Mod Ren'Py Chasing Sunsets [v0.9a non-Steam/v0.9a Steam] Multi-Mod [Sancho1969]

[Porthas]

SanchoMod Update (v0.8a Patch#3 non-Steam version)

Links in are updated accordingly.

Spoiler: VN Changelog

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Mod Changelog:

• Contains the latest changes to the VN as of build date 05/09/2023 (see above spoiler)
• Contains the latest changes to the VN as of build date 05/10/2023 (see above spoiler)
• Contains the latest changes to the VN as of build date 05/11/2023 (see above spoiler)
• Resolves the CriticalPath screen exception if the Player is not utilizing the MiniStat screen.

Simply download and reinstall over existing mod installation, overwriting as requested if necessary.

Regards.

 

[Son of Durin]

I know you've been busy, but wanted to post the link to my Chasing Sunsets issue here so it would be easier to find when you might have a minute between "big jobs". My old laptop crashed a couple days ago and I'm getting reset; plan to play through the rest of my backlog of updates now, maybe try one of the new games (to me) on the list after.

If you have any luck, please let me know - otherwise I might try a new DL in a couple of weeks and see if I have better luck.

Thanks.

https://f95zone.to/threads/chasing-sunsets-v0-8a-stone-fox-studios.62625/post-10887068

 

[Sancho1969]

I know you've been busy, but wanted to post the link to my Chasing Sunsets issue here so it would be easier to find when you might have a minute between "big jobs". My old laptop crashed a couple days ago and I'm getting reset; plan to play through the rest of my backlog of updates now, maybe try one of the new games (to me) on the list after.

If you have any luck, please let me know - otherwise I might try a new DL in a couple of weeks and see if I have better luck.

Thanks.

https://f95zone.to/threads/chasing-sunsets-v0-8a-stone-fox-studios.62625/post-10887068

Hey bud. I need you to try at least one of the two things I listed here. That post was (edited for readability):

I'm in another project but:

Edit: (try one or both of the following)

1) Try without the mod and using the "SaveFixer" and see how it goes (you need that to load saves made previously with the mod inside a VN that's now unmodded). Don't forget about that fixer file though as it MUST be removed manually if you decided later to install the mod.

2) Also, see if it borks out via a new playthrough just to check that as well. This way we can narrow down what's going on.

Both are just to narrow down where the issue is. We need more info since that " _movie_35 " does not exist anywhere, so I don't know exactly what is throwing the error... the VN or the mod. I know it's a bit of a pain in the ass but we have to start somewhere and one or both of these should give us quality insight.

 

[Sancho1969]

I thought I did the latter already and mentioned, but I'll recheck. I'll unpack and retry in a bit. Will get back.

You may have, if you did I don't know what occurred... I might have missed the post or something.

What we need to know is if the error occurs with a new playthrough with the mod and/or if the error occurs unmodded (with the SaveFixer installed) with your loaded SanchoMod save you're attempting to load.

 

[Son of Durin]

You may have, if you did I don't know what occurred... I might have missed the post or something.

What we need to know is if the error occurs with a new playthrough with the mod and/or if the error occurs unmodded (with the SaveFixer installed) with your loaded SanchoMod save you're attempting to load.

Okay:

• New game, no mod; right click and save function works fine (right click to menu in general works fine).
• Load a saved game with save fixer installed and (obviously) no mod installed; cannot right click or use the onscreen menu to get to saves or any menu functions. Traceback is attached.
• New game, mod installed, save fixer removed; right click and save function works fine.
• Load a saved game with mod installed and no save fixer; cannot right click or use the onscreen menu to get to saves or any menu function. Traceback2 is attached.

Those are the four variations. Different "movie" files are noted in the two error reports. I didn't look to see if they reference all the same line numbers.

If I have to start completely from the beginning, I'll be a bit upset. Devs should never change the underlying RenPy engine this far into a game's progress...

I'm off to play the Ripples update.

