Doom Builder Crashed? Didn't Save? One Weird Trick To Get Your Work Back

[jmickle66666666]

when your doombuilder 2 crashes (probably because you dared to ctrl-z and roll the dice), stop everything you are doing and follow these simple steps:

step 1) take a deep breath, calm down a sec. don't worry, you didn't lose your map. and even though you obviously weren't saving (/enough), don't take this out on yourself. we can fix this together

step 2) navigate to your AppData folder, it should be in your user directory, but it'll be a hidden folder. You can enable showing hidden folders in your folder options (hit alt -> tools -> folder options -> view -> Show hidden files, folders and drives)

step 3) now in the appdata folder, go to Local -> Temp.

step 4) inside that folder is a buncha junk. there will, however, be one or more folders inside with 8 character names (handy example http://i.imgur.com/T6A5Nrw.png those 3 in the middle)

step 5) go inside them (if there's more than one, check the date created/modified of the files inside, and find the most recent)

step 6) there'll be a bunch of files with the extension .snapshot, these don't interest us, we want the one file with the extension .temp

step 7) copy this file somewhere safe, and rename it to *.wad

step 8) open it up in doombuilder and voila

NOTES: it'll change the map name from MAP01 or whatever to TEMPMAP. you'll need to change this back before you can test.

I think that these are created every time you test, but I might be wrong. I test pretty often, even just to check out architecture, so mine is always not far from when it crashed. at most 10 minutes work. however, I dunno how up to date it is if you don't test often. maybe it has nothing to do with it? who knows.

EDIT: scifista confirms that you don't need to test. thanks :) this is good news

The .temp file is created every time you do some change to the map in the editor (vertices/lines/sectors/things/anything), you don't even need to test the map, I've just tried it.

oh and step 9) thank me later

[Guest Unregistered account]

You sir


Truly r

A heroe

[scifista42]

jmickle66666666 said:

I think that these are created every time you test, but I might be wrong. I test pretty often, even just to check out architecture, so mine is always not far from when it crashed. at most 10 minutes work. however, I dunno how up to date it is if you don't test often. maybe it has nothing to do with it? who knows.

The .temp file is created every time you do some change to the map in the editor (vertices/lines/sectors/things/anything), you don't even need to test the map, I've just tried it.

Thanks for the tip! Indeed it works! The worst trouble was to find the exact 8-letter directory among many of similar ones with random names, because Total Commander apparently can't sort directories by date, only normal files.

[snapshot]

Wow,thanks for the tip ... Your my hero <3

[esselfortium]

This is supergreat to know about. Thanks jmickle!

[mrthejoshmon]

Just used task manager to kill Doombuilder with a sacrificial goat map in it.

I can confirm this works splendidly, but I imagine it would get complicated if you killed it (Caused a crash) upon attempting to save the map, I might go see if that does anything different.

[40oz]

thats funny you posted this because I was just looking at doombuilder and how it manages to let you test changes without saving the map. I knew there had to be a temporary wad file somewhere!

[jmickle66666666]

mrthejoshman: i dont think that would break it, but that's a guess.

40oz: precisely the thinking that led me to this discovery :) (plus the utter dismay at losing one of my maps i'd worked for hours on haha)

[snapshot]

Always knew that DB Generates "tmp" file somewhere,but never thought it can be re-used .. >_<

[dg93]

Whatever you do, don't try opening your WAD in two different Doom editors then saving while both editors are open. I've fucked up quite a few WAD files by doing that with XWE and Doombuilder at the same time. Thank goodness I was able to salvage data from the backup files.

[scifista42]

the_miano said:

Whatever you do, don't try opening your WAD in two different Doom editors then saving while both editors are open. I've fucked up quite a few WAD files by doing that with XWE and Doombuilder at the same time.

I think it's worth noting that the very same thing also happens with SLADE3 and Doom Builder 2 together (maybe the wad won't be entirely corrupted, but there might be problems), just saying it before XWE criticizers arrive.

[Gez]

scifista42 said:

I think it's worth noting that the very same thing also happens with SLADE3 and Doom Builder 2 together (maybe the wad won't be entirely corrupted, but there might be problems), just saying it before XWE criticizers arrive.

No it doesn't; not if you do things right.

How to do things right: open your file in SLADE 3, then use the "Open in Doom Builder 2" feature.

[dg93]

scifista42 said:

I think it's worth noting that the very same thing also happens with SLADE3 and Doom Builder 2 together (maybe the wad won't be entirely corrupted, but there might be problems), just saying it before XWE criticizers arrive.

I've never used SLADE3 before, but I do use XWE often. I just dislike how sometimes it screws up my data in the WAD. Most of the time I use XWE just to replace sounds, sprites, and midis. I usually have bad luck whenever I implement new textures/patches.

[scifista42]

Gez said:

No it doesn't; not if you do things right.

How to do things right: open your file in SLADE 3, then use the "Open in Doom Builder 2" feature.

I didn't know about that possibility, thanks!

[mrthejoshmon]

Doombuilder 2 and XWE killed AIRBSE.wad...

Nothing of value was lost.

-

Anyway, it doesn't totally destroy it if you kill Doombuilder whilst saving (so that's nice).

I honestly think a "recover TEMP" option should be implemented to let people do this automatically through Doombuilder.

