[Wids]

So I was in for a number of ugly surprises when Wyren went back to the Alchemy Hut to check on her merchant today....

The Good News:
1) Wyren still owns the property (as I confirmed when I walked Corella and Zelis through the front door).
2) All of the placeables inside are still where they should be.
3) The merchant sign outside the front door hasn't changed.
4) Neither have the front door's title and description.


The Bad News:
1) Both Wyren and Corella (who have both been inside the Alchemy Hut before) got "New Area" XP on entering. That's not a good sign.
2) Wyren's merchant (normally standing in the middle of that magic pattern in the picture there) is gone, and all of his merchandise and Gold are gone with him.
3) Both of the doors to the side rooms are back to their defaults (Locked, Lock DC 25, Hit Points 15, Hardness 5), even though Wyren had spent quite a bit of money improving on the doors, particularly for the storage room (which had its Lock DC up to 40, its Hardness up to 15 and I forget what the Hit Points were). Wyren kept both interior doors locked.
4) Both of the chests in the storage room were empty. Whether this was because of the house bug or because of some opportunistic soul who took advantage of the now-weakened doors and looted the storage room, I do not know. I had quite a few Letter Cylinders in there too.


Wyren was all paid up on her property taxes for the next year. She doesn't have her merchant's deed in inventory, so her merchant apparently hasn't been recalled. I haven't changed any text or placeables on or inside the property (and won't do that until I can get this fixed, lest I knock some random 1 or 0 out of place and lose the merchant and his stuff forever).

So what happened, what may have caused it, how many people have had this happen to their shops before, and is it reversible? :s

[Balanor]

This is the most detailed info I've received yet in regard to the problem of merchant NPCs disappearing from someone's home. The new area XP message at least gives me a clue as to where to begin now as I try to repro this. What seems to me is that your unique interior building ID somehow got reset - although I don't yet understand why your furniture remains though since it too is stored based on your building ID. Do you remember the last things you did in your building prior to leaving the time before you re-entered and got the the 'new area XP'?

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EDIT: NEVERMIND - BREAKTHROUGH. I have *finally* been able to reproduce this problem. Thank the gods.
This stems from the fact there are two physical areas in the module for each floorplan layout each with separate Tags (a way to uniquely identify a NWN object other than by its name). This is so, in the event one is in use, you will instead get the second area with a different area Tag. When you place a merchant, store items, or make interior door improvements, that tag is used as part of the building ID when all that information is persistently stored. So when you do all of that and then leave your building, to return later and perhaps use a different copy of the same floorplan (if someone else is in their building using the floorplan with the area Tag you were in previously), it breaks all three areas mentioned.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to fix this, and my initial thought is...it's going to be messy, and it's going to affect most homeowners, unfortunately. Will post more here once I've tried to work out some way to handle this.

[Balanor]

To address this long-term, I am going to change the tags of all building floorplans to be the same. This is not ideal as I’ve always tried to keep Tags unique for identification purposes, but in a worst case scenario where this ends up breaking something else I can instead go to the ResRef of the area, if needed. If you don’t understand anything I just said, don’t worry - it's just background info for those who would like to know how this is going to be fixed.

So, to address missing merchants/items for affected PCs now –
The quickest/least messy way to address this for currently affected PCs is still ugly, and is likely going to require a little DM assistance. But I’ve laid out the steps below. I would like to get all PCs who have lost door improvements, items stored in containers in their building, and merchants, taken care of by December 1. That is when I’m planning the next server update and will have a modified (fixed) version of the system in place and as a result the following steps will not work anymore. The steps below can be done *immeidately* if someone likes, and tomorrow it should be easier as there will be debug lines telling the DMs/players the area tag of the building you are entering to verify the floorplan you are in.

In the meantime, and this is the part I need DM/staff assistance, I need your help to identify all players/PCs who have lost items from building storage, the merchant, or their interior door improvements. To start with, if the player is one who does not have items in containers or their merchant spawn, that means they placed the merchant or stored then items in a floorplan area with a different tag. With tomorrow’s server reset, I will be putting in a debug line for whenever someone enters a player-owned building, that person and the DMs will be sent a debug message that says: [Name] has entered player building [AreaTag]. So for example, “Balanor has entered area hh_area_lh_1”

