PLEASE CLEAN UP MODS BEFORE POSTING!!!!

[primem0ver]

I would say that this advice is applicable to a significant portion, if not a majority of all Stellaris modders out there who post mods that are bigger than one or two files (and probably for other Paradox games as well... though I do not play them). I am shocked at the number of modders who do not clean up their mistakes and I would appreciate it if a moderator would make this a sticky/pinned post (or post something similar and make it a sticky).

I am sick of spending hours cleaning other peoples mods of errors in order to get them to work properly/as intended. I am not talking about bugs. I realize that bugs take time and game-play to find. I am talking about parsing errors. In the past when I hosted and updated the one mod I shared, I always made sure, with each update, that my mod didn't have any reported errors (barring the occasional meaningless one that can't be helped) in the error.log file before posting. A raw run without mods never has an error.log file bigger than around 11k-13k. I have had error files reach as big as over 200k in size because people are not doing their jobs as modders. Most of these errors are stupid mistakes. Yes... I make them too. Coding always leads to mistakes which lead to bugs in the code. You need to cleanup your own. All that time coding won't make a difference, if it silently doesn't work because of a silly error.

BIG HINT: Get a feel for what the unmodded Stellaris error.log file looks like for each update. Things occasionally change but it is easy to get a feel for what appears there in an unmodded run.

ANOTHER HINT: Yes... for some of us it takes time to check and uncheck all those mods we've installed. However, if you back up your settings.txt file located in MyDocuments\Paradox Interactive\Stellaris, you can simply delete all the entries under "last_mods={" section (without quotes) except the one you want to clean. Then simply copy it back when you are done.

One big issue that causes errors (and sometimes crashes) which I have seen a large number of times is an uneven number of brackets; where the number of open block brackets is not balanced by the number of close block brackets.

I cleaned a file that HAD OVER 30 EXTRA close brackets. 327 open (left) and 361 close (right).

Catching this problem can now be very easy. I built a utility using c# that checks the number of brackets in the mod I created and posted a while back and makes it easy to find where the missing/extra brackets are and correct the mistakes using a "paring by color" visual interface. It checks all files in a mod folder AND subfolders for balance errors. I have adapted it for general use and have shared it at the bottom of this post. Instructions for use are in the second post below. Feel free to comment if you find an issue or have a request/suggestion. I am not going to guarantee that I will honor requests but I will consider it.

Here are some screenshots:

NOTE: If you are using a Mac or Linux, you should be able to get this utility to work by downloading and installing Mono.NET

 

[primem0ver]

I uploaded the utility.

Instructions/TIPS FOR USE:

• IMPORTANT: The utility backs up your files by default to myfile.bak when you edit. You may change this behavior by either commenting out the appropriate line and modifying the value. You must delete the .bak files before using/uploading your mod if they exist.
• You may copy file names from the files reported in the main interface (make sure to include the full path).
  
• You may put the path to any file you want to check in the "Edit" box and hit edit to check, whether it is listed or not.
• You can use/modify the modlist.txt in the application folder to specify mod/file directories to check OR to modify default values used by the program (see below)
  
• Only one folder per line
• You may use # or ; to comment lines out (or type comments).
• When you add/delete brackets, you will need to hit the "Reset View" button to update the bracket colors.
• Commented brackets should not be detected (count).
• When brackets are unbalanced, the green "Brackets are Balanced" will tell you the totals it counted for both right and left facing brackets.
• Note: I did not create the FastColoredTextBox control used in this program. If you are curious about it, PM me.
• The FastColoredTextBox turns tabs into the number of spaces set by the tabLength value automatically. This behavior cannot be changed (easily). As such, by default, this same number of consecutive spaces is converted back to tabs when the file is saved by clicking the "Accept Changes" button. You may change this behavior. See details below.
• Mistakes in the modlist.txt file will generally cause the line to be ignored.
• If you do not specify any files in the modlist.txt file or you delete the file, you will be shown a Browse for folder dialog box. This will keep showing until you select a valid folder or cancel.

Default Values:
These values can be changed using the provided modlist.txt file or writing your own (must have the same name). Caps do not matter.

• BackupFile=true
  
• UseTabs=true (set to false if you do not wish to convert the set number of consecutive spaces back into tabs when saving).
• TabLength=4

PLEASE NOTE that you must preface any line to change a value with a $. Only one change per line. Example:
$backupFile=false

 

[Idhrendur]

Agreed!

Also, thanks for the tool. Do you think it would also work for mods for other games? If so, I would probably find it very helpful.

 

[Mitchz95]

I've rarely found the error log all that helpful, to be honest. Most of the "errors" listed point to empty lines of code, or to lines that work exactly as intended. I only go there if I absolutely can't figure out a problem, and then I just Ctrl-F the event scope to skip to the relevant stuff.

 

[Rippen_Tehr]

Cool tool, though you might want to put in some error handling to catch instances where a user would forget to put in the path to the file they wish to edit. Just my own developer OCD

 

[Dayshine]

Hey, just in case you're not aware, my tool (CWTools, which is pinned in this subforum) has supported this for quite a few months now

It goes far beyond bracket matching too, full syntax validation as well as effects/triggers/scopes checking. You point it at your Stellaris documents folder and it'll scan and validate all the mods you've got there.

 

[primem0ver]

Agreed!

Also, thanks for the tool. Do you think it would also work for mods for other games? If so, I would probably find it very helpful.

Yes. It doesn't pay any attention to the game. It simply counts (and colors) braces. The only issue you might run into is if the other games use a different symbol for marking a comment. (As you can see, comments starting with a '#' are greyed out. Braces behind them are ignored.)

Cool tool, though you might want to put in some error handling to catch instances where a user would forget to put in the path to the file they wish to edit. Just my own developer OCD

I thought about that after I posted it. Honestly I just took between 30-60 minutes to allow some basic versatile features. All the locations were hardcoded in my original program. I may do that a little later.

Hey, just in case you're not aware, my tool (CWTools, which is pinned in this subforum) has supported this for quite a few months now

It goes far beyond bracket matching too, full syntax validation as well as effects/triggers/scopes checking. You point it at your Stellaris documents folder and it'll scan and validate all the mods you've got there.

No, I was not aware. Sounds like a great tool! I will have to check it out when I get back into adding to my mod; though I am not currently updating it with the game since I am not a fan of star lanes. I am pretty irritated that they chose to keep the one method of travel I hate (though I understand their reasons for cutting back). Stellaris is the only truly "Paradox" game I play so I haven't really done a whole lot with making the job easier other than this bracket tool and another tool that creates the localization files from excel files. I can link your tool in first post as well if you like. I mainly posted it because brackets are a large source of problems since it is tough to find the brackets without actually counting them otherwise. I wanted to offer something to help with fixing this rampant problem.

 

[primem0ver]

I've rarely found the error log all that helpful, to be honest. Most of the "errors" listed point to empty lines of code, or to lines that work exactly as intended. I only go there if I absolutely can't figure out a problem, and then I just Ctrl-F the event scope to skip to the relevant stuff.

Well, I don't know what to tell you other than to say if you develop mods, you should learn how to use it since any block with an error in it is completely ignored without any kind of warning/heads up unless the game crashes. This often leads to parts of the code that just don't function and your mod is less than you hoped for.

An imbalance of brackets is the number one cause of game crashes and I would say that around 30-50% of the time you have a large number of errors, it is because of a bracket imbalance. I am (almost) always able to find the problem with a mod by paying attention to the errors.log file combined with a/my bracket tool.