[REPORTED] Recording is not possible -> corrupting mission in memory

[discwalker]

applies to 1.5.8 and 2.5.0.15365.345 (any map)

Strings became corrupt in memory after a trying to overwrite a read-only mission.

Error dialog:

caption=Save mission

text=Can not open file, recording is not possible FILENAMEWITHPATH

The strings replaced with the following formats:

DictKey_WptName_### / DictKey_GroupName_### / Dictkey_UnitName_###

[discwalker]

please respond ED

 

still not fixed in 2.5.2.20601 nor 2.5.3.21016

Possible to loose a ton of mission editing!

+If you hit exit editor no prompt for saving the corrupted final edited state.

 

log entry about unsuccessful saving:

"2018-08-30 20:50:37.487 ERROR VFS: VFS_open_write: CreateFile(C:\Users\pitwalker\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Missions\repair_fa18.miz): Unknown error"

 

loading midway (flight/prepare mission):

"2018-08-30 20:51:32.848 INFO WORLDGENERAL: loading mission from: "C:\Users\PITWAL~1\AppData\Local\Temp\DCS.openbeta\tempMission.miz""

 

log entrys during exit mission black screen and sim frozen:

"2018-08-30 20:53:37.951 ERROR VFS: VFS_open_write: CreateFile(C:\Users\pitwalker\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Missions\repair_fa18.miz): Unknown error

2018-08-30 20:53:37.951 ERROR Lua::Config: Call error onShowMainInterface:[string "./MissionEditor/modules/me_mission.lua"]:6245: can't open "C:\Users\pitwalker\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Missions\repair_fa18.miz" for 'wb'

stack traceback:

[C]: ?

[C]: in function 'assert'

[string "./MissionEditor/modules/me_mission.lua"]:6245: in function 'copyMission'

[string "./MissionEditor/MissionEditor.lua"]:605: in function 'openReturnScreen'

[string "./MissionEditor/MissionEditor.lua"]:678: in function <[string "./MissionEditor/MissionEditor.lua"]:669>.

"

 

connecting thread, why save needed strengthening:

Mission Editor Issues » ME errors causing save failure

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=211723

Edited August 31, 2018 by discwalker
+

[discwalker]

We need Read only missions for protecting our heavy work

 

because of this bug is not fixed fully: "ME errors causing save failure" https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=211723

Mission corruptions and save failures are a real possibility.

 

This issue is a possible accidental judgement to our effort.

 

just ideas for preventing loss of editing:

- .bak backup file creation of the old mission state in save function

- readback syntax check of mission after saving: I and an other guy at least experienced mission corruption in this forum, our missions recorded as in a unloadable state

Edited August 6, 2019 by discwalker
moderating deletion

[NineLine]

How are your missions becoming read only? I am not seeing this at all. ANd I open and save a lot of my own and others missions.

[discwalker]

Hello. I just came to here to make a self censor act, so not needed?

Of course manually make user a mission to read only, to save from an accidental overwrite.

A save menhanism should handle better a read only target file case than now.

[discwalker]

We should not remember which missions set to read only in the long past. Made one by hand read only. And reproduction will be a success ;-)

[discwalker]

For clarification

 

I made a video from the corruption - starring the two attachment mission.

I hope this time understanding will be complete.

set_read-only_file_attribute_on_this_file_and_edit_and_save_then_save_as.miz

damaged_strings_due_save_to_read_only.miz

[NineLine]

Don't set missions to read-only. Fixed.

[discwalker]

:-( from Mr_sukebe a real world DCS wolrld scenario, when file is open to write (besause write is needed to read the mission in dedicated server)

"- If I attempt to save a mission whilst it's running in the dedicated server (yeah, pretty stupid of me I know), it corrupts the names of every unit"

source: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3965360&postcount=3

[discwalker]

I need to set often tracks to read only because hard to reproduce errors sometimes etc...

[discwalker]

With the latest 2.5.5.32533; the third way to trigger strings corruption

 

With NTFS folder permissions:

 

I have never seen any other editor which is unable to solve a save attempt failure.

 

-NTFS Write permission denied for user in "Backups-read" folder.

