Undocking Not Working---How to Hack?

[Geschosskopf]

I docked a ship to a station and it stayed there through weeks of gametime and quits and restarts of the game.  Eventually, it was time to undock and go home.  So I right-clicked on the joined ports.  Only the station's docking port had an "undock" option.  I clicked it and the option went away, but the ships remained joined together.  Trying to separate with torque rotated the whole assembly.  Trying to separate with RCS made all thrusters on both ship and station fire.  IOW, they were still functionally joined, not simply stuck together somehow.

I looked in the persistence file and the 2 ships are still listed as 1 Vessel, as expected.  Both docking ports say "state = Disengage".

So, how do I fix this?  Do I need to edit the persistence file?  If so, how?

Thanks.

[bewing]

50 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

I docked a ship to a station and it stayed there through weeks of gametime and quits and restarts of the game.  Eventually, it was time to undock and go home.  So I right-clicked on the joined ports.  Only the station's docking port had an "undock" option.  I clicked it and the option went away, but the ships remained joined together.  Trying to separate with torque rotated the whole assembly.  Trying to separate with RCS made all thrusters on both ship and station fire.  IOW, they were still functionally joined, not simply stuck together somehow.

I looked in the persistence file and the 2 ships are still listed as 1 Vessel, as expected.  Both docking ports say "state = Disengage".

So, how do I fix this?  Do I need to edit the persistence file?  If so, how?

Thanks.

Yes, you need a persistence file editor. The tool in this link is kinda built to solve your problem. We have not been able to get a stock savegame that exhibits the problem (especially from before the docking), so we haven't been able to create an effective bug report for it.

 

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

Yes, you need a persistence file editor. The tool in this link is kinda built to solve your problem. We have not been able to get a stock savegame that exhibits the problem (especially from before the docking), so we haven't been able to create an effective bug report for it.

Well, unfortunately, that 4-year old thread describes things that seem no longer seem to be in the persistence file.  For instance, there is no "DOCKEDVESSEL" in the file anymore.  All the parts of the docked vessel are listed under the single "VESSEL".

Anyway, @Angel-125 says he's had this happen in stock so you might want to see if you can get a file from him.

[HebaruSan]

2 hours ago, bewing said:

We have not been able to get a stock savegame that exhibits the problem (especially from before the docking), so we haven't been able to create an effective bug report for it.

Is there an existing bug tracker entry where we should submit such? I found a way to reproduce it* consistently a while back.

 

* I say "it," but I think there's actually a family of related bugs here. Mine has to do with injecting a stage/decouple event in between the point when the ports activate their magnets and when they attach.

[bewing]

44 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Is there an existing bug tracker entry where we should submit such? I found a way to reproduce it* consistently a while back.

 

* I say "it," but I think there's actually a family of related bugs here. Mine has to do with injecting a stage/decouple event in between the point when the ports activate their magnets and when they attach.

No, there is no existing report that I know of.

I had read that a staging event after docking might do it, and I tried that -- and that didn't work. But I didn't try to time it to be after magnets but before docking. So I will try that.

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, unfortunately, that 4-year old thread describes things that seem no longer seem to be in the persistence file.  For instance, there is no "DOCKEDVESSEL" in the file anymore.  All the parts of the docked vessel are listed under the single "VESSEL".

True, but I think Mythos' KML persistence editor tool (that I tried to link to, but the link didn't work so good) has been updated to work with the current KSP version.

 

[Geschosskopf]

35 minutes ago, bewing said:

True, but I think Mythos' KML persistence editor tool (that I tried to link to, but the link didn't work so good) has been updated to work with the current KSP version.

Egad.  I've been away the better part of a year.  I don't recall this problem every before from 0.20 through 1.2.1.  Is it a new thing in 1.3?  Does this happen all / most of the time now?  IOW, is docking in 1.3 broken?

[HebaruSan]

14 minutes ago, bewing said:

I had read that a staging event after docking might do it, and I tried that -- and that didn't work. But I didn't try to time it to be after magnets but before docking. So I will try that.

