround all the entities with a skip brush, put origin of the skip brush (IN ALL DIMENSIONS!) at the 0,0,0 location of that map.
Copy that.
Load up the broken map that doesn't have entities.
Paste in this, align the origin of the skip brush up with the origin in the current, broken map.
Delete skip brush.

You should now have all the entities back in the proper place.

 

[Sergis]

hit alt p that usually finds the invalidsolids i think

 

[Tom Hoen]

If you are using windows 7 or (maybe) windows vista, there is a file rollback system that sometimes works.

Properties of my b2 file says there isn't any previous versions to rollback.

I haz solution

Turn everything except entities off in a version very similar to your current one.
Turn grid to like 64x64 or higher.
Surround all the entities with a skip brush, put origin of the skip brush (IN ALL DIMENSIONS!) at the 0,0,0 location of that map.
Copy that.
Load up the broken map that doesn't have entities.
Paste in this, align the origin of the skip brush up with the origin in the current, broken map.
Delete skip brush.

You should now have all the entities back in the proper place.

This will be my backup plan if everything fails. I won't do it just yet because I'd lost all props from blu side, some from red and my entire skybox.

hit alt p that usually finds the invalidsolids i think

Yes it does, but I can't load the map so I can't hit alt+p.



Thanks everyone but I'm still looking for solution, keep them coming.

 

[Sergis]

i do hope you have tried not letting hammer delete invalid solids

after hammer made my whole map dynamic brush i never allow him to delete invalid solids on mapload

 

[phi]

I had this happen to me a bit ago aswell.
I resorted to the skip brush technique because I didn't have an autosave or any rollback data.
Crash said something about loading it in an older version of SDK in my thread though - http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=19353
I'm not exactly sure how that works though.

 

[Pocket]

The entity-deletion bug has been present since at least the artpass contest (it kept happening to me because of the rotated shed by BLU spawn), but the thing where it crashes if you tell it not to fix anything is relatively new.

Frankly this looks like one of those things we need to demand Valve fix.

 

[Tom Hoen]

After good sleep I have finally resolved this issue.

I realized that the hammer will fix the invalid solids no matter if it crashes so I downloaded a program that can compare two separate files and tell the differences. I knew that my invalid solids were the ones in skybox I created yesterday and with transfering data from file to file I could pinpoint the error causing lines. Using WinMerge to compare the files I noticed that almost all the lines were couple of rows off so I could search the missing rows. I copied 135 540 lines and pasted them over 146 507 lines. This seemed to fix it and opening the new edited file I noticed half of my skybox was moved to "orphaned visgroup" so I just deleted it as it wasn't needed anymore (it was just for reference).

Thanks everyone for your ideas. Hopefully someone finds these helpfull.

 

[tyler]

Glad you fixed it, I was really worried there for a while. Sincerely, I mean.