-Administrator is the owner of the folder.

 

DCS answer: set all group names to "DictKey_GroupName_xxx",

set all unit names to "DictKey_UnitName_xxx",

set all waypoint names to "DictKey_WptName_xxx"

Edited July 1, 2019 by discwalker
title

[Ramsay]

IIRC (1.5.x) the same behaviour ("DictKey_GroupName_xxx") is seen if the .miz is being accessed by another program i.e. 7zip

[discwalker]

When failure occured DCS clear the dictionary!

 

You will not find the originals set at creation, f.e.: New Airplane Group #xxx / Pilot #xxx / empty waypoint names

 

l10n/DEFAULT/dictionary in this case:

dictionary = 
{
   ["DictKey_WptName_11"] = "DictKey_WptName_11",
   ["DictKey_GroupName_30"] = "DictKey_GroupName_30",
   ["DictKey_UnitName_19"] = "DictKey_UnitName_19",
   ["DictKey_GroupName_24"] = "DictKey_GroupName_24",
   ["DictKey_WptName_28"] = "DictKey_WptName_28",
   ["DictKey_WptName_23"] = "DictKey_WptName_23",
   ["DictKey_WptName_8"] = "DictKey_WptName_8",
   ["DictKey_descriptionRedTask_2"] = "",
   ["DictKey_WptName_21"] = "DictKey_WptName_21",
   ["DictKey_UnitName_31"] = "DictKey_UnitName_31",
   ["DictKey_WptName_22"] = "DictKey_WptName_22",
   ["DictKey_UnitName_7"] = "DictKey_UnitName_7",
   ["DictKey_WptName_17"] = "DictKey_WptName_17",
   ["DictKey_WptName_33"] = "DictKey_WptName_33",
   ["DictKey_WptName_26"] = "DictKey_WptName_26",
   ["DictKey_WptName_14"] = "DictKey_WptName_14",
   ["DictKey_GroupName_12"] = "DictKey_GroupName_12",
   ["DictKey_WptName_20"] = "DictKey_WptName_20",
   ["DictKey_sortie_5"] = "",
   ["DictKey_GroupName_6"] = "DictKey_GroupName_6",
   ["DictKey_WptName_9"] = "DictKey_WptName_9",
   ["DictKey_descriptionBlueTask_3"] = "",
   ["DictKey_descriptionText_1"] = "",
   ["DictKey_WptName_35"] = "DictKey_WptName_35",
   ["DictKey_WptName_32"] = "DictKey_WptName_32",
   ["DictKey_UnitName_25"] = "DictKey_UnitName_25",
   ["DictKey_WptName_16"] = "DictKey_WptName_16",
   ["DictKey_UnitName_13"] = "DictKey_UnitName_13",
   ["DictKey_descriptionNeutralsTask_4"] = "",
   ["DictKey_GroupName_18"] = "DictKey_GroupName_18",
   ["DictKey_WptName_29"] = "DictKey_WptName_29",
   ["DictKey_WptName_27"] = "DictKey_WptName_27",
   ["DictKey_WptName_15"] = "DictKey_WptName_15",
   ["DictKey_WptName_34"] = "DictKey_WptName_34",
   ["DictKey_WptName_10"] = "DictKey_WptName_10",
} -- end of dictionary

[Rudel_chw]

Of course manually make user a mission to read only, to save from an accidental overwrite.

 

The accidental overwrite is a real problem, and can happen on almost any software ... there are two workarounds that I've used for this:

 

1) Use "Save as" instead of "Save", adding a "v###" at the end of the file, that way I can go back to a previous version easily if needed.

 

2) Store the missions on a drive that supports versioning, on my case I store the missions folder on MS OneDrive and put a link to it on /Saved Games/DCS; this way I can revert to a previous version if needed, like this:

 

 

A save menhanism should handle better a read only target file case than now.

 

You can wait for ED to fix it, but on the meantime you could try a workaround or a better practice than manually fiddling with the read-only flag of the files.

 

Regards,

 

Eduardo

[BIGNEWY]

We have reproduced and reported this

 

thanks