Precision timing sounds painful. I made (unintentionally) a craft where complete docking without decoupling is impossible, since there isn't room for the free-moving port to fit with proper alignment; and if you decouple everything up-front, it's prohibitively difficult to dock because one of the pieces is free-floating with no control system and lots of initial rotation. But you can wedge them together so they're held in place by the magnetic attraction, and then dock by activating a decoupler to free up the constrained port. After that, the right click options to undock are either missing or ineffective (I don't remember which), and the status fields in the save file are "Acquire" instead of "Docked". It should be pretty easy to construct a simplified version of this for testing, or you can download my craft:

Un-undockable docked ports on the right ---^

[bewing]

4 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Precision timing sounds painful. I made (unintentionally) a craft where complete docking without decoupling is impossible, since there isn't room for the free-moving port to fit with proper alignment; and if you decouple everything up-front, it's prohibitively difficult to dock because one of the pieces is free-floating with no control system and lots of initial rotation. But you can wedge them together so they're held in place by the magnetic attraction, and then dock by activating a decoupler to free up the constrained port. After that, the right click options to undock are either missing or ineffective (I don't remember which), and the status fields in the save file are "Acquire" instead of "Docked". It should be pretty easy to construct a simplified version of this for testing, or you can download my craft:

 

 

Un-undockable docked ports on the right ---^

I think I'm going to have to use yours -- because I just tried the "stage after magnets but before complete docking" thing, and my ships undocked perfectly. So there must be something more to it.

 

Edited September 19, 2017 by bewing

[HebaruSan]

22 minutes ago, bewing said:

I think I'm going to have to use yours -- because I just tried the "after magnets but before complete docking" thing, and my ships undocked perfectly. So there must be something more to it.

OK, I just re-tried it to make sure I wasn't leading you down a dead end, and that procedure does still reproduce the issue.

Save file where the only active vessel has this issue

Relevant portion ("state = Acquire (dockee)" for both ports):

			PART
			{
				name = dockingPort2
				cid = 4294190358
				uid = 3676834291
				mid = 3278824030
				launchID = 10
				parent = 67
				position = -8.476409912109375,-8.5787544250488281,0.00057887949515134096
				rotation = 0.416523188,-0.416349232,0.571527243,0.571418047
				mirror = 1,1,1
				symMethod = Radial
				istg = 3
				resPri = 0
				dstg = 12
				sqor = -1
				sepI = 6
				sidx = -1
				attm = 0
				srfN = srfAttach, -1
				attN = top, -1
				attN = bottom, 67
				mass = 0.0500000007
				shielded = False
				temp = 303.13664498589304
				tempExt = 303.98759600676408
				tempExtUnexp = 307.45932935809236
				expt = 0.5
				state = 1
				attached = True
				autostrutMode = Off
				rigidAttachment = False
				flag = Squad/Agencies/Kerlington
				rTrf = dockingPort2
				modCost = 0
				EVENTS
				{
				}
				ACTIONS
				{
				}
				PARTDATA
				{
				}
				MODULE
				{
					name = ModuleDockingNode
					isEnabled = True
					crossfeed = True
					stagingEnabled = False
					state = Acquire (dockee)
					dockUId = 1867064019
					dockNodeIdx = 0
					EVENTS
					{
					}
					ACTIONS
					{
						UndockAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						DecoupleAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						MakeReferenceToggle
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						EnableXFeedAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						DisableXFeedAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						ToggleXFeedAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
					}
					DOCKEDVESSEL
					{
						vesselName = Hot Fudge 1.0 Ship Debris
						vesselType = Debris
						rootUId = 632182998
					}
					UPGRADESAPPLIED
					{
					}
				}
			}
			PART
			{
				name = dockingPort2
				cid = 4294686114
				uid = 1867064019
				mid = 3278824030
				launchID = 10
				parent = 68
				position = -9.0381135940551758,-8.5789861679077148,0.00053119583753868937
				rotation = 0.379148751,0.379192799,-0.596632421,0.597066939
				mirror = 1,1,1
				symMethod = Radial
				istg = 4
				resPri = 0
				dstg = 0
				sqor = 4
				sepI = 7
				sidx = 1
				attm = 0
				srfN = srfAttach, -1
				attN = top, -1
				attN = bottom, 70
				mass = 0.0500000007
				shielded = False
				temp = 311.5449700377394
				tempExt = 309.81687072730409
				tempExtUnexp = 4
				expt = 0.5
				state = 1
				attached = True
				autostrutMode = Off
				rigidAttachment = False
				flag = Squad/Agencies/Kerlington
				rTrf = dockingPort2
				modCost = 0
				EVENTS
				{
				}
				ACTIONS
				{
				}
				PARTDATA
				{
				}
				MODULE
				{
					name = ModuleDockingNode
					isEnabled = True
					crossfeed = True
					stagingEnabled = True
					state = Acquire (dockee)
					dockUId = 3676834291
					dockNodeIdx = 0
					EVENTS
					{
					}
					ACTIONS
					{
						UndockAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						DecoupleAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						MakeReferenceToggle
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						EnableXFeedAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						DisableXFeedAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
						ToggleXFeedAction
						{
							actionGroup = None
						}
					}
					DOCKEDVESSEL
					{
						vesselName = Hot Fudge 1.0
						vesselType = Ship
						rootUId = 1208503703
					}
					UPGRADESAPPLIED
					{
					}
				}
			}

