Really odd bug playing tonight

[Roxxsmom]

I ran into a strange bug in one of my workzones. It started with an animal dying in one habitat and the vet showing up and just standing there making little frustrated sounds. The button to pick the vet up is grayed out. I've run into this before, and usually deleting the habitat gate and reinstalling it, or dismissing the alert works, but this time the vet finally disappeared but the animal is still there rotting, and calling a new vet to the habitat doesn't fix it.

And the keepers stopped feeding the animals in a nearby habitat in the same workzone, in spite of their being several staff and they had no issues before. The animals were starving, so I put them in the trade center and moved them to quarantine so they would be fed. Once their quarantine is up I clicked to move them back to their enclosure, and called the keeper (since their habitat was still dirty). The people transporting the animals and the keeper are sprinting down the path to the habitat, but when they are almost there they make a frantic little sound, turn around, and sprint away again. Rinse, repeat. The animals in the transport boxes have dropping welfare as this occurs, of course.

This zoo has been buggy since I started it, with more animals than usual randomly walking through barriers or triggering escape alarms while still inside, but now the staff are freaking out.

I don't know what to do about this. People say verify your game files, but I don't really get what that means or what it would do to fix the problem.

I do wonder if it would be possible to manually remove dead animals in the game when the vets won't do it. Also make it possible to pick up stuck staff members and move them.

 

[Karen F]

Here is how to verify your game files: you don't run planet zoo, but go to your steam page. There you right click on planet zoo. Then you choose 'properties'. Then choose 'local files'. There you will see the option to verify your game files. Click this. I really hope this will help, but if it doesn't, you might wanna consider starting a new zoo. I wouldn't wanna play a zoo that is constantly plagued with bugs.

 

[wda1250]

I was having the same bug in my franchise park yesterday - was sending a capuchin to quarantine since it wouldn't drink, caretaker came all the way into the habitat past the gate (odd), and just stood there with his energy dropping down. Also, the 'move' option on his UI was grayed out as well so he was literally stuck.

Can you let us know if verifying the game files did the trick?

 

[Roxxsmom]

I figured out how to verify my game files in steam. I haven't had a chance to play yet today, but fingers crossed things will be better. I will report back here when I know more.

I really hope I don't have to scrap it, as I've put some hours into it now and was enjoying the layout and the results with some of the rockwork in my habitats. Yeah, I can save some of the templates, but it still takes a lot of time to get things landscaped nicely with the soil textures and so on. And I don't have room in my trade center for all the animals from this zoo (I have a litany of abandoned zoos that got buggy or where I realized the layout really didn't work for guests and staff. I have one where I got the brilliant idea of making all elevated pathways, but argh, any animal that was less than "confident" was constantly stressed because of line of sight with guests (no matter how many hidey places and do not disturb signs).

But with this one, I set up the work zones in a way that is generally successful and the animals are mostly happy in their habitats (except the cougar kittens who keep getting stuck in trees and becoming stressed like overweight housecats), so I dunno why my workers are all going nuts and the animals are escaping more than is typical (often just walking though intact barriers).

Thanks all.

 

[Roxxsmom]

To follow up, logging in after verifying the game files: my workers were still running frantically back and forth. I may have resolved that issue, though, by firing all of them (then they at least turned around and dejectedly left the park). I hired a couple of new ones, and at first it looked like they were doing the same thing, but then I took the lemur habitat out of the workgroup for a few moments, then reassigned it. That seemed to reset the issue, though I will have to see if the new keepers will feed them.

The dead tapir is still quietly rotting in its habitat, though, and the vet call button does nothing. Says the vet is already assigned, and pushing it does nothing. Sigh.

 

[Roxxsmom]

One thing, though. The incessant escapes seem to have stopped. For now at least!

The dead lemur is inside a shelter, at least, and it doesn't seem to be bothering anyone. So I won't scrap this zoo yet.

 

[Roxxsmom]

But, sigh, a different vet returned to try to remove it, and he didn't even go inside the enclosure. Just stood outside angrily until he quit. Now I can't get rid of him, and he's standing there twitching and making those little passive aggressive noises staff make when they are unhappy. And his button is grayed out. Deleting habitat gate isn't working, nor is deleting glass around habitat, or even putting a bit of path under him. I've no idea why he tried to walk off the path and enter the habitat in that spot. I guess he saw the tapir walking through the glass there earlier and decided to try it?

