Possible work-around for continuing in middle of tape playback issue

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Holger
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Re: Possible work-around for continuing in middle of tape playback issue

Post by Holger »

I am just about to debug this issue (that is, broken tapes resulting from using quick save and load while playing a level) again (after having tried again and again and again during the last about 10 or 20 years). :cry:

The problem is, providing me with such broken tapes is not likely to help, as they only contain the "wrong moves" (stored in the tape), but not the "right moves" used while solving the level. :(

What might help could be the following: I am currently looking for scenarios that can be used to more or less reliably reproduce this problem. That is: How could an easy test level look like, and how could a simple way of solving it look like that likely result in a broken tape?

If a problem can be reproduced, it can be solved in most cases. Unfortunately, this problem seems to be hard to be reproduced in a repeatable way.

If any such (hopefully short and simple) "strategy", used on a (hopefully small and simple) test level would be known, I could add lots of debugging output to R'n'D to see what happens when playing (including quick loading and quick saving) and when re-playing the resulting (broken) tape.

If anybody should have any clue here, that would be more than helpful!

Until then, I am trying again to find a simple level and a way to play it, which might result in broken tapes as often as possible...
BryanFRitt
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Re: Possible work-around for continuing in middle of tape playback issue

Post by BryanFRitt »

The attachment at the 1st post of this thread hints that there's bug situation at a specific point during playback which screws up the rest of playback, and not all the rest of the playback being messed up.
BryanFRitt wrote: Thu Sep 12, 2024 8:35 pm 100-sp_level_collection_95-MessedUp-ButMakesItToEndExceptForEmeralds.tape (5.96 KiB)
download/file.php?id=1519
The specific points of mess up seem to be (usually?) around points of quick loading tapes, or continuing a tape from the middle of a tape playback. With the tape playback []|> ending later than it should.

I'm also curious if this(these) bug(s) could this being caused by doing things too fast. Something like trying to reload quick tape, before a previous reload quick tape gets finished reloading.
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--- I've completed the built-in R'n'D levelsets, and lots of R'n'D downloaded levelsets; Finished enough? ---
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Holger
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Re: Possible work-around for continuing in middle of tape playback issue

Post by Holger »

Thanks for mentioning this again -- I will have another look at this specific level and tape again!

The problem should really only occur when "quick load" or "quick save" (that is, engine snapshots) are involved. Continuing a tape from the middle of an existing tape (using only the tape buttons) should in fact never result in broken tapes (at least I did not encounter such a case by myself so far).

This bug should also not be caused by doing things too fast, as "quick load" or "quick save" (like any other functions that can be triggered by pressing a button or key) are always finished before a potential next action (that might already be in the event queue) gets executed.

Thanks again for your feedback!
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