Author Topic: REQUEST: Help us repro a bug in the 'targeted' SEXP  (Read 2664 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
REQUEST: Help us repro a bug in the 'targeted' SEXP
Please load BP2 Act 3 mission 'Her Finest Hour'. Designate a target for the artillery ships to attack (it should be YELLOW after this). A good choice is one of the gas miners fleeing the battle. Keep it targeted up to and through the moment it is destroyed.

Report the outcome. (We believe that this will cause you to be unable to designate/undesignate targets for the artillery ships to attack from that point on. UPDATE: We are not sure this will actually trigger the outcome - see below - but please try it anyway!)

Bug already in Mantis and The_E has generated a proposed fix.

UPDATE: Further testing has narrowed the repro conditions further. We believe the issue may be tied to the last argument in the argument list. In addition to the above steps, please try destroying Mjolnir Bravo. See if this triggers the lockup in the target designation system.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2014, 02:44:37 pm by General Battuta »

 

Offline Echelon9

  • 210
Re: REQUEST: Help us repro a bug in the 'targeted' SEXP

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

  • 211
  • The Cthulhu programmer himself!
    • Skype
    • Steam
    • Twitter
Re: REQUEST: Help us repro a bug in the 'targeted' SEXP
As of SVN revision 10748, this bug should be fixed for good.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Goober5000

  • HLP Loremaster
  • Moderator
  • 214
    • Goober5000 Productions
Re: REQUEST: Help us repro a bug in the 'targeted' SEXP
Many thanks to AdmiralRalwood for some dedicated footwork, as well as a degree of perspicacity unusual for someone unfamiliar with the code.  I have awarded him a Gold Star for his efforts.

 

Offline Dragon

  • Citation needed
  • 212
  • The sky is the limit.
Re: REQUEST: Help us repro a bug in the 'targeted' SEXP
Congratulations on squashing this. :) Bugs like that are often very though to nail. Oddly enough, I don't remember ever having this problem when testing that mission (despite doing the repro steps many times over the course of testing).

  

Offline General Battuta

  • Poe's Law In Action
  • 214
  • i wonder when my postcount will exceed my iq
Re: REQUEST: Help us repro a bug in the 'targeted' SEXP
We had the problem lots and lots of times, that's why we were aware of it. I hit it nearly every time I played the mission. We ended up triaging it as a won't-fix bug because it was so damned elusive we assumed it was a deep engine problem with SEXP handling (and it was!)