 

[Sancho1969]

Okay:

• New game, no mod; right click and save function works fine (right click to menu in general works fine).
• Load a saved game with save fixer installed and (obviously) no mod installed; cannot right click or use the onscreen menu to get to saves or any menu functions. Traceback is attached.
• New game, mod installed, save fixer removed; right click and save function works fine.
• Load a saved game with mod installed and no save fixer; cannot right click or use the onscreen menu to get to saves or any menu function. Traceback2 is attached.

Those are the four variations. Different "movie" files are noted in the two error reports. I didn't look to see if they reference all the same line numbers.

If I have to start completely from the beginning, I'll be a bit upset. Devs should never change the underlying RenPy engine this far into a game's progress...

I'm off to play the Ripples update.

If you find time this evening or in the morning PM me the save file (no more than two please) and I'll see if I can salvage it. I agree that the RenPy update is the most likely culprit but it might be salvageable. I rescued a few of my personal saves, but not all of them, so no guarantees. Regards.

 

[Sancho1969]

Two saves and the persistent.

Got 'em. Feel free to delete the attached file in your post if you wish. I'll take a look and see what's going on. The faith I have is that it's not a rollback error... so I'm actually very interested on what RenPy 8 is seeing in the saves. I'll be in touch bud.

 

[Sancho1969]

It may or may not matter, but I got the error on both my (now defunct) Windows 10 PC and my new Windows 11 PC.

Speaking of Devs doing absofuckinglootly stupid things....

All my systems are Win10 for reference.

Note that this type of occurrence of RenP8 issue was addressed in post here. Notice the new QuickMenu button in:


I made that button so folks could physically get back safely to the Main Menu to attempt to load another save to test.

Ain't gonna lie, it's going to be a bitch to fix these if I can but I will try my best.

 

[Sancho1969]

Two saves and the persistent.

Done.

I or you or both of us got really lucky as I've not rescued 2 for 2 of my own personal botched saves previously (it takes a bit of tinkering to get lucky). So that you know that they are pure: I did not physically edit the saves in any fashion, I give you my word on that. Everything was done in game and with the existing mod that's available in the OP so there's no fear of something being wonky. They will either work or they won't, no gray area here. I tried them several times now even exiting and restarting the VN a few times and they appear to be completely fixed.

It was a bitch, I didn't use your persistent at all so that's not in the attached (to eliminate any possible confusion).

At first I thought your stats were wrong according to the save names but they are what they are. Verified nothing changed at all, same names, same stats:

• Favor Mal Save - Mal(34/48) Jay(41/63)
• Favor Jay Save - Mal(32/46) Jay(42/65)

Let me know if they appear sorted on your end bud.

(The attached is the same file name as the save file you gave me but I zipped instead of 7z)

 

[Sancho1969]

You other folks that might run into this convo in the future, I'm not providing this save file repair service as a standard (it's not my fault anyway tbh). That's 1 hour, 20 minutes for just two save files and I just don't have that kind of spare time to sort everyone's save files but I had already given my word to Son of Durin. So please don't PM me or tag me with batches of your old saves... please, I'll go insane. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Now, it's past 0100 hours in the morning here... time to catch a nap. Regards.

 

[Son of Durin]

Done.

I or you or both of us got really lucky as I've not rescued 2 for 2 of my own personal botched saves previously (it takes a bit of tinkering to get lucky). So that you know that they are pure: I did not physically edit the saves in any fashion, I give you my word on that. Everything was done in game and with the existing mod that's available in the OP so there's no fear of something being wonky. They will either work or they won't, no gray area here. I tried them several times now even exiting and restarting the VN a few times and they appear to be completely fixed.

It was a bitch, I didn't use your persistent at all so that's not in the attached (to eliminate any possible confusion).

At first I thought your stats were wrong according to the save names but they are what they are. Verified nothing changed at all, same names, same stats:

• Favor Mal Save - Mal(34/48) Jay(41/63)
• Favor Jay Save - Mal(32/46) Jay(42/65)

Let me know if they appear sorted on your end bud.

(The attached is the same file name as the save file you gave me but I zipped instead of 7z)

Thanks for that. I'll put them in and play from them. Maybe my others will work as well, but if they don't, well, that's two paths I won't have to recreate.

