Disappearing contracts on Mac OSX

[Plusck]

Hi, this is getting to be a game-breaker. After trying something new, all active contracts simply disappear. This means I keep the advances from the previous 10 accepted active contracts, but I had a few I was working hard on and it kinda ruins the fun :/

This is the third time it happened, just now. I quit immediately and I've tried looking for the "logs" since I saw a request for something like that in another thread, but can't see where they might be.

My speculation: it is the fact of entering into a new area of game-play that triggers the generation of a new type of contract.

For example, first time contracts disappeared: I had been to Minmus a couple of times, then decided to send a probe out towards Duna. So for the first time I was actually controlling a spacecraft outside Kerbins SOI. As soon as I went back to the space centre, all active contracts had disappeared, but now I got contracts about exploring other planets (rather than the stock "fly by Duna" which came up very early on with no expiry date).

Second time: I had just acquired drilling tech and sent a drill ship up to Minmus. Back at the space centre all contracts had disappeared, but now I had new ones offered such as hauling ore from the Mun.

This last time: I tried out Mk2 fuselages for the first time - sent to Minmus to complete an easy contract. Lack of a "mission accomplished" message implied all was not well. However, although all active contracts have disappeared I don't see any significant change in the offered contracts.

[Plusck]

Oh sorry - I forgot to give the details:

Build id 00861 / OSX 10.6.8 / First install, no mods (but I previously tried the old demo in 2013 and the newest demo last month) / player log here but I relaunched the game after losing the contracts.

[sal_vager]

Hi Plusck, do you have a save from before this happened so we can see what contracts you had? Also if you can reproduce this the logs from that event would be really useful.

Unfortunately restarting KSP overwrote your log so I can't see anything wrong there.

Edited November 9, 2015 by sal_vager

[Plusck]

Yeah, it was stupid to restart before finding the logs.

Is a quicksave good enough? This was what I went back to after posting the thread: trying to recover a mucked-up Mun outpost contract with more fuel.

After completing that contract, I accepted an easy 10-person Minmus orbit contract (no lab or fuel or anything required) and unlocked a bunch of Mk2 fuselage bits for it. It was while on the outward leg to Minmus that I switched to another ship from the map screen. Going back to the Mk2 ship/plane, I noticed that my credits weren't visible. This actually happens quite a lot - I have the impression it happens if you switch out to another vehicle while still able to revert the flight - so I didn't realise there was a problem until the contract completion message failed to appear.

[Plusck]

OK, so it's finally happened again.

This is now 1.0.5 build 1028, with a career savegame originally started under 1.0.4. Direct download, so the save folder is the only thing (together with the VAB thumbnails) that was carried across from the previous version.

I don't know if it is related, but I was switching between craft in the map view quite a bit - partly because the game was often stopping me from placing manouver nodes.

Luckily I have a savegame; haven't managed to reproduce the error though.

Log file: dead contracts log

And quicksave not long beforehand: quicksave shortly before returning to Kerbin

Edited November 30, 2015 by Plusck
a quicksave was requested earlier

[Plusck]

Aaaaaand... it happened again.

This is again - build 1.0.5 build 1028. Log file: New Player.log

Again, this happened when switching between craft in the map view.

The ship I was controlling ("GILLY asteroid miner mk2b" in the logs) was not letting me place any manoeuvre nodes. I double clicked on another ship (probably "GILLY drill ship", but "EVE lander and return ship" was right next to it. These two were within physics range of one another, but not the asteroid miner). Got suspicious about the scene change (which was long and dark) and checked the contract info : all gone.

 

I would appreciate some feedback on this, given that I've been producing the logs and a save as requested...

[sal_vager]

I see this @Plusck.

Quote

ContractList: Contract config is invalid

Repeated over and over, then this near the end.

Quote

[Contracts App]: No contract found while attempting to refresh contracts list

But I don't know how it can get like this, I am seeing some weird stuff when you loaded the Gilly drill ship though.