But either now or then, in the case where someone is affected by this and the merchant/items/door improvements are not there, where I REALLY need DM/staff help is to either assist or get the word out about how to fix the problem by taking these steps:
1. Find out another person who has that same floorplan (this is the toughest part – to coordinate the affected PC and the unaffected PC to work together). And rest assured there is at least one other PC who does have the same floorplan, or this problem would not be occurring.
2. Have the unaffected person enter their building *first*
3. Have the affected PC enter their building *second*. At this point they should get their merchant back and have items return to their containers.
4. The affected PC needs to fire their merchant, and take all items out of storage containers. In addition, they need to check *exactly* what the door improvements are that they have made – Lock DC, Hardness, and hitpoints (see below for why)
5. The unaffected PC should leave their building as soon as the affected PC sees that they have their merchant and/or container items back
6. The affected PC should leave their building after getting their items and firing their merchant
7. A DM should verify that there are no other PCs in-game that are in the same building floorplan that the PC was just in. This is to ensure that in the next step, the PC is using the default floorplan (which should end in a 1, such as: hh_area_lh_1
8. The previously-affected PC should re-enter their building, and ensure that the debug message tells them they are in an area that ends in 1, such as: hh_area_lh_1
9. Once this is confirmed, the previously affected PC can place their merchant again and re-store their items in the containers.

Unfortunately, interior door improvements will need to be redone manually since there is no way to undo them and/or transfer them to a floorplan with a different tag. This is why, in step #4 above, the PC needs to find out exactly what they did to any doors they improved, so they can redo it again in step #9, and then ask the DM for gold compensation.

[Wids]

Happy to be of service. :)

Perhaps these forums themselves would be useful for saving the DMs some hunting around and getting the players who have been affected by this bug to come forward, the better to go about enacting this fix.

The floorplan to Wyren's Small House looks something like this:



Does anyone else have a house with a matching floorplan? Please help me fix Wyren's house, because Enevold really wants to buy one of her magic staffs. :D

(And I remember reading how moving chests or other containers will "erase" the contents until the container is returned to the exact spot where the items were placed in it. Is that essentially what happened here?)

[Balanor]

(And I remember reading how moving chests or other containers will "erase" the contents until the container is returned to the exact spot where the items were placed in it. Is that essentially what happened here?)

No, not really. Persistent storage in a player-owned building is determined by the containers exact location, plus the tag of the area. In the case of this problem, the area tag is wrong which is causing nothing to be retrieved. But whatever you do - *don't* remove/move any of the containers that had items in them or then they will be lost forever. Following the steps above will get you in the correct area with the area tag, and once that is done, as long as the position of your containers hasn't moved, your items will be retrieved for them so you can pull them out and store them when you enter the area with the default tag (ending in the number 1).

[Wids]

Okay. I haven't moved anything (or put down any new placeables, or picked up any placeables), so I'm hoping that everything is still salvageable. I'll log on this evening and see about doing my part to fix things. Thank you.

[Balanor]

I am moving this report to the public forum as I know this is/has been affecting multiple people. If you have lost container items in your building, your merchant, or your interior door improvements, read through this thread and work with others/the DMs to follow the steps in post #3 to get them back.

[Wids]

Hey, look who's back! :D



Gund Meyer still has all of his merchandise, minus whatever goodies were sold since Wyren's last visit. And he gave Wyren the Gold from those transactions too!



Also, the doors were back to the way they were before...



...and the chests weren't mysteriously empty anymore:



Whatever you did, Thayan, it worked! I can't thank you enough. Does Wyren owe Odorf a store discount of some sort for this? ;)

And does this mean that it's safe to tinker with Wyren's house again? Because I think I saw some merchant shingles in South Alaor that would be perfect for the place. :)

[Balanor]

Glad to hear you got your stuff back - and this is good confirmation for anyone who has suffered a mysterious item loss/theft from their building. I'd strongly encourage *all* homeowners to try and go through the steps in post #3 so you end up in the second floorplan - and then check your containers there. It's likely that most will be empty, but it's possible you may come across some long-lost items that were stored in the past which you may have given up for stolen.

Next, I want to clarify that this issue is still an active problem, and will be until December 1 (the server update). I have actually not changed anything (yet). However, before December 1 I'd like all homeowners who (think they are) affected to follow the steps above to get back any lost merchants/items in storage. Because after that, you won't be able to get back lost any lost merchants/items from your building.

Because this is still a problem, I'd strongly recommend everyone *not* place a merchant or store items in your home unless you are certain that no one else on the server is in a building with a floorplan like yours. Tomorrow this will become easier, because you will start getting the debug message telling you what floorplan you are in. And at that point, as long as you are in a floorplan that ends with the number 1, you are good to place your merchant, store items, or improve your interior doors.

[Wids]

So having taken Thayan and Plinth's counsel to heart, I've temporarily moved the Alchemy Hut's merchant to the Central Tyraturos marketplace. Look for Cale Marneset (Gund's successor) at the Homeowner's Choice building right next to the slave market; he'll be there until December 1st or shortly after. In the meantime, feel free to drop by the Alchemy Hut for some free wine and the refreshing aroma of burning sulfur. Everybody likes wine, right? :)