Taken from The QuakeLab: Editing website
http://www.planetquake.com/quakelab/
Used by kind permission of Steve Fukuda

                               [The QuakeLab]
              [Compiling and Editing Problems and Solutions]

            [Editor] [BSP]  [Light] [VIS]  [Startup] [Gameplay]

                           Modified August 4, 1997
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|Problem                                  |Solution                           |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |The final path_corner needs a      |
|func_train crashes at last stop on its   |valid target path_corner. If you   |
|route                                    |want the train to stop at the      |
|                                         |last path_corner, give the last    |
|                                         |one a wait of -1.                  |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |For networking purposes, Quake     |
|                                         |builds a "precache" listing for    |
|                                         |each map. It contains a few        |
|                                         |vital things which are common to   |
|                                         |all maps (these precaches can be   |
|                                         |found in the quakec file           |
|                                         |world.qc), and specific            |
|                                         |precaches for objects found in     |
|                                         |the quakemap (such as              |
|                                         |models/textures/sounds for each    |
|                                         |of the weapons and ammos,          |
|                                         |healths, armors). This tells the   |
|                                         |client to load these objects       |
|                                         |into memory (if there's room),     |
|                                         |and to assign these objects a      |
|                                         |number, which the server will      |
|                                         |refer to them by from now on.      |
|SV_StartSound: not precacheed            |                                   |
|                                         |I can think of two possible        |
|- warning message that shows up in the   |solutions to the specific          |
|top left hand corner of the screen after |problem. You could add the sound   |
|using a trigger to fire a burst of       |file to the listing of precached   |
|lightning in a third-party level,        |files in the world.qc file, or     |
|message is displayed four times in a     |you could add the respective       |
|row.                                     |object which that sound would      |
|                                         |normally be associated with. If    |
|                                         |the custom map uses                |
|                                         |lightning-gun sound for its        |
|                                         |burst of lightning, you could      |
|                                         |add the lightning gun to the map   |
|                                         |which would then cause the sound   |
|                                         |to be precached when the map is    |
|                                         |loaded. If it uses that sound      |
|                                         |effect from the lightning tower    |
|                                         |in E1M7, I'm not sure how you      |
|                                         |would go about forcing it to be    |
|                                         |precached. Possibly copying        |
|                                         |those two electric probes and      |
|                                         |the switch that powers them to a   |
|                                         |secluded area of the custom map    |
|                                         |(somewhere inaccessible) would     |
|                                         |solve that problem. - Nelson       |
|                                         |"The Griffin" Hicks                |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |The number of polymodels must be   |
|                                         |kept to a minimum. I stumbled      |
|                                         |across the console command         |
|                                         |r_polymodelstats, which shows      |
|                                         |the number of "polymodels"         |
|                                         |visible at any given time. this    |
|                                         |includes items such as weapons,    |
|                                         |ammo, and health boxes, as well    |
|                                         |as the weapon model that the       |
|                                         |player carries in from of him.     |
|                                         |The instant this count went over   |
|                                         |20, the effect appeared. the       |
|                                         |solution: reduce the number of     |
|                                         |"polymodels" by removing extra     |
|                                         |scenery. Remove some torches and   |
|                                         |make the ones you leave in         |
|                                         |brighter, for example. This        |
|                                         |number was consistent for me in    |
|When viewing large areas and/or lots of  |my map, but it may vary            |
|entities, the bottom portion of the      |depending on how much or how       |
|screen becomes garbled but there are not |little architectural detail is     |
|grey areas. On the screenshots below,    |in your map. I wouldn't be         |
|the average visible planes = 65.         |surprised if it's always 20,       |
|                                         |though. - Ernie Miller             |
|                                         |-----------------------------------|
|                                         |I've been having lots of           |
|                                         |experience with the problem        |
|                                         |where the texturing in the         |
|                                         |bottom portion of the screen       |
|                                         |gets screwed up, and discovered    |
|                                         |a new solution: It isn't always    |
|                                         |related to R_POLYMODELS. At        |
|                                         |higher screen resolutions it can   |
|                                         |happen in quite small areas with   |
|                                         |few surfaces visble, usually       |
|                                         |when a health box is somewhere     |
|                                         |in view. Solution: don't run at    |
|                                         |higher resolutions. At the         |
|                                         |default 320x240, the texturing     |
|                                         |problems just don't occur. At      |
|                                         |640x480, they crop up              |
|                                         |constantly. - Sonya Roberts        |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |The level may have a leak -- In    |
|                                         |that case, you'll want to find     |
|                                         |it and fix it. Another problem     |
|                                         |might be the number of entities    |
