The Mystery of the Disappearing Contracts

[maddog59]

I see where a number of people have reported contracts disappearing, usually in relation to doing either a mission to Minmus or an interplanetary mission. I'm here to report that the bug appears to have victimized me, even though I was no near interplanetary or even intra-moon space. I have a  mission outbound to Minmus, and one returning from a solar orbit, but several days out from needing my attention.  I have a save point from yesterday showing 8 contracts; today all but one of them is gone. Between then and now all I did was complete a single contract to do some observations on Kerbin, and my own mission to expand my orbital platform, as well as played around with a couple of SSTO flights. The only new mod I've installed recently was Stage Recovery, but the save point is from well after it was installed. 

It won't be a big deal to re-do the contract (tedious, but easy); and re-expanding my orbital platform will be good practice. Has anyone else had this happen? And for any of the developers on the forum, please let me know which files (if any) that you'd like to see, in case you think there may be a clue on how to fix it.

[Mikenike]

On 11/28/2020 at 5:43 PM, maddog59 said:

I see where a number of people have reported contracts disappearing, usually in relation to doing either a mission to Minmus or an interplanetary mission. I'm here to report that the bug appears to have victimized me, even though I was no near interplanetary or even intra-moon space. I have a  mission outbound to Minmus, and one returning from a solar orbit, but several days out from needing my attention.  I have a save point from yesterday showing 8 contracts; today all but one of them is gone. Between then and now all I did was complete a single contract to do some observations on Kerbin, and my own mission to expand my orbital platform, as well as played around with a couple of SSTO flights. The only new mod I've installed recently was Stage Recovery, but the save point is from well after it was installed. 

It won't be a big deal to re-do the contract (tedious, but easy); and re-expanding my orbital platform will be good practice. Has anyone else had this happen? And for any of the developers on the forum, please let me know which files (if any) that you'd like to see, in case you think there may be a clue on how to fix it.

I'd start by looking at the bugtracker. I'll tag some of the devs for you. I don't see why they would have disappeared on you, if they would have, it should have been during or shortly after the install of the mod. @SQUAD, @JPLRepo, @Just Jim, I don't know who of y'all would handle this, so I tagged all of you.

[Just Jim]

@Mikenike That would be me. 
@maddog59 I have not come across this issue myself, sorry.  My first question would be whether that mod you mention has anything to do with it or not.
We can't really do much with mod-related bugs... those tend to fall on the mod makers. 
If it's happening in a stock game, however, that's a different ballgame.
Either way, I'm not seeing anything in the tracker, so would you mind writing up a bug report for it, please?  I can't really write it myself because I haven't actually seen the issue (yet).  
Here's the link to the bug tracker:

https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/projects/ksp/issues

If possible, please attach a copy of the career save. 
 

[maddog59]

10 hours ago, Mikenike said:

I'd start by looking at the bugtracker. I'll tag some of the devs for you. I don't see why they would have disappeared on you, if they would have, it should have been during or shortly after the install of the mod. @SQUAD, @JPLRepo, @Just Jim, I don't know who of y'all would handle this, so I tagged all of you.

Thank you very much. 

4 hours ago, Just Jim said:

@Mikenike That would be me. 
@maddog59 I have not come across this issue myself, sorry.  My first question would be whether that mod you mention has anything to do with it or not.
We can't really do much with mod-related bugs... those tend to fall on the mod makers. 
If it's happening in a stock game, however, that's a different ballgame.
Either way, I'm not seeing anything in the tracker, so would you mind writing up a bug report for it, please?  I can't really write it myself because I haven't actually seen the issue (yet).  
Here's the link to the bug tracker:

https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/projects/ksp/issues

If possible, please attach a copy of the career save. 
 

Thank you @Just Jim; I'm afraid I'm a bit of a newbie ... when you say "a copy of the career save" could you tell me the file I should look for and where it might be? 

Unfortunately, I'm in the habit of deleting my excess save points every couple of days, so I have a feeling I may have inadvertently deleted the one that would be helpful.  

Also, can you tell me what is meant by 'a stock game'? I always assumed it was a game that was played without any mods whatsoever; purely what came off the shelf before adding anything such as MechJeb, KAS/KIS, etc. Is that correct? 

Thanks for your patience! 

Edited December 1, 2020 by maddog59

[Just Jim]

@maddog59 A stock game is no mods, yes. 

What I meant by a game save is a copy of your game that's found in this folder:

C:\... \Kerbal Space Program\saves\

There should be a folder in there with your career game's name on it. If you can zip a copy of that folder... or make a copy of the persistant.cfg file found inside that folder... either will do, actually. If you attach that then I (or whoever is looking at that bug report) can open your career game on their end to try and determine what's going on. The more information you can provide on a bug report, the better... Even if you forgot something and add in a comment after. Anything that might help make the devs job easier.

And you are most welcome... I'm glad to help answer any questions I can... all of us on the team are.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Just Jim

[Mikenike]

10 hours ago, maddog59 said:

Thank you very much.

Anytime man, if you need anymore help on anything else (other than this, I think @Just Jim's got this covered) just mention me and I'll see what I can do to help you out.

[paul_c]

Its not something as simple as, they're expiring due to going past their expiry date? Its easy to do a mission, which takes you say a few hours on the computer, but in that you've time-warped ahead several years to align some planets/etc.

[maddog59]

5 hours ago, paul_c said:

Its not something as simple as, they're expiring due to going past their expiry date? Its easy to do a mission, which takes you say a few hours on the computer, but in that you've time-warped ahead several years to align some planets/etc.

No, 'fraid not ... all of them have durations of still had several years available to complete. 

[maddog59]

17 hours ago, Just Jim said:

@maddog59 A stock game is no mods, yes. 

What I meant by a game save is a copy of your game that's found in this folder:

C:\... \Kerbal Space Program\saves\

There should be a folder in there with your career game's name on it. If you can zip a copy of that folder... or make a copy of the persistant.cfg file found inside that folder... either will do, actually. If you attach that then I (or whoever is looking at that bug report) can open your career game on their end to try and determine what's going on. The more information you can provide on a bug report, the better... Even if you forgot something and add in a comment after. Anything that might help make the devs job easier.

And you are most welcome... I'm glad to help answer any questions I can... all of us on the team are.

Done ... I wasn't able to find a .cfg file in the folder, so I just zipped up the entire mess and attached it: Issue #26749 

Thank you very much ... BTW, I just want to put out there that I've NEVER been one to spend time on video games, but KSP has me as close to addiction as I care to be!   You guys and gals have done an AMAZING job with this! 

[Just Jim]

@maddog59 perfect! I can't promise when it will get fixed... that's not my call... but that's exactly what we need for the Dev's. Next step is to get it confirmed. I'll try and take a look as soon as I can, but I don't think it's any big secret  at this point to say we're all really busy on the next release.  The big thing I'm glad to hear is you were able to work around it. 

14 hours ago, maddog59 said:

Thank you very much ... BTW, I just want to put out there that I've NEVER been one to spend time on video games, but KSP has me as close to addiction as I care to be!   You guys and gals have done an AMAZING job with this! 

Oh, thank you! That's awesome! I will absolutely share this with the rest of the team!