Screenshot with missing right click options to prove I'm not crazy:

[bewing]

4 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

OK, I just re-tried it to make sure I wasn't leading you down a dead end, and that procedure does still reproduce the issue.

Sorry to be a pest, but would it be possible to give me a savegame from before they dock? Since the important error happens during the docking, having a save from after the docking is a bit too late to watch the error happen.

 

[HebaruSan]

Just now, bewing said:

Sorry to be a pest, but would it be possible to give me a savegame from before they dock? Since the important error happens during the docking, having a save from after the docking is a bit too late to watch the error happen.

Sure thing! Load this quicksave and press space bar:

https://gist.github.com/HebaruSan/e22372e8b299fedf37a0b1bdf0414134/archive/f1a019223fbc778da2a0825b05c9629b9dc91763.zip

[bewing]

OK! Thanks! That should give me enough to work with now. 

[bewing]

2 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Egad.  I've been away the better part of a year.  I don't recall this problem every before from 0.20 through 1.2.1.  Is it a new thing in 1.3?  Does this happen all / most of the time now?  IOW, is docking in 1.3 broken?

As you pointed out, that "Can't Undock Bug" thread has been in existence for four years. Which means the bug has existed for more than four years. So no, it's not a new thing at all.

And HebaruSan's example is the very first time I've ever seen it happen in stock KSP with my own eyes. Every time I dock and undock since 1.2.1, it's always worked perfectly. So no, docking is not the tiniest bit broken in 1.3 -- but when the devs fix this 4+ year old bug, it'll work even better than any previous version.

 

[bewing]

OK, issue confirmed. Full formal bug report created and filed. It's in the hands of the devs now, and it will probably get fixed pretty soon.

 

[agrasyuk]

9 hours ago, bewing said:

OK, issue confirmed. Full formal bug report created and filed. It's in the hands of the devs now, and it will probably get fixed pretty soon.

 

 

11 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Sure thing! Load this quicksave and press space bar:

https://gist.github.com/HebaruSan/e22372e8b299fedf37a0b1bdf0414134/archive/f1a019223fbc778da2a0825b05c9629b9dc91763.zip

 

sorry of topic but this is some awesome stuff right there.

4 YO elusive bug reproduced and documented. as someone who does software QA for a living this story almost brings tears to my eyes. you guys made my day today.  

Prestige:

[Kerbart]

11 hours ago, bewing said:

As you pointed out, that "Can't Undock Bug" thread has been in existence for four years. Which means the bug has existed for more than four years. So no, it's not a new thing at all.

And HebaruSan's example is the very first time I've ever seen it happen in stock KSP with my own eyes. Every time I dock and undock since 1.2.1, it's always worked perfectly. So no, docking is not the tiniest bit broken in 1.3 -- but when the devs fix this 4+ year old bug, it'll work even better than any previous version.

 

If it adds any value, it used to be very common four years ago, but nowadays it's not (at least not for me). But...

The 2.5m ports were especially prone to have an inability to undock, to the point where I only use them for "construction" purposes (put together only, not for casual docking/undocking). So maybe it disappeared for me by adjusting the way I play the game.

None of this addresses @Geschosskopf's problem but I don't want to be that "why didn't you tell us!" guy either, so I figure if you get some insights from it, great; if not, peace.

 

[bewing]

12 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

If it adds any value, it used to be very common four years ago, but nowadays it's not (at least not for me). But...

The 2.5m ports were especially prone to have an inability to undock, to the point where I only use them for "construction" purposes (put together only, not for casual docking/undocking). So maybe it disappeared for me by adjusting the way I play the game.

None of this addresses @Geschosskopf's problem but I don't want to be that "why didn't you tell us!" guy either, so I figure if you get some insights from it, great; if not, peace.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll rebuild a few of my test craft with Sr. docking ports and see if it's easier to get those to fail.