Out of Memory Error

[Baron]

So, this happened while testing the latest build of my game:



I'm pretty sure what I did.  In the editor I had moved the main character's starting room to the current room I was working on, and then changed his view to something room-appropriate.  Then, from the room editor in character-mode, I switched the character back to his original room using the frame at the bottom right.  Still in the same room, still using the window at bottom right in character-mode, I changed his view back to normal.  But by that time he wasn't in that room -I think that confused AGS.
   
Anyway, current symptoms are whenever that room is run, random character frames keep popping up, two or three times at once, all over the place until the game crashes with the error posted above.  I have had no success fixing this by retracing my steps and expect I will have to rebuild the room or, sigh, start over again from my last backup (maybe 10 hours of work ago).  Unless... unless someone's got an idea of how to fix this?

[Slasher]

Hi

I had a similar error (PP=200) a while back and it appears there was a corruption of the Room file (*.crm) and I had to rebuild the room.

[Baron]

Yeah, I figured as much....  Still, that'd probably take less than an hour, so it's probably the best case scenario.  Is deleting the .crm best-practice, or is there a way to do it through the editor?

EDIT: I've done some experimenting and I'm still getting the memory error (but not the on-screen craziness with sprites) in other rooms as well.  Is this a game breaking contagion, or will surgically removing the original offending room suffice to cure my baby?

[Slasher]

or is there a way to do it through the editor?

You should:

In the Room Node right click the problem Room and choose Delete this Room.

This way you still have a copy of the Room crm in it's games folder for reference and I suggest you rename it like Room 6 ORIGINAL etc.

[monkey0506]

I'm not sure what's actually causing it, but you may find that doing a "Rebuild all files" (not just "Build EXE", down beneath that) helps. Hopefully, mayhaps.

[Baron]

Yeah, no luck with "Rebuilding All Files", nor with just deleting the offending room (I'm still getting the memory error in other rooms).  So, I guess it's back to the backup time....  .  Fortunately I was able to salvage all the script contents that I've worked on since the last backup, so that should cut my redoing time by more than half.  Still, I'm not looking forward to the tedium. 

Is this a known bug?  Is it possible to save someone else this headache? 

[Wyz]

I'm not really sure what causes this bug but a few general ways files could get corrupted:



• Power outage while you're working on your project
• Shutting down your computer without first closing the editor (I advise first closing the editor, wait a period, and then shutting it down)
• Writing the file contents to a external storage device like a USB stick and removing it while the project is still open or without properly detaching it.
• Broken hard drive

These are very general and go for any kind of editor; It is however possible this is something caused by AGS itself (like an uninitialised variable for instance) but is potentially very hard to track down. It would help if you could first exclude causes unrelated to AGS like the ones above.

[Baron]

Hey Wyz,
      No, nothing like any of that happened.  It was as I described above: I just edited a character in the properties window of a room after I had just used the same window to remove that character from the room.  I am convinced that's what led to the corruption -I did nothing else that wasn't routine. 
      Anyway, I went back to my backup and had got myself caught up in less than 3 hours -it helped that I could still see all the code in the corrupt version, but it was still a pain to redo it all.  Anyway, that's all behind us now... I just hope no one else has to go through the hassle.  Version 3.2.1 has been very stable for me otherwise.

       Thanks for everyone's help!