I wonder how my saves could get messed up while others playing the VN didn't run into the same problems?

My first play through was with the last release, using your mod for that release and the next time I touched this was downloading the "fixed" version of the VN posted most recently, and the updated Mod you posted the same day.

Weirdness...

 

[Sancho1969]

Thanks for that. I'll put them in and play from them. Maybe my others will work as well, but if they don't, well, that's two paths I won't have to recreate.

I wonder how my saves could get messed up while others playing the VN didn't run into the same problems?

My first play through was with the last release, using your mod for that release and the next time I touched this was downloading the "fixed" version of the VN posted most recently, and the updated Mod you posted the same day.

Weirdness...

I don't have the actual math on it but it's about 50/50 success. Again, it's all due to the RenPy platform version update... it's been happening a lot lately in various VNs. I simply can't get the word out effectively enough for devs not to do this until they start to create a completely new season or story. It hardly ever ends well otherwise until every one has basically started playthroughs from scratch on the new platform version. That's a big ask for a fanbase most of the time imho.

 

[Sancho1969]

Son of Durin (and other folks),

I'll try and make a clear post on how to do this save fixing approach I've been using. It'll be a wall of text to explain what to do and why to do it but it might help folks that are determined to do so.

I'll give a massive hint though... this particular error seems to result in either the VN's stat bar or the entire in-game UI.

One will notice that you can almost tell immediately if a save file is bugged as upon load the VN's stat bar at the top of the screen will show then hide immediately... that was my original first clue when the VN updated and this particular save file issue was being reported with folks modded or unmodded.

One of the steps in the middle of my overall repair process is to open the MiniMenu and toggle "SanchoFont" Off/On (or On/Off depending on it's current state) which is just a quick and easy way to force RenPy to refresh the entire UI. Originally I had some code in that new "MainMenu" QM button to do a UI refresh but the actual time it took for the refresh to complete was abnormally long compared to using an embedded style registry toggle such as is contained in font changing, etc.

This post is already becoming a wall of text and that particular step I just wrote is not the first step nor the last so I'll stop there but thought I'd share a bit of insight. Again, I'll see what I can do to write up a clear step by step process that will help resolve this particular error (it will do nothing for rollback errors, that's a completely different issue).

 

[Son of Durin]

Son of Durin (and other folks),

I'll try and make a clear post on how to do this save fixing approach I've been using. It'll be a wall of text to explain what to do and why to do it but it might help folks that are determined to do so.

I'll give a massive hint though... this particular error seems to result in either the VN's stat bar or the entire in-game UI.

One will notice that you can almost tell immediately if a save file is bugged as upon load the VN's stat bar at the top of the screen will show then hide immediately... that was my original first clue when the VN updated and this particular save file issue was being reported with folks modded or unmodded.

One of the steps in the middle of my overall repair process is to open the MiniMenu and toggle "SanchoFont" Off/On (or On/Off depending on it's current state) which is just a quick and easy way to force RenPy to refresh the entire UI. Originally I had some code in that new "MainMenu" QM button to do a UI refresh but the actual time it took for the refresh to complete was abnormally long compared to using an embedded style registry toggle such as is contained in font changing, etc.

This post is already becoming a wall of text and that particular step I just wrote is not the first step nor the last so I'll stop there but thought I'd share a bit of insight. Again, I'll see what I can do to write up a clear step by step process that will help resolve this particular error (it will do nothing for rollback errors, that's a completely different issue).

An idea I had last night/early this morning was to look into using the "auto save" on page whateverthehell at the end of all things - technically, it is a new save that may have "fixed" itself (or not). What I'll do is roll back, play the monkeypox scene, make note of the autosave location and try to save my game. When it kicks me out, I'll quit, reopen and see if that autosaved game will allow me to play, then save as normal, and replace the slot save that spawned it.

Probably won't work, but I was trying to figure out a way to use the VNs own internal workings to see if it could "self fix" and that was the harebrained scheme that came to mind.

Edit: It didn't work. Also, cleaned up some of the inconsequential back and forth. Thanks for the help.