 

[Karen F]

That is sad. And i can see why you don't want to start a new one. Your zoo looks nice. I never had this many bugs. Maybe the game would run better on a different and more powerful computer system. You could try to run your zoo on someone else's computer and see how that goes.

 

[XT]

Hm. He's not standing on a path or in the exhibit itself. I'd suggest deleting the section of path he's nearest to (or maybe a couple of lengths) then re-laying the path and see if he resets to be on a path or in the exhibit. I'd also suggest deleting the path that leads to the habitat gate and re-laying it. That's often a problem - the program seems to ... forget to accurately register the path and the habitats/buildings become unreachable. If he goes downt he path but stops at teh gate - delete and re-set the gate (possibly to an entirely different location).

 

[Roxxsmom]

Hm. He's not standing on a path or in the exhibit itself. I'd suggest deleting the section of path he's nearest to (or maybe a couple of lengths) then re-laying the path and see if he resets to be on a path or in the exhibit. I'd also suggest deleting the path that leads to the habitat gate and re-laying it. That's often a problem - the program seems to ... forget to accurately register the path and the habitats/buildings become unreachable. If he goes downt he path but stops at teh gate - delete and re-set the gate (possibly to an entirely different location).

It's a good thought, since deleting path and re-laying it removes stuck guests, but alas, stuck vets appear to work differently.

I tried deleting the path near him, and I tried removing the barrier in front of him and placing a keeper path under him. I even tried moving the habitat gate to where he is. Didn't do anything, unfortunately. I've also tried deleting the habitat gate and re creating it, but nothing

This is a weird bug and it appears to be unique to me. At least no one else has added to the post I made on the issue tracker, though I am sure I have seen stuck vet threads before. Generally issues I put up or add to end up being not confirmed, even the one with animals swimming or walking through barriers or registering as escaped when they are still in the habitat. And I know other people have reported that one and added to threads about it. There must be something very special about the hardware they play on or the way the play testers set things up, since so many of the bugs so many players experience never show up for them.

 

[Roxxsmom]

That is sad. And i can see why you don't want to start a new one. Your zoo looks nice. I never had this many bugs. Maybe the game would run better on a different and more powerful computer system. You could try to run your zoo on someone else's computer and see how that goes.

I have a pretty good computer, actually purchased as a gaming rig a couple years back (though I use it for work too) and a new one won't be in the cards for a couple of years at least.

Hopefully.

Specs are:

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz 3.70 GHz

Installed RAM 32.0 GB

Graphics Card NVIDIA Geforce 1070Ti

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor, Windows 11 OS

Yeah, there are definitely more powerful gaming machines out there, but it is still above the recommended specs for the game, let alone the minimum. I do find it run betters with priority bumped up above the baseline (helps with the buttons not clicking bug that pops up randomly), but it doesn't seem to make much difference with general bugginess.

Sadly, I don't really know anyone else with a computer with a faster processor etc. or would likely be able to run this game at all. I'm kind of old and and most of my friends don't computer game anymore, even the ones who ever used to. My spouse has a good mac he games on, but I don't think this game even runs on macs.

There were always a few bugs in the game, but this zoo and the last one I started are something else. I don't know if updating recently to Windows 11 is causing issues.

Thanks for the input, thought.

I love this game, but the bugginess is definitely frustraing.

 

[Karen F]

With those specs the game should run well. I believe my computer is similar.

 

[Roxxsmom]

With those specs the game should run well. I believe my computer is similar.

I don't think it's the computer's specs either. I verified the game files, but maybe there's a problem with my installation from steam or something. I'm afraid to uninstall it and reinstall it, though, because some people have been running into issues with that lately and can't play the game at all! And the game does run well overall, with no lag (except for the trade center when buying animals, which I think is a server side thing).

As for the bugged vet, maybe I can build a little maintenance hut around him?

A suggestion for the game would be a way to actually delete or "kill" staff when they bug out and become un-movable, not simply firing them. Sometimes firing them seems to make the issue worse, actually, though that's my impulse when staff are refusing to feed animals or remove dead ones and are just standing around grunting or are running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Yeah, it's a bit immersion breaking to have to do it that way, but so is having a guy standing around who hasn't done anything but make little whiny sounds for 15 game years!

Same for dead animals. The offending tapir is now "hidden" at the bottom of the lake (I got him stuck there trying to "roll" him out of the enclosure using terrain editing). But I know he's there...