Mission Editor Lockup situations either locking game up on loading screen or no longer able to open save/load missions.

[Mike64]

Version: Latest beta.
Issues have existed for: Over a year (version doesn't matter)
Problem: The mission editor code is able to crash in situations where either:
* Mission won't save
* Load mission window refuses to open up (until complete Game restart, sometimes even removal of offending mission)
* Game locks up on either Mission load into editor or Load into game screens. (Requiring Murder via Task manager)
Cause: Exception not being gracefully handled leading to some form of game lockup (can be seen easily in logs)
Cause of Exception: Mission with logical issue in it.
Expected result: Graceful handling of errors with reverting back to editor main page with error message (just like what happens with an invalid Lua syntax in the mission file. 

Are these logical issues caused by me: Yes (I develop which briefing-room-for-dcs generates missions from scratch) and I do work to fix every corrupted mission I hear of.

I'm ok if you close it as I am cause and that is the end of it but I do believe that the game should gracefully handle issues as much as possible. 
One dev to another a few top level exception handlers would do fine

Example given locks up on mission load.
 

FAIL_TEST_5_PersianGulf_-_Operation_Resolute_Waters.miz dcs.log

If this is not closed instantly I'll post missions and logs as I get them

 

[Rudel_chw]

Hi,

I have had ocassional ME lockups just after clicking on the "Fly Mission" green button ... no way out of the situation until I kill DCS on Windows' Task Manager. While annoying, at least I have never lost my edits because of this, as it always seems to be able to save my changes before the lockup occurs.

In any case, just to be safer, I have my /Saved Games/DCS/Missions/ folder redirected with mklink to a cloud folder with versioning, so that I can revert back to a previous mission version if needed.

[Mike64]

For example given I've figured out a fix for missions failing to load:
me_toolbar.lua: 580 (loadMission)

 

        local ok, result, err, theatre = base.pcall(module_mission.load, filename)

        --print("----result=",result, err, theatre)

        if not ok then

            MsgWindow.warning("Corruped mission:"..result, cdata.warning, cdata.ok):show()

            if base.isInitTerrain() == true then

                module_mission.removeMission()

                module_mission.create_new_mission()

                -- progressBar.kill()

            end

        end

I find it odd the lack of `base.pcall` usage as its more or less designed for this and retuning bool as a result it rather fragile

Edited June 18, 2022 by Mike64

[gulredrel]

Ocassionally the mission editor fails to respond for me too.

I've found a workaround. Going back to windows desktop, right click to DCS taskbar icon and trying to close. Returning now to DCS it asks if I want to save changes or not. Now, ME responds normally for me. But it's a strange behavior their.

[Flappie]

I've experienced this twice in the last few days, but I thought I was alone.

Thanks @Mike64, I'll add this to my bug report.

By the way, I was thinking this issue might be caused by the auto-backup feature. Can you please tell me ll if you have it enabled or not? (mine is set to "1 min")

[gulredrel]

Mine is set to off. I changed it some time ago, cause I also thought this causes the problem. But this doesn't seem directly connected. Switching it on or off makes no difference.

[Mike64]

Nope, its off My second post shows exactly where this example fails and the code to fix it (as the lua code is public)

[Mike64]

On 7/4/2022 at 4:53 PM, Flappie said:

I've experienced this twice in the last few days, but I thought I was alone.

Thanks @Mike64, I'll add this to my bug report.

By the way, I was thinking this issue might be caused by the auto-backup feature. Can you please tell me ll if you have it enabled or not? (mine is set to "1 min")

Its caused by me messing with the mission Lua and it causing an unhandled error lockup. The issue is it doesn't gracefully handle an error when loading a mission.