Track Replay problems

[Phantom711]

@BIGNEWY

Thanks.

still though…your mission maker allows for scripts being used, so why is it, that the replay won‘t work if the mission used a script? The whole replay system is unnecessarily complicated. Why does a replay load as if it was an actual mission? I don‘t want that. I just want everything to simply move like in the mission and not like it‘s calculating everything as if it‘s happening again.

And what is it with those replays that load, but nothing spawns?

[Nealius]

Still happening quite a lot with both SP and MP tracks. Others seem to be having the same issue. On occasion after a few days (PC reboots maybe?) they sometimes sort themselves out for others, but I haven't experienced that yet. Here's a whacky log from one today:

Quote

2024-09-29 05:14:36.105 ERROR   Dispatcher (Main): Unexpected end of track fiber track/net : idx = 0, time = 0.000000, missing at least 18446744073423911241 bytes

That converts to 16,384 pebibytes. I didn't even know anything above a terabyte existed until today.

[Nealius]

On 9/12/2024 at 9:04 PM, BIGNEWY said:

Failure to load will happen with tracks created in MP that maybe using external scripts. 

Replays using external scripts used to work fine up until the August update(s).

Edited September 29, 2024 by Nealius

[FreightDog]

This is still an issue for me, just ran the latest update today.

[Nealius]

Syria, no scripts, no mods, no dynamic slots. Client replay fails to load. Server replay loads normal. Flown the same mission three times and 2 out of the 3 replays work fine. Only one of them is busted. No common denominator on what causes the load fail.

Server track (works): https://we.tl/t-QrbnG5PVIB

Client track (broken): https://we.tl/t-k8J4nE2T2P

[Hulkbust44]

Replay function only loads to a point then says "mission load fail." 

No tracks work, friend has the same problem. 

Search function yielded no similar results for this core issue.

 

[v2tec]

I can confirm that, but only for multiplayer tracks.

Also, the game stucks at the loading screen with the error message "mission load fail" and you have to kill dcs with the task manager, because there is no other option to continue or quit the game. Bad error handling.

 

null

Edited October 7, 2024 by v2tec

[sleighzy]

1. Drop a DCS log file here from when this problem occurs, need more information. Can be found in "C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS\Logs", will be either "dcs.log" or a text document named "dcs" in your Windows is hiding file extensions.

2. Some multiplayer servers use scripts, you may not be able to load these replays as you don't have the scripts on your local machine.

[FreightDog]

This has been happening to me since the last update every time I try and replay a track. Single player. Log attached. Doesn't crash, but briefly states "mission load fail" before just hanging unresponsive at "Terrain init: 1.vti".

 

I have to force DCS close from TM or closing the window from the taskbar.

dcs.log

[Nealius]

This is a widespread issue with reports scattered all over the forums. So far the blame has been pinned on "external scripts" or "large track files" when missions without scripts and small track files also fail.

 

[BIGNEWY]

feel free to add the track here so we can try it, but as mentioned above some servers use external scripts or data which create a problem for the replay system. 

I will merged the threads so we can all discuss it in one place. 

[Nealius]

Kola map, no mods, only two scripts are MOOSE and AIRBOSS. Client track fails to load. https://we.tl/t-iiXSt3M42j

Out of 6 tracks I've tried the past month or so, only half have worked, including ones with heavy external scripts. Single player, multiplayer, doesn't seem to make a difference. The ones with no mods and no scripts also fail. There's no correlation--at least on my machine--between these hangups and scripts, nor SP vs. MP. Each time the error log claims there to be terabytes or petabytes of missing data on .trk files that are only 100mb or less.

Edited October 11, 2024 by Nealius

[durp]

not that I can contribute much at all, but it worked end of last year and beginning of this year, some update broke it, regardless of 'external' scripts.
either 2.9.6 or 2.9.7 broke the replay system (again) and with the cinematic camera feature and such, I was hoping this would be tackled at some point, but now it just 'external' scripts.

 

 

[Phantom711]

@BIGNEWY @Nealius

Sorry to bring this up again...

What I discovered now is, that when I use the "Quit to desktop" option to leave the game (multiplayer), a nicely working replay is created. Same applies to other brute force measures to end the game (i.e. Task manager). If I leave via "Quit" or "Leave server" the replay comes up with "Mission Load Fail".

Sounds good, right? Well yes, but unfortunately replays that worked up to like 2 or 3 weeks ago (until September update?) now still load, but no clients spawn. ED...this is sabotage....

