Difference between revisions of "Known issues"

Revision as of 23:37, 10 December 2009

This page is somewhat redundant as it duplicates things from pages such as Installation troubleshooting. However, it is gathering place for issues related to specific builds, along with plans to fix them.

Build 1.0.982.19

Installation Issues

Problems Installing on Windows XP Service Pack 2

For some, but not all users using SP2, the installation of SQL Server 2005 Express (part of the install process) can cause an infinite reboot situation on the computer. It does not happen on all systems running SP2, but it is a potential very unpleasant hazard. See Installation troubleshooting or http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/8/index/113400/1 for more details.

Problems Installing to a long path

SQL Server 2005 Express will not install to a path longer than 58 characters. The default install path for Steam, is longer than this, so this issue appears regularly for Steam installs, but could happen to anyone depending on how long their install path is. See Installation with Steam for more details

Unable to connect to the database error on Startup of toolset

This error is accurrate, the toolset is unable to connect to the database. This indicates that there was some kind of problem when SQL Server Express 2005 was installed. Unfortunately, this is common, but unpredictable. The toolset itself cannot diagnose what the problem is. It can range from the long file path issue (above) to interference from UAC, to permissions issues, to a conflict with an existing installation of SQL Server, to registry entries, to the location of the installation file on your computer. The list is long.

See Installation troubleshooting for the current list of things that people have found that have worked. The list is regularly updated and tweaked. Sometimes Manual database installation seems to work. the installer is being adjusted to deal with what we can, but most of this process is beyond our control, as it is a third party installer, and a complex piece of software that seems to interact differently with each machine it is installed on.

Problems with the Installer hanging at "Execute:regsvr32.exe"

For unknown reasons, the installer will sometimes stop at this line. It seems to be waiting for a response from regsvr32 to indicate that it is finished the task it was given to do. See Installation troubleshooting for current workaround.

Toolset Issues

Exporting resources can cause the main campaign to fail

An incompatibility has been discovered between the core resources in the database released with the toolset and the core resources used by the existing main campaign. This can cause the main campaign to stop working correctly after any resources are exported from the toolset. See Plot GUID bug, or http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/8/index/114380 for more details, and for information on how to clean up after this error strikes.

Installing the toolset can corrupt savegames made after the toolset is installed

This is the same problem as above (Exporting resources can cause the main campaign to fail), Just another manifestation of it.

ERF and GFF Editors

Attempting to run the ERF and GFF Editors as stand alone applications from the Dragon Age\tools\ directory (as opposed to within the toolset) will result in a "Keyfile not found" error. This is a remnant of the security that was in place for our Beta Testers.

The next version of the toolset will allow you to run these executables without a keyfile

FaceFX not appearing in Menus

FaceFx is not appearing in consistently in some menus. Workaround can be found here: http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/8/index/139865

Lightmapper Issues

There are various issues with the lightmapper creating odd shadows, and black artifacts, particularly along chunk boundaries.

Water Plane Missing in Game

If you create a level with a water plane in it, the water is appearing properly in the toolset, but is non-existent in the game. This problem has been identified. It is not lightmapper related. A proper fix may take some time, but there's a fairly simple workaround for it; switch to the "single player" module before posting the level and then copy the files this produces from the single player override directory to your addin's override directory. See water for more detail.

Toolset freezes while exporting or compiling

Issue: The toolset freezes when exporting modules, compiling scripts, or saving scripts. Typically the freeze happens when the log reaches the effect_death_h.nss log entry.

Solution: This problem seems to be related to one of the language settings in windows. In the language control panel of Windows, the "Language for Non-Unicode programs" option must be set to English (United States). So far this fix seems to remove the freeze problem.

Older known issues (Beta issues, needs cleanup)

Build 925 issues

When working on a multiple-monitor system, it is possible that rearranging the monitors will cause the previously-recorded default location of popup windows such as "manage modules" to be off the edge of the display area where it can't be seen or manipulated. This can lock up the toolset, since the toolset won't respond until the popup is dismissed. To reset the position of the popup windows, delete the file "My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age\Toolset\Layouts3.xml". It will be recreated the next time the toolset is run using default values.

Build 888 issues

Build 888 and subsequent builds has some built-in assumptions that it will be installed in "Program Files\Dragon Age". If it's installed elsewhere, the resource processor (used during certain resource exports, the generation of VO, FaceFX, and other activities) will become confused and fail with log messages such as "Unable to load C:\Programme\Dragon Age\tools\ResourceBuild/Settings/ResourceBuilder.xml" or "Failed to copy template 'C:\Program Files\Dragon Age\tools\ResourceBuild\Processors\VO_template_project.fdp' to 'C:\DOCUME~1\Owner\LOCALS~1\Temp\DragonAgePlaceholderVO\VO_template_project.fdp'" To correct this, go to the Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Resource Build Path setting and correct the path listed there to point to the resource builder's actual location.

This appears to have been resolved in 1.0.982.0

Build 773 issues

• When creating a new crust VFX in the VFX editor, by default a model named "default_player" will be added as the model to apply the crust to. default_player doesn't exist in the current database and won't exist in any new modules that are created, so an error message is generated. To resolve this simply change the broken model's appearance to one of the existing ones.
• The "preview line" command available under the "tools" menu of the conversation editor doesn't work and can make future previews troublesome (the VO isn't always generated afterward). To preview a line, first generate the VO with the "Generate VO" command, then generate the FaceFX with the "Generate FaceFX" command, and then select the "preview line without generating VO/FaceFX" command.
• If you use resource history to view past revisions of a large conversation and then try to diff two of them, the toolset will crash. You can diff small conversations correctly. It's not known exactly what the cutoff between "large" and "small" conversations are as far as this bug is concerned.

• Under Vista, the default install of MSSQL doesn't support multiple different user accounts on the same machine. Attempting to start the toolset from the wrong user account will pop up an error advising that you use the configuration tool to correct the database settings, but the database settings are not in error - it's the database server itself that's refusing to cooperate. One possible solution is to use SQL Server Management Studio Express to set up MSSQL properly.

• When loading a saved game file, areas and objects contained therein are loaded from the save rather than the game resource. This means that if you save your game inside an area, make changes to the area and export them using the toolset, and then reload your game, none of the changes will appear. The changes will only appear if you start a new game. This affects objects such as waypoints, creatures, placeables, and so on.