When I try to make a PTI map, and compile it, it will load... and I'll start in the elevator. Now, that isn't supposed to happen, but it gets worse. When I walk up the stairs, the door won't open. okay, faulty trigger, I can go and try to fix that in Hammer. BUT NO! IT GETS WORSE! when I noclip to the test chamber, I find that the entire entrance area with the vgui_screen is MISSING, I checked my instances and all 7 of the entrance chambers are as they should be. Just nothing spawns there, theres a door frame and there are the brushes that encase the room, but nothing else. I've recompiled, but nothing happens. I REALLY don't want to verify my cache, since it undoes all the changes I've made to my instances (which is quite a bit). Wtf is going on? Where did my entrance door go? Can anyone help?

Alexander Bell wrote:
I REALLY don't want to verify my cache, since it undoes all the changes I've made to my instances (which is quite a bit).

This really sounds like a problem you brought on yourself. Back up your instances and verify the game cache. If that works then you can try narrowing down what changed instance caused the problem.

Mevious wrote:
Alexander Bell wrote:

I REALLY don't want to verify my cache, since it undoes all the changes I've made to my instances (which is quite a bit).

This really sounds like a problem you brought on yourself. Back up your instances and verify the game cache. If that works then you can try narrowing down what changed instance caused the problem.

All I've done to the entrance instances are.. well, nothing to any of the entrance rooms, and I added a trigger (that enables a game_text that says "Hello!"), and a turret to the elevator (defective turret). It was working last night, too. And I haven't changed anything since then...

in fact, I published a map last night. Its on the post your workshop maps here page. That was the last thing I did before I went to bed, and it works just fine.

okay, bad news. Its happening in ALL my maps now, I decided to work on Hammer heavy duty super painting super paint (also on the workshop map page), and when the game loads the EXACT same thing is happening. all the other instances are loading, and the instance is there in Hammer, its just not showing up in game!

Oh, and Mevious, I can't back up the instances as far as I know, since its a change to the PTI's pre placed cube (and elevator) instances, and I'm not sure how I would replace them so it would load the one I want, and not the normal ones.

I've seen your instances, and they have no use. Might as well let them disappear, who needs a defective turret in an elevator?

tanger2b wrote:
I've seen your instances, and they have no use. Might as well let them disappear, who needs a defective turret in an elevator?

Lights, catwalks, cameras, and re textured stairs are what I want to keep.

Just redo them.

Mevious wrote:
Alexander Bell wrote:

I REALLY don't want to verify my cache, since it undoes all the changes I've made to my instances (which is quite a bit).

This really sounds like a problem you brought on yourself. Back up your instances and verify the game cache. If that works then you can try narrowing down what changed instance caused the problem.

why not listen to Mevious, its the only way you're going to fix this problem.
tbh it may just be an engine error. who knows

just stop whining and do what I quoted

You have been editing your instances heavily but seem unprepared to believe that they may be contributing to the problem...

Seriously?

Shane wrote:
You have been editing your instances heavily but seem unprepared to believe that they may be contributing to the problem...

Seriously?

How would changing the model of a light strip or adding a turret to the elevator cause an instance not to load?

Why don't you try to narrow down the possibilities rather than doing nothing and hoping for someone's random speculation to be correct? None of us can debug this for you based on your vague account of what you edited and trusting that you didn't screw something up. As we all know, Hammer is extremely user friendly for new users, and it's nearly impossible to make a mistake.

Back up your instances folder, then verify game cache. If it works then we know instance edits are the problem. If it doesn't then we have ruled out instances as causing the problem. Either way, we have gained useful information and are closer to finding out what's wrong. And you won't lose your edits.

Mevious is smarter than you. Do what he says or shut up. And it's your own damn fault that you've edited stock instances.

@mevious

I was hoping to find out this was a problem that wasn't only effecting me, or that it was a problem that had come up before and had a simple fix like "Yep. You need to make a logic_auto with onmapspawn blah blah blah". I guess if I back up my entire instance folder, validate, and then delete the new one and replace it with the old it will fix it. I really have no clue how the hell this could of happened, since it seems to of happened over night....

one thing, if I just re locate my instance folder (somewhere out of the steam files, probably programfiles (x86)), will Steam still hunt it down and "fix" it when I validate the cache?

There is a simple fix, it's verifying your game cache. And yes, moving files to another location is what we in the industry call "backing up".

Generally backing up files means putting it on something other than the computer's hard drive.... I guess it doesn't matter, it doesn't delete anything in the map folder so I'm just copying all the vmfs to the map folder.

Well... great, validated after backing up files... then I replaced the folders, first I tried to replace just p2editor, but that failed (somehow everything had a duplicate of itself, but it was a vmx file?) and nothing compiled. Then I went and got the instance file I hid away in program files (x86), copied it to sdk_content -> maps, and all it had in it was Felix griffin's animal king (and smashable glass)!? I didn't even have those installed, I just had them sitting on my comp because they're broken right now (won't work in the pti like they're supposed to). So, ruined instances, need to re validate, and spend another 3 hours re doing my instances.

RE-RE VALIDATE AND NOW MY INSTANCE FOLDER # ONLY HAS P2EDITOR.

Check it before re-adding in your edited instances. If it compiles you know one of your changes is at fault.

vmxs are copies of vmfs, they are back ups
and you are a moron if you couldn't back up properly
what happened to your avatar I was going to use that in a map

GLaDOS wrote:
dont walk through that trigger it will make you a moron

BenVlodgi wrote:
vmxs are copies of vmfs, they are back ups
and you are a moron if you couldn't back up properly
what happened to your avatar I was going to use that in a map
GLaDOS wrote:

dont walk through that trigger it will make you a moron

Msleeper decided she didn't like it. Lol good idea, though.

It wasn't my instances, I re did everything and the entrance room loaded. Everything is exactly the way it was (well, my lights are a different color.. but that wouldn't change anything) when it stopped working.

And ben, I did back it up correctly... I have no clue how the hell FG's animal king got in my instances, nor how copying the entire instance folder would only copy FG's animal king.

So, validating the Authoring Tools didn't help? Um, what was that Weatherbug thing I recall seeing?