Author Topic: Spontaneous texture blackouts & long loading times  (Read 432 times)

Offline SchindlerLift2844

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Spontaneous texture blackouts & long loading times
« on: March 09, 2021, 04:21:05 am »
I am here to report a bug with the Skyscrapersim software (1.11 Alpha for macOS) that has frustrated me ever since I first discovered it. I know the simulator is no longer being developed, so I am more asking for a way to prevent this from happening rather than a patch release. I know what I'm saying in this post might sound a bit like a rant, but I'm really just bringing up awareness of this bug.

So, I'll be running my brand new building, just about to record it or Ctrl-R-reload it to see some new code I've just added, and then...boom! All the textures, apart from those used in the Caelum sky system, suddenly turn black, and so far, the only solution I've found is to just Ctrl-R-reload the building. It used to be worse, now it's just the textures blacking out, but it used to sometimes teleport the camera object miles away instead of unloading the textures, at which point I'd just have to exit the building entirely and load it back up. The worst thing is when the building has only just loaded and the textures unload almost instantaneously.

I've been keeping a log of the times this bug has occurred since February, and the most common situations seem to be when I'm around or inside a moving lift, but not moving the camera that much. It also tends to happen about 15 minutes after the building has loaded, but sometimes it happens immediately and sometimes not at all.

What do you guys reckon I could do to combat this bug? I can guarantee that it's not my GPU, because the Caelum textures are still there and it only does it inside the Skyscrapersim window. For those wanting my computer specs, it's a late 2015 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro i5 with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, running macOS X High Sierra. I don't think it's the building size either, because it's happened on buildings as small as the Simple building as well as buildings as big as the Sunshine State Tower. I am also not running any programs in the background or using Skyscrapersim in fullscreen mode, but I do use the app in freelook all the time and I have put on a custom menu and done some INI modding.

-SL2844
P.S. If you're wanting a screenshot of the bug, I'll need to catch an image of it when it next happens, and because it's an unpredictable bug, I have no idea when it will next happen. At the time of writing, the last time it happened was today in a building called Dual Towers.

P.P.S. Nvm, I managed to get a screenshot just there:


« Last Edit: May 05, 2021, 03:50:24 am by SchindlerLift2844 »

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Offline SchindlerLift2844

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I'm back with some updates on this bug:

* I can confirm that it is not caused by being around a moving lift and not moving the camera too much. In the last week, I would have just been walking towards a building entrance and it would have happened.
* I can also confirm that it is definitely a macOS-exclusive bug. I have not seen it happen at all on Windows or Ubuntu, but I am still going to continue using macOS thanks to its reliability.
* It happens more regularly on Beno Building Creator buildings than hand-coded ones.
* When it happens, it seems to mess up the camera coordinates on the Simulator Control Panel. Two values in CameraRotation can disappear and the CameraPosition can just get set to a mad number.
* I'm starting to think that it might be to do with my computer storage or the amount of buildings and data that I have. I have over 2000 buildings and over 3000 pieces of data at this time. This might be the most likely cause, because when I first got Skyscrapersim on this computer, it worked perfectly. When I got G1DP and the EG881, KW and June IPs, it happened intermittently but not too commonly. I then had a clean sweep where it didn't happen for a LONG time, even though I did nothing to my buildings folder, but then I ran a custom building on Random Activity and it happened. Now, 1 in 2 buildings I load will have this happen to them.

-SL2844

Offline SchindlerLift2844

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Yes, I know this is a decently old topic, but this bug is still happening to me and I'm just trying to give you every little bit of data about it that I can muster.

Lately, I haven't been running Skyscrapersim that much. I used to run about 5 buildings every day, and sometimes even more than that, and I'd spend a good while in each building. That time was documented in my last post, when the bug was at its worst in terms of this year, but now that I tend to just run 1 building every day, and sometimes not even that, I haven't seen a texture blackout in a long time.

This might be the connection here, because when I don't use Skyscrapersim for ages, it takes longer to load, but the bug isn't there. If I use it really heavily, it doesn't take long to load at all, but the bug is there. So it seems like the solution is just tied into my daily Skyscrapersim usage XD

However, this long loading phenomenon might also be a macOS bug. When I first got Skyscrapersim, it opened in a flash, and I couldn't see any of the OpenGL "let's download this plugin blah blah blah blah" stuff getting spat out into the console, just the "all done" message and everything under it. As I added more buildings and data, the loading time slowed down. Even when I was nearing 900-1000 buildings, the loading time was still good, but now that I have 2000 buildings and 3000 pieces of data, the loading time is very noticeable.

So I can finally say that the first issue (texture blackouts) has been unofficially solved, but who knows, maybe it'll come back again XD. The second issue might be a problem, and it is concerning me that it is a problem with my computer (see specs on original post). I am slowly filling up my internal SSD and I only have 8 gigs of RAM, so I think, no mind if it relates to the problem or not, I am going to run a massive computer clear-out and maybe even delete off some Skyscrapersim stuff that has never been used.

As always, any help is appreciated.

-SL2844