Unable to load a mission unless all mods installed since the latest patch.

[Squeaky_B]

Hi,

I have several practice sandbox missions that also support a few mods. (A4, T45, UH-60, UH-6A).

Before the latest patch, you could open the mission regardless of whether any of them were installed. Naturally you just wouldn't have the option to spawn in anything you didnt have installed. This was great as it meant I could support some popular mods without making it mandatory for them to be installed.

Since the latest patch however, it's no longer possible to open the mission unless all mods in the mission file are loaded.

Was this an intended change or a new bug?

Appreciate any help

[BluePhantom]

I have noticed this, too, and it is very disappointing. If you lack a necessary module, your mission is totally unusable. You cannot even load it to fix the missing module.

Why have ED done this and why have they not responded?

[razo+r]

16 minutes ago, BluePhantom said:

I have noticed this, too, and it is very disappointing. If you lack a necessary module, your mission is totally unusable. You cannot even load it to fix the missing module.

Why have ED done this and why have they not responded?

You can open the miz file and fix it manually outside of DCS. So the missions are not unusable and lost. 

[Rudel_chw]

On 7/14/2024 at 7:04 AM, Squeaky_B said:

Before the latest patch, you could open the mission regardless of whether any of them were installed. Naturally you just wouldn't have the option to spawn in anything you didnt have installed. This was great as it meant I could support some popular mods without making it mandatory for them to be installed.

Since the latest patch however, it's no longer possible to open the mission unless all mods in the mission file are loaded.

 

Really? ... that's great, thank you ED for fixing this bug:

 

 

[MAXsenna]

 
Really? ... that's great, thank you ED for fixing this bug:
 
 

I do agree with you, while they might have snuck it in as a selective option somewhere.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Squeaky_B]

On 8/24/2024 at 6:33 PM, Rudel_chw said:

 

Really? ... that's great, thank you ED for fixing this bug:

 

 

 

12 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

I do agree with you, while they might have snuck it in as a selective option somewhere.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk
 

I probably wouldn't count your chickens before they've hatched chaps.

It's not been recognised as a bug in either this thread or the one you linked so we're in the dark as to what the intended behaviour is supposed to be. Nor has it been mentioned in patch notes as "fixed".

It'd be nice to actually hear from ED what this is supposed to be rather than just guessing.

[Rudel_chw]

7 minutes ago, Squeaky_B said:

It's not been recognised as a bug in either this thread or the one you linked so we're in the dark as to what the intended behaviour is supposed to be.

 

You are a recent user, so you will have to take my word for it: The Mission Editor refused to load any MIZ file that employed a User Mod that was not currently loaded on your DCS, this was standard behaviour for as long as I had been using user Mods on my missions.

This abruptly changed this year, no mention on the patch notes either, so to me it was a Bug even if ED doesn't admit it .... and a dangerous bug at that, as you could easily get objects deleted from an existing mission because of it.

 

7 minutes ago, Squeaky_B said:

Nor has it been mentioned in patch notes as "fixed".

 

Like I said, it was not mentioned as a "new feature" when it was introduced.

 

7 minutes ago, Squeaky_B said:

It'd be nice to actually hear from ED what this is supposed to be rather than just guessing.

 

Yes, I agree, sometimes the feedback from ED can be really poor.

[HC_Official]

install this  https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3322208/

 

drag and drop miz file into the window and you are good to go ( it strips out required mod lines)

Edited August 28, 2024 by HC_Official

[Squeaky_B]

1 hour ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

You are a recent user, so you will have to take my word for it: The Mission Editor refused to load any MIZ file that employed a User Mod that was not currently loaded on your DCS, this was standard behaviour for as long as I had been using user Mods on my missions.

This abruptly changed this year, no mention on the patch notes either, so to me it was a Bug even if ED doesn't admit it .... and a dangerous bug at that, as you could easily get objects deleted from an existing mission because of it.

Thats fair enough, I can totally understand wanting it to not open the mission for the reasons you've mentioned.

I guess the long and short of it is we just don't know whether it was originally an intended change that wasn't included in the patch notes, or was it something that was fixed but wasn't mentioned in the patch notes.

 

Ideal solution would be to just give a prompt when opening the mission that says something along the lines of:

"The mission file you're loading contains modules that are not currently installed."

With the options of:

"Cancel" , "Load" , "Load as new mission" With the last one, creating a duplicate of the mission and loading the duplicate leaving the original untouched.

 

I've been using the tool @HC_Official linked since this changed and works great. Albeit I have to run my missions through it whenever I make a change, in order to keep the missions accessible to others.

Edited August 28, 2024 by Squeaky_B

[BluePhantom]

Can someone please explain to me (1) why a remedy to this issue is so difficult and (2) why ED will neither acknowledge or address this issue?  It is so depressing.