 

[Sancho1969]

An idea I had last night/early this morning was to look into using the "auto save" on page whateverthehell at the end of all things - technically, it is a new save that may have "fixed" itself (or not). What I'll do is roll back, play the monkeypox scene, make note of the autosave location and try to save my game. When it kicks me out, I'll quit, reopen and see if that autosaved game will allow me to play, then save as normal, and replace the slot save that spawned it.

Probably won't work, but I was trying to figure out a way to use the VNs own internal workings to see if it could "self fix" and that was the harebrained scheme that came to mind.

A possible shortcut: Don't let it kick you all the way out and quit but rather choose "ignore" on the error which gets you back to UI then press "MainMenu" on the right-side of the QuickMenu at the bottom of the screen (it's exactly why I coded it in there). If you don't have the QM open just press "Q" once or twice and it will reappear for you. Might save you time exiting and reloading the entire VN during some testing.

 

[Sancho1969]

I'm cleaning up from my plays of the updates of Ripples & Shale Hill, so I might load this up later and try. I'll report back whether it works or fails.

No rush really. It's hard for me to work today since the main IDE I use for RenPy is basically broke in the latest updates last night. Sometimes I hate Windows software with a passion... which means it must be whiskey-thirty by adult beverage clocks!

 

[Sancho1969]

For the pending v0.8b Steam update I noticed while speedrunning that the VN's cheevo notifications sometimes get stuck too:

​

I've added that notification to the list of those that are removed via the "X" key which is the hotkey in all SanchoMod's to remove any mod notifications should the ever get stuck. Just know it's a thing and that thing has a solution now.

 

[Son of Durin]

For the pending v0.8b Steam update I noticed while speedrunning that the VN's cheevo notifications sometimes get stuck too:

View attachment 2675784​

I've added that notification to the list of those that are removed via the "X" key which is the hotkey in all SanchoMod's to remove any mod notifications should the ever get stuck. Just know it's a thing and that thing has a solution now.

Should we be expecting a non-Steam 8b that might have fixes that may actually allow those of us afflicted such as I am to play our saves and not mostly restart? I do that whole "get 'em all" thing when the game has achievements, hidden images, etc., and so have quite a few alternate paths going...

If there's a chance, instead of starting my replays tonight, I might save things off and download something else on my list.

 

[Sancho1969]

An idea I had last night/early this morning was to look into using the "auto save" on page whateverthehell at the end of all things - technically, it is a new save that may have "fixed" itself (or not). What I'll do is roll back, play the monkeypox scene, make note of the autosave location and try to save my game. When it kicks me out, I'll quit, reopen and see if that autosaved game will allow me to play, then save as normal, and replace the slot save that spawned it.

Probably won't work, but I was trying to figure out a way to use the VNs own internal workings to see if it could "self fix" and that was the harebrained scheme that came to mind.

Edit: It didn't work. Also, cleaned up some of the inconsequential back and forth. Thanks for the help.

After your testing I now realized I was maybe not being prudent. What I mean is that I wasn't using the Core's autosave feature since the dev team was using their own. Now that you've test that and those seem to maybe borked with the RenPy update I decided to pull out the big guns and set the Core's autosave in force. The save points are in different chapter scene locations so they are not simply duplicates of the VN's autosave's (on page 99)... they are their own thing:

​

So now (technically) there's a Plan A, B, and C being the user's manual saves, the VN's autosaves, and the mod's autosaves. If we can't find a save that's loadable in the future after this then fuck it... time to replay from the start

 

[Sancho1969]

Should we be expecting a non-Steam 8b that might have fixes that may actually allow those of us afflicted such as I am to play our saves and not mostly restart? I do that whole "get 'em all" thing when the game has achievements, hidden images, etc., and so have quite a few alternate paths going...

If there's a chance, instead of starting my replays tonight, I might save things off and download something else on my list.

The v0.8b has no such refinements bud.
Here's the changelog via "a friend that shall not be named as to keep them in the Sancho witness protection program":

Spoiler: Steam Patch v0.8b Changelog

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