[printz]

Thankfully Doom Builder 2 hasn't really crashed that badly for me. Sometimes I would get an exception that gets caught either by the framework or by Doom Builder (not sure which, exactly). In any case, it doesn't abort the program and I can continue working.

I would still get a crash if I had a very complex map, with lots of tiny sectors, normally only generated by software. Did you people ever get program-exit crashes on DB2?

[Quasar]

It's really a great situation to be in, with the best Doom editor so far created now totally unmaintained and yet still full of silly bugs like "Index out of range" or "No such key in collection", most of which shouldn't be fatal if they were properly caught, and also written in a language that almost nobody in the community is an expert in so that it cannot simply be picked up by somebody else >_>

[printz]

Quasar said:

It's really a great situation to be in, with the best Doom editor so far created now totally unmaintained and yet still full of silly bugs like "Index out of range" or "No such key in collection", most of which shouldn't be fatal if they were properly caught, and also written in a language that almost nobody in the community is an expert in so that it cannot simply be picked up by somebody else >_>

1. There is GZDoom Builder, maintained by MaxEd.
2. If nobody maintains Doom Builder, someone should ask CodeImp for the project to transfer it.
3. Changes from GZDoom Builder may be backported to Doom Builder then, keeping only special GZDoom stuff for MaxEd's port, as it should be.
4. C# is very intuitive, unfamiliarity is not a problem.

[jmickle66666666]

doombuilder 2 is open source, and i've got some experience in c# but I need to spend a lot more time looking at how the application works. it's kinda complex.

[IMX]

Leaving a comment for future reference. DB has crashed on me like three times in this year.

[Kappes Buur]

Many mappers here on Doomworld seem to have succumbed to the impression that GZDoom Builder
is a totally different editor from Doombuilder2. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Doombuilder2 is wholly contained in GZDoom Builder. And GZDomm Builder, at its best, is all
about enhancements and improvements to Doombuilder2.

Doombuilder2 development was stopped at revision 1630, when Codeimp handed further development
over to MaxEd. From that point forward, MaxEd, in holding with his personal interest in
3D modeling, added support for the advanced features found in GZDoom.

While the main target audience is indeed the GZDoom mapper, that does not mean that GZDoom Builder
can only be used for GZDoom mapping. Quite the contrary, the following engines are supported:

Boom
Doom
Doom2
GZDoom
Zandronum
ZDoom

Action Doom
Chex Quest
Chex Quest 3
Harmony

with the various mapping formats, as applicable.


Since r1630 many improvements in stability, extensibility, accessibility and speed have been made.
So, even the vanilla Doom mapper can take advantage of the added speed and stability of various
GZDoom Builder features. For the mapper who wants to incorporate more eye candy there is ongoing
support for UDMF. The latest GZDoom Builder can be found here.

The suggestion of stripping GZDoom Builder features from GZDoom Builder to make it into a
Doombuilder2 clone is, at best, an inane idea. If you do not wish to use the features offered
by GZDoom, then simply click an icon and the "problem" is taken care of.

If somebody wants to be involved with the GZDoom Builder development scene, then contact MaxEd.
His homepage is http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32392

[edit]
added a link to latest GZDB

[Da Werecat]

Kappes Buur said:

If you do not wish to use the features offered
by GZDoom, then simply click an icon and the "problem" is taken care of.

Which icon?

[Kappes Buur]

Da Werecat said:

Which icon?

[Da Werecat]

Well, it won't unclutter the interface. One of the main reasons I still haven't switched to GZDB is the interface overloaded with things I don't need.

Perhaps maintaining two editors is not the best solution. An alternative would be to allow switching between two different layouts. Two different sets of default controls also wouldn't hurt (GZDB has slightly different bindings).

[Zed]

Da Werecat said:

Perhaps maintaining two editors is not the best solution. An alternative would be to allow switching between two different layouts. Two different sets of default controls also wouldn't hurt (GZDB has slightly different bindings).

I don't know if I understand this correctly, but maybe something like an "editor launcher" could work?

[printz]

Primarily the name GZDoom Builder makes it sound like it's focused and optimized for GZDoom, leaving non-GZDoom variants as things that just happen to exist already. I hope I am wrong.

[Gez]

It's not entirely wrong, but bugfixes happen in common areas as well. For example, there's a reason Kaiser is recommending GZDoom Builder for Strife VE editing, and that's not because of GZDoom editing features.

[Tango]

yeah since I've been using GZDB crashes have been extremely rare, and even when they do happen, it's never actually messed with the wad file itself. not to say that the original DB(2) is not amazing, but I wouldn't want to use anything but GZDB nowadays

Da Werecat said:

Well, it won't unclutter the interface. One of the main reasons I still haven't switched to GZDB is the interface overloaded with things I don't need.

Perhaps maintaining two editors is not the best solution. An alternative would be to allow switching between two different layouts. Two different sets of default controls also wouldn't hurt (GZDB has slightly different bindings).

aren't controls in both fully customizable?

[Gez]

To a degree, but you can't always use modifier keys (shift, ctrl, alt) in remaps because for some actions there's hardcoded modifier effects for them (like changing texture offsets by 1 instead of by 8, this kind of things).

[Quasar]

printz said:

Primarily the name GZDoom Builder makes it sound like it's focused and optimized for GZDoom, leaving non-GZDoom variants as things that just happen to exist already. I hope I am wrong.

Well, I don't see Eternity Engine on that list of ports.