[BIGNEWY]

4 hours ago, Phantom711 said:

@BIGNEWY @Nealius

Sorry to bring this up again...

What I discovered now is, that when I use the "Quit to desktop" option to leave the game (multiplayer), a nicely working replay is created. Same applies to other brute force measures to end the game (i.e. Task manager). If I leave via "Quit" or "Leave server" the replay comes up with "Mission Load Fail".

Sounds good, right? Well yes, but unfortunately replays that worked up to like 2 or 3 weeks ago (until September update?) now still load, but no clients spawn. ED...this is sabotage....

I will mention it to the team and see if we can reproduce. But there is no guarantee that tracks will replay from previous versions, things can change in the core.

thank you  

[Nealius]

That's definitely an interesting observation. I always exit normally and noticed that the "lastmission" track that automatically saves is also corrupt if the manually saved (SP) or auto-saved (MP) track is also corrupt. I will test out the brute force method on SP and see how it works.

[Nealius]

After nearly a month of trying the "quit to desktop" method I've found that the "lastmission" track file is 100% functional for me.

[Nealius]

Update, "quit to desktop" method is not as foolproof as it once was. Multiplayer tracks never work. Singleplayer tracks with the F-15E also never work despite "quit to desktop." Logs are still claiming: Unexpected end of track fiber track/action. The "action" file in the .trk "track" folder is somehow corrupted. Another pattern with these corrupted tracks is that the "mission" file inside the .trk has an incorrect mission date format.

Orignal .miz file format:

["Day"] = 26,
["Year"] = 2024,
["Month"] = 12,

Corrupted .trk file format

["Year"] = 2024,
["Day"] = 26,
["Month"] = 12,

Normal .trk files do not have an altered mission date format, only these corrupted .trk files do. Whatever mechanism is altering the date format in the mission file of the .trk is perhaps also repsonsible for corrupting the track file in the action folder.

[silverdevil]

17 hours ago, Nealius said:

Update, "quit to desktop" method is not as foolproof as it once was. Multiplayer tracks never work. Singleplayer tracks with the F-15E also never work despite "quit to desktop." Logs are still claiming: Unexpected end of track fiber track/action. The "action" file in the .trk "track" folder is somehow corrupted. Another pattern with these corrupted tracks is that the "mission" file inside the .trk has an incorrect mission date format.

Orignal .miz file format:

["Day"] = 26,
["Year"] = 2024,
["Month"] = 12,

Corrupted .trk file format

["Year"] = 2024,
["Day"] = 26,
["Month"] = 12,

Normal .trk files do not have an altered mission date format, only these corrupted .trk files do. Whatever mechanism is altering the date format in the mission file of the .trk is perhaps also repsonsible for corrupting the track file in the action folder.

interesting and good find. can the MIZ TRK file be edited to the correct format?

Edited December 30, 2024 by silverdevil
changed MIZ to TRK.

[BIGNEWY]

7 hours ago, Nealius said:

Update, "quit to desktop" method is not as foolproof as it once was. Multiplayer tracks never work. Singleplayer tracks with the F-15E also never work despite "quit to desktop." Logs are still claiming: Unexpected end of track fiber track/action. The "action" file in the .trk "track" folder is somehow corrupted. Another pattern with these corrupted tracks is that the "mission" file inside the .trk has an incorrect mission date format.

Orignal .miz file format:

["Day"] = 26,
["Year"] = 2024,
["Month"] = 12,

Corrupted .trk file format

["Year"] = 2024,
["Day"] = 26,
["Month"] = 12,

Normal .trk files do not have an altered mission date format, only these corrupted .trk files do. Whatever mechanism is altering the date format in the mission file of the .trk is perhaps also repsonsible for corrupting the track file in the action folder.

I will ask the team about this

[Nealius]

Editing the format and repacking it into the .trk doesn't resolve the issue, unfortunately. The main issue is whatever is corrupting the "action" file.