 

(HC_Official: Thank you for the link. I am so tired of having to use hacks and workarounds for issues that ED should address. They will ensure that some missile has exactly the right thrust or speed and yet they rarely address core issues like this one.)

Edited November 6, 2024 by BluePhantom

[Rudel_chw]

33 minutes ago, BluePhantom said:

Can someone please explain to me (1) why a remedy to this issue is so difficult and (2) why ED will neither acknowledge or address this issue? 

 

On my view, there is no issue. If you place a user mod object on your mission, then everytime you load that same mission back on the Editor, you will need to have that user mod loaded on your DCS. I understand that you may have a mission not of your own making, and it may employ user mods ... you will have then to get those Mods if you want to fly or modify the mission.

Now, if you want to be able to edit a mission where you don't have the user mods needed, then that is not an issue as it is "by design". To avoid this problem with DCS own official Mods, ED has divided its mods in two parts: the mod basic files are at /CoreMods/ and the cockpit files that allow you to fly it, are at /Mods/ ... this is why you can place on the Editor an F14 without owning the Module ... but User Mods do not have this special treatment, the Mods files are all at a single place on /Saved Games/

[DishDoggie]

I go by if it is a mod mission it can become unusable at any time. I had one do this with this first new Oct/30th update. It could not read a Shader file error and would not load a mission I had a lot of time making. The Mod was a very old Civilian Aircraft Mod I plan to never use again. I had a feeling I would have this problem with it some day. I just have to start over lol Mod was setup in my OvGME installer. So I know things were Uninstalled right then Updated and then installed right.

[BluePhantom]

On 11/6/2024 at 10:14 AM, Rudel_chw said:

 

On my view, there is no issue. If you place a user mod object on your mission, then everytime you load that same mission back on the Editor, you will need to have that user mod loaded on your DCS. I understand that you may have a mission not of your own making, and it may employ user mods ... you will have then to get those Mods if you want to fly or modify the mission.

Now, if you want to be able to edit a mission where you don't have the user mods needed, then that is not an issue as it is "by design". To avoid this problem with DCS own official Mods, ED has divided its mods in two parts: the mod basic files are at /CoreMods/ and the cockpit files that allow you to fly it, are at /Mods/ ... this is why you can place on the Editor an F14 without owning the Module ... but User Mods do not have this special treatment, the Mods files are all at a single place on /Saved Games/

Thank you for taking the time to explain your viewpoint. While I understand and partially agree with your point, I don't think it quite addresses my unhappiness with the situation.

1) One example might be where a mod is old and no longer compatible with the newer DCS versions and the creator will not upgrade the mod to work with the newer version. If I can load the mission without that particular mod, I can replace it with something else and still use the mission. Or I can skip that mod. The point is that all of my hours put into creating the mission will not have been wasted.

2) A recent example was one of CurrentHill's mod's. He now packs all of his mods into one large country file, so you cannot easily go find the original single mod, download the latest version and install it to make the mission work.  I did ensure I had the latest version of his pack. I could load a brand-new mission with the same module just fine, but DCS refused to see the module in my older mission and would load nothing. In this case, the mod is valid but DCS does not see it.

BTW, this issue usually involves non-aircraft mods for me. I am not really talking about flyable aircraft. It might be something as simple as placing a mortar in the mission.

So, is there a real security issue if DCS allows a mission to load without a "problem" mod? Can't they just say, "Hmm, this mod item is old or doesn't work, let me inform the user but strip it from the mission." Do they have to deny access to all elements of the mission?

 

[razo+r]

Just a note: if a mod no longer works, the mission can still be used if you manually delete the "required modules" in the mission file itself. The .miz file is basically a .zip file that can be opened with winrar or similar, and in there you have the lua to edit the mod out.

[Rudel_chw]

3 hours ago, razo+r said:

if a mod no longer works, the mission can still be used if you manually delete the "required modules" in the mission file itself.

There is also an utility that does it automatically, with no need for manual edit:

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3322208/

 

[TKhaos]

10 hours ago, razo+r said:

Just a note: if a mod no longer works, the mission can still be used if you manually delete the "required modules" in the mission file itself. The .miz file is basically a .zip file that can be opened with winrar or similar, and in there you have the lua to edit the mod out.

That's how I do it, open and uncompress it with 7-Zip then just open the Mission file with Notepad++ and remove any offending modules, saved a fair amount of missions that way. It has thrown a few people expecting to find a Lua as there's no file extension but just told them what one to open, least Notepad++ saves with no extension so no need to remove txt from the end. I told a few people to remember to rename it from a zip file back to a miz when packing it back up, they zipped it up and just put it back then claimed it hadn't work