What does "Bad Internal Format" even mean?

[Nort]

I'm running a years old version of The Dark Mod / Dark Radiant, so maybe "Bad Internal Format" isn't even a thing anymore, but right now if I type "r_showprimitives 1" in game, I get lots of "WARNING:R_BitsForInternalFormat: bad internalFormat:34842", bloating up my qconsole.log file.

How do I achieve a GOOD "Internal Format"?

It started appearing right around the time when I made about nine visportals in my level, but although I could start deleting those and see if it helps, I really like visportals. They are my friends, and I can't imagine mapping without them.

[duzenko]

Quote

I'm running a years old version of The Dark Mod / Dark Radiant...

How do I achieve a GOOD "Internal Format"?

Update, maybe?

[Nort]

4 hours ago, duzenko said:

Update, maybe?

See, I actually don't think that will help. This console spam occurs even at the current version, if I understand https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=5223 and "Moving the bug out of the 2.10 roadmap." correctly. ...so while I can't do anything about the spam, if there is a root cause to avoid a "bad internal format" to begin with, I'd like to know what an "internal format" even is. What in my level might be causing it? Brushwork? Portals? Entities? Textures?

Edited May 12, 2022 by Nort

[duzenko]

15 hours ago, Nort said:

 Textures?

Yes

[Nort]

2 hours ago, duzenko said:

Yes

Okay. You're being a bit cryptic here, but my best assumption is that I made a negative scale on a texture at some point, or made a negative rotation of it, which I vaguely remember doing. It sure would help if I had a search function for what I assume is "texture number 34842". (I only know how to find brushes and entities, and I doubt there's 35 000 brushes in my map right now.)

There are of course the warnings regarding two normal stock models, which can't find some textures for some reason, and a model I tried to reskin with a texture it didn't want. I could try removing them. Maybe I should upgrade to the latest version after all.

 

[duzenko]

2 hours ago, Nort said:

Okay. You're being a bit cryptic here, but my best assumption is that I made a negative scale on a texture at some point, or made a negative rotation of it, which I vaguely remember doing. It sure would help if I had a search function for what I assume is "texture number 34842". (I only know how to find brushes and entities, and I doubt there's 35 000 brushes in my map right now.)

There are of course the warnings regarding two normal stock models, which can't find some textures for some reason, and a model I tried to reskin with a texture it didn't want. I could try removing them. Maybe I should upgrade to the latest version after all.

 

To be able to repeat the warning I'll need a test map

[Nort]

2 hours ago, duzenko said:

To be able to repeat the warning I'll need a test map

That's okay - I've decided to do my own research. I've made a test map, and will start deleting half of it until the problem goes away. I'll post my results in a few hours. Thanks.

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Nort

[OrbWeaver]

On 5/12/2022 at 2:22 AM, Nort said:

I'm running a years old version of The Dark Mod / Dark Radiant

Why?

[Nort]

3 hours ago, duzenko said:

To be able to repeat the warning I'll need a test map

 

Since I am completely unable to get rid of this error, even after having recreated the entire map from scratch, I guess I really can't solve this on my own. This error wasn't always there during the map creation either.

Exactly what files do you need, and where do I upload them?

It's just going to be a room of six brushes and a player start, and maybe on your version this error won't even show up. (You type "r_showprimitives 1" in the console to make the error show up.)

 

[Nort]

40 minutes ago, OrbWeaver said:

Why?

Because I only have 24 hours in a day, and even bathroom breaks is far down on my list of priorities. A whole installation of something? "Woah! Slow down."

 

Update

I am uninstalling the old (one year old) version now, and I've noticed that while there's an "updater" program, I've heard that that updater is unreliable. Dark Radiant could be uninstalled from the Windows programs list, but there's no entry there for The Dark Mod, so I'm just going to delete the Dark Mod folder, and hope that that will count as an uninstall. (Yes, I've backed up all my maps, prefabs and screenshots, and even settings.)

What I'm trying to say, is that you should put The Dark Mod up on that Windows uninstall list as well.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Nort

[duzenko]

1 hour ago, Nort said:

 

Since I am completely unable to get rid of this error, even after having recreated the entire map from scratch, I guess I really can't solve this on my own. This error wasn't always there during the map creation either.

Exactly what files do you need, and where do I upload them?

 

Your mission folder

[Nort]

11 minutes ago, duzenko said:

Your mission folder

That would be a tall order. My mission folder contains a total of 85 files, my /maps/ folder alone, contains 74 files, of which you could possibly be needing the six files with the name "TextureHunt.*".

However, the update I just did, seems to have fixed the "bad format" console spam. This doesn't mean that the error itself has been fixed - you devs could have just removed it from the console (like you were planning to do).

Further, this version of TDM doesn't even seem to write a console log anymore! Is there a way to enable it? ...because these logs seem to contain more details about errors and warnings, and I often copy them into other documents.

...so unless I find something about the error still occuring in a console log, I guess you won't be needing any files at all.

 

[duzenko]

22 hours ago, Nort said:

Further, this version of TDM doesn't even seem to write a console log anymore! Is there a way to enable it? ...because these logs seem to contain more details about errors and warnings, and I often copy them into other documents.

 

Depends on what you call 'console log'

Game console GUI works for me

[datiswous]

On 5/13/2022 at 6:22 PM, Nort said:

and I've noticed that while there's an "updater" program, I've heard that that updater is unreliable.

The updater is an old program. It is not used anymore for updating tdm. For updating you use the installer. If you don't have the installer, you have to download it, dump it in the tdm folder and start it.

I think it would be helpful if you tell which versions you're currently running. Apart from that you probably get better (faster) support if you update first.

[Nort]

2 hours ago, duzenko said:

Depends on what you call 'console log'

Game console GUI works for me

How does that work for you when you can't copy or paste from it, and it scrolls by faster than you can read? Please bring back the log - I beg of you.

 

1 hour ago, datiswous said:

The updater is an old program. It is not used anymore for updating tdm. For updating you use the installer. If you don't have the installer, you have to download it, dump it in the tdm folder and start it.

I think it would be helpful if you tell which versions you're currently running. Apart from that you probably get better (faster) support if you update first.

You might have missed it, but in the previous post I said that I've now updated to the current stable versions (The Dark Mod 2.10.0, and Dark Radiant 2.14.0), and that the error then "went away", but that I can't be sure of that until I study a complete console log, which this version doesn't even seem to write anymore. Perhaps you know a way to enable the qconsole log?

Edited May 14, 2022 by Nort

[datiswous]

See info here:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Debugging_TDM_systemerrors

[Nort]

7 hours ago, datiswous said:

See info here:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Debugging_TDM_systemerrors

Perfect.

The "bad internal format" no longer appears in the log either, so I'm assuming that it was a matter of upgrading.

Sorry for all the trouble caused by my sheer laziness.