Edited December 30, 2024 by Nealius

[speakinginsilver]

Hi, suffering this kind of random issue for quite long time, too. This one (https://we.tl/t-uRgrfmafJo), for example, ends in "mission load fail" with the following log message:

Cita

2025-01-06 21:08:51.349 INFO    Dispatcher (Main): loadMission C:\Users\Ivan\AppData\Local\Temp\DCS\tempMission.miz
2025-01-06 21:08:51.349 INFO    WORLDGENERAL (Main): loading mission from: "C:\Users\Ivan\AppData\Local\Temp\DCS\tempMission.miz"
2025-01-06 21:08:52.390 INFO    APP (Main): use_xRay: yes
2025-01-06 21:08:52.390 INFO    APP (Main): netfm_enable_coeff_switching: yes
2025-01-06 21:08:52.485 INFO    Dispatcher (Main): Terrain theatre PersianGulf
2025-01-06 21:08:52.505 INFO    EDCORE (Main): (dDispatcher)enterToState_:4
2025-01-06 21:08:52.505 INFO    Dispatcher (Main): Start
2025-01-06 21:08:52.509 INFO    ASYNCNET (Main): track: serverID=1, localID=13
2025-01-06 21:08:52.520 ERROR   Dispatcher (Main): Unexpected track event index track/net : idx = -2138305536

 

[SizzlepopBACON]

dcs.logHaving essentially the same issue still... tho my most recent attempt did turn up a different result, though, still a failiure to load. Instead of loading partially, then saying "Mission Load Fail" and promptly locking up, requiring a force quit from task manager to close DCS, as has been the norm for all my other tracks. This one loaded only about 1/6 of the way before blanking the screen and displaying the error message "C:\Users\*my username*\AppData\Local\Temp\DCS.openbeta\tempMission.miz:Unexpected end of track fiber track/net : idx = 10510, time = 1978.003000, missing at least 53382961 bytes". After copying the error code and clicking "ok" on the error pop-up, the game locked up on a black screen and again required and task manager force quit to escape. Log file is attached.

Honestly, ED, the first post reporting this issue was made in December 2023. It is now February 2025. That's over a year for those playing at home. This issue has still not been solved. IN OVER A YEAR. In that time, ED has released no less than TEN pieces of paid DLC. TEN. Nearly all at over 60 bucks a pop. With all the work going into making content that people will pay to access one would think there's at least an equal amount of effort going into back-end bug fixes and core game improvements. But considering that game-breaking issues like these which completely disable entire features of the game has gone unsolved for OVER A YEAR while TEN new paid DLCs were released, I have a funny feeling that there's essentially no resources going towards core game improvements in comparison to how many resources are going in to making paid DLC. And that, in my opinion is a real shame, and, in fact, is a pretty scummy and pathetic way to run a business. I read through this entire thread and the few messages put here by ED say nothing more than "external scripts don't seem to work". Yea, no <profanity>. My question is WHY? WHY do scripts (which are an advertised tool that is included in ED's own mission editor) completely break replays? WHY did they work before Dec 2023, but not since? And WHY is ED not putting more resources into fixing this, when its their OWN DAMN SCRIPTING FEATURE that's broken. Its not like its some third party plug-in that isn't made by ED that's breaking it. Its their own damn mission editor. 

Maybe the issue is so ingrained within the replay system that it would require a complete redesign to fix the issue... you know what I say to that? GOOD. Even when its working, the replay system we have where they literally just spawn everything in their starting positions and play back everyone's inputs is an archaic, inefficient, performance hogging, barely adequate way of doing things that badly needs to be completely trashed and replaced with a real replay system that lives up to modern standards. Sure, DCS is an old game, and many of the under the hood things are old too, so such drastic modernizations may be difficult, but that's ED's own damn fault. They could have been incrementally updating core features as they went, but NOOO, they decided all that mattered was content, content, content. And now that the game is so pathetically bloated and data-stuffed (381 GIGABYTES, what the actual <profanity>), and is being held together with gum and toothpicks, we're supposed to be understanding of how hard it is to make sweeping changes to outdated systems that they allowed to get freakishly outdated. I freaking love DCS and there truly is nothing like it, but cmon ED, you can do better than that. I believe in you.

[Cutterone]

I'm having the EXACT same issue as SizzlepopBACON in regards to the "new" error message when loading .trk files.  Any word @BIGNEWY from the team regarding what may be causeing this and/or a fix?

[BIGNEWY]

On 3/17/2025 at 5:08 AM, Cutterone said:

I'm having the EXACT same issue as SizzlepopBACON in regards to the "new" error message when loading .trk files.  Any word @BIGNEWY from the team regarding what may be causeing this and/or a fix?

Hi, 

the track replay system was initially designed for debug purposes, large complex MP missions, or mission with many scripts or unofficial mods can create problems for the system. Also different versions of DCS may corrupt older track replays. The system is temperamental and to give it the best chance its a good idea to keep tracks as short as possible. We are always trying to improve it, but it requires free dev time, which is not always available.