NeoLemmix Old Formats Installer Files?

[namida]

Can you confirm what background, if any, this level was meant to have?

It is 100% not related to manually editing in a text editor. I've figured out what specifically triggers the error in terms of the level file's content (tempfix: remove the corrupt BACKGROUND line) and I'm now trying to figure out simply how it arose in the first place.

EDIT: Also, which of these had most recently been done to the NXLV file: editing in the new-formats editor, cleansing, or converting from old-formats (and if so, what method of conversion)?

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for the fast response! You mean what it should look like? Like this:


I wanna know what Lemmings is

As you can see, it's just the standard black background, and this is true for all levels in Lemmings Open Air.

[namida]

Awesome. This confirms no background data was lost, but rather, a corrupt background line was being inserted in a level that had no background.

As I edited into the previous post (but not quickly enough, it seems):

Also, which of these had most recently been done to the NXLV file: editing in the new-formats editor, cleansing, or converting from old-formats (and if so, what method of conversion)?

[Strato Incendus]

The most recent thing that had been done to the file was editing in the New-Formats editor (and/or manual editing in the text Editor).

None of the levels from Lemmings Open Air was created in the Old-Formats editor, except for a level using my Autumn tileset called "Fallen leaves". But than one doesn't cause any trouble, and any later edits to it have been done in the New-Formats editor as well.

Note that this seems to be a problem specific to the NeoLemmix editor; the NeoLemmix player has no issues playing these levels. It's just that you can't edit them in the editor anymore. Which is even more dangerous, because this way it is possible to destroy a level (from the editor perspective) and not realise it because it is still playable in the player. Or, you might only realise it once it's too late, and all older backup copies have been overwritten.

But if we can find out where in the text editor file the issue arises, it should be possible to fix this issue myself whenever it comes up, without having to resort to replacing the level with an older version (i.e. before it broke).

[namida]

Yes - as mentioned above, remove the BACKGROUND line and it will load fine again. I've already made (but not yet released) a modification to the editor that will load affected levels without issue; I'm still trying to figure out what caused it to happen in the first place.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks a lot, namida!

So, does this mean we should generally abstain from manually editing stuff in the text Editor? Of course, it's easy to break anything this way, and we as level designers certainly can't expect you to fix the damage we cause ourselves if we do so.

I just thought for such simple purposes as quickly changing a level's music, a level's theme, or a level's background, this "quick and dirty" way should work, given that it's only a single line of text.
One of the great advantages of using a text-based file format, after all.

[namida]

So, does this mean we should generally abstain from manually editing stuff in the text Editor? Of course, it's easy to break anything this way, and we as level designers certainly can't expect you to fix the damage we cause ourselves if we do so.

Not at all. Again - I'm pretty much 100% sure that the text editor thing is not the cause of this. More likely, it's a bug that triggered the last time you saved the level was saved - which actually looks like it might have been from Cleanse Levels, not the editor, looking at the general layout of the file? (It doesn't have all the comment lines that the editor creates - or did you remove these manually?)

Of course, just in general be careful when editing it manually, make sure you know what you're doing and/or keep backups, but it's not in any way a "don't do this" as long as you know what you're doing, and I very much doubt it's the cause of this issue, unless your particular text editor is doing some very weird stuff.

[Strato Incendus]

Okay, thanks for the clarification!

I'm using the standard Editor that comes with Windows 10, so I don't think there should be anything particularly odd about it.

Yes, coincidentally, all of these levels still happen to be comparatively old ones. From New-Formats, of course, but some created in late 2018. So it is indeed possible that they were subjected to cleansing levels at some point, though this also must have been a while ago.

EDIT: I tried it out (=removing the BACKGROUND : line on another level that turned out broken), it worked! I can't thank you enough, namida!