Quote

[RESOURCES] No Implementation of IsSituationValid in derived class

...no TransferDialogSpawner module found on part definition. Skipping...

PartModule is null.

dT is NaN! tA: 2.28077268600464, E: 0, M: 0, T: NaN

How old is Gilly drill ship?  I'm wondering if the 1.0.5 changes were enough to break contracts even if vessels from 1.0.4 are used.

I have not been able to reproduce this yet though either with your save or mine, I'll ask @Arsonide to take a look, he knows the contract system inside out.

[Plusck]

Thanks for taking a look at this.

Four of the five ships around Gilly were certainly launched post-1.0.5, including the three involved here. The fifth one was on rails all the time and I don't think it's even mentioned in the logs.

Likewise for the logs from 30 November.

However, the model for Gilly drill ship (or rather, one section of it, carried over from another model) does date from 1.0.4.

On the other hand, I'm wondering whether there might be a more general problem with my save regarding the LV-N. In my career save, it is still listed as "experimental" even though I have puchased it. I had assumed this was intended due to the nature of the beast, but it isn't the case in sandbox mode so now I wonder.

I originally got it as a test part, and I think that was under 1.0.4. It there is one thing that is certainly common to all cases where my contract has disappeared, it is the *experimental* LV-N.

It isn't on the Gilly drill ship, but is on the asteroid miner and Eve base/return ship.

[sal_vager]

That may be it, I don't think I switched to any craft with an LV-N though so that may be why I couldn't reproduce it.

Usually the experimental parts are recovered by the player, I hadn't heard of experimental parts causing this but it may be because it's from 1.0.4

I'll try the asteroid miner.

[Plusck]

Thanks again for looking at this - but I'm really not sure you should be spending time trying to reproduce the problem.

I really couldn't say what it is about the specific situation which causes the contracts to disappear, but there is nothing inherently different about what I'm doing compared to all the other times when it doesn't break. The only thing that I can say with some certainty is that the last two times (i.e. under 1.0.5) I've been switching between craft in the map view, and that at least one of the craft whose physics were loaded at the time of the switch had an LV-N.

The obvious "fix" would be NOT to switch between craft but go back to the space centre each time... but that's a bit like fixing an occasionally-deadly door by going all the way round the house instead.

The LV-N may be pure coincidence, but it is the only thing in all my parts which, in the career save, appears in blue in VAB with "** EXPERIMENTAL **" in the description. I had a contract to test it, which IIRC I completed after unlocking the tech tree for it, but the contract was prior to the first loss of contracts so (since the first time I didn't have a savegame to revert to, and continued playing regardless) there is no archive for it in the science building.

 

[sal_vager]

Thing is, if I can reproduce it in your save I can try the same in a completely new 1.0.5 save, with and without an experimental part, if the issue is because it's an experimental parts from a 1.0.4 save then it should be unlikely to occur again.

If it's reproducible in 1.0.5 then there's a fault in the contracts and it's likely to recur.

[Arsonide]

Contracts disappearing is usually a symptom of a cascading exception of some sort. Looking at the log here, I'm seeing a great deal of exceptions that might be causing it. I will look over this.

[Plusck]

Hmm.

Looking at what I wrote the last-but-one time, another thing that was common to the last two times was that the map was bugging out and not letting me place manoeuvre nodes. In the last instance, I think I managed to switch vessels by double-clicking on the map.

If you could tell me what that line "dT is NaN..." means (and any of the other errors seen in both logs), I could maybe try and reproduce the error myself.

Also, I've PM'd you a link with more savefiles if you wish.

[Arsonide]

"dT is NaN" means that an orbit is attempting to process a number that is not a number, like a complex number, or infinity, or something. You can typically read that as "an orbit is misbehaving"...and reading through your other log here with the OrbitTargeter null references, that does not surprise me. The orbit issues might simply be symptoms of the original problem as well though. The important thing is to find what initially pushed the boulder. Right now we're just seeing it roll down the mountain smashing into things.