|                                         |you have in this "simple" level.   |
|                                         |I'm not entirely sure, but the     |
|MAP layout: Two simple rooms connected   |Quake engine probably has some     |
|by a short hallway. Grey areas replacing |trouble drawing a large amount     |
|textures in places.                      |of models in a closed (or wide     |
|                                         |open) space. Check that you        |
|- Ran r_maxsurfs and r_maxedges and both |don't have a lot of                |
|are well below 1000 and 2000 (about      |flashing/flickering lights, too.   |
|half) and the figures are the same for   |As for the changing of screen      |
|the opposing room. Ran r_polymodelstats  |size, this might make the grey     |
|and got figures around 30 to 50... But   |areas go away becuase you're not   |
|after turning off r_drawentities (0),    |forcing as big of an area to be    |
|(ie: turning the entities off,) the grey |drawn and redrawn each movement.   |
|areas disappear completely and the       |The reason people decrease         |
|normal appearance is restored. (apart    |screen size is for added           |
|from the consequent absence of any       |performance anyway, right? Last    |
|monsters or torches). Also, if the       |but not least, what are you        |
|screen size is decreased (not            |running? A 486 or equally slow     |
|resolution---then the problem is still   |processor tends to have harder     |
|apparent), the grey areas disappear.     |time with all aspects of Quake     |
|                                         |than, say, a P166. And if this     |
|                                         |is your problem, then I might      |
|                                         |recommend getting a whole new      |
|                                         |system -- chances are if you       |
|                                         |still have a 486, your entire      |
|                                         |computer's a little out-dated...   |
|                                         |- Noid=wm                          |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |This happens when there are too    |
|                                         |many explosions, monsters, or.     |
|packet overflow                          |visible entities in a given area   |
|                                         |within the player's field of       |
|- warning message while playing game     |view. Reduce the number of         |
|                                         |entities (usually monsters or      |
|                                         |explosions) to solve this          |
|                                         |problem.                           |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |Well, that happens when you        |
|                                         |assign an entity's "movetype"      |
|                                         |field to MOVETYPE_PUSH, but the    |
|                                         |model that represents that         |
|                                         |entity is not a brush model (bsp   |
|                                         |model). MOVETYPE_PUSH entities     |
|                                         |must be brush models... Sounds     |
|                                         |like you have an alias model       |
|                                         |with the wrong movetype on it. -   |
|                                         |American McGee                     |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |Shooting a certain area of my      |
|                                         |own map caused quake to crash. I   |
|                                         |checked my map file again and      |
|                                         |found an unbinded func_door        |
|MOVETYPE_PUSH with a non bsp model       |entity right at the end of that    |
|                                         |file. After removing this entity   |
|- sudden error while playtesting level   |I played my level without any      |
|                                         |errors. - Philip Poetter           |
|                                         |-----------------------------------|
|                                         |The editor I used (Quest) claims   |
|                                         |to have removed the scripts that   |
|                                         |are attached to brushes when the   |
|                                         |brush is removed. When I got       |
|                                         |this error I looked at the .map    |
|                                         |file and found several instances   |
|                                         |of scripts with no brushes         |
|                                         |attached to them at the entity     |
|                                         |portion of the file. Removing      |
|                                         |these unbound functions cleared    |
|                                         |up the problem. Be sure you        |
|                                         |delete what you think you're       |
|                                         |deleting! - Scott Benes            |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |This happens when you make a       |
|                                         |connection to the outside world    |
|                                         |by carving and then fill the       |
|                                         |hole again with an entity-bound    |
|                                         |brush; for instance, you cut a     |
|                                         |hole in the ceiling and refill     |
|When running a made map in Quake, under  |it with a button; you can avoid    |
|certain angles brushes (especially those |this problem by carving not so     |
|connected to an entity, for instance     |deeply, so you have no             |
|doors or buttons) disappear.             |connection to the outside world,   |
|                                         |or you can put a solid brush       |
|                                         |(not bound to an entity) over      |
|                                         |the hole. - Matthias Hoys          |
|                                         |-----------------------------------|
|                                         |Vis the level as if it were a      |
|                                         |final Vis. Do not use -fast. -     |
|                                         |Nicholas Lawson                    |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|Making Deathmatch level. It passed QBSP, |                                   |
|LIGHT and VIS. Editor used: THRED.       |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|Created info_player_deathmatch entities  |                                   |
|in several places, VIS'd the level and   |                                   |
|copied the *.bsp to the server and all   |                                   |
|clients.                                 |Make sure your entities for        |
|                                         |spawn points are placed a          |
|*The Problem:* Deathmatch players        |sufficient distance away from      |
|sometimes re-spawn from their dead body  |all objects IN ALL DIRECTIONS.     |
|instead of a random deathmatch spawn     |When placed 40 units above the     |
|point. Sometimes not.                    |floor, they work perfectly. -      |
|                                         |Andy Makely                        |
|This gets hazardous to your health, when |                                   |
|you re-spawn right in front of the guy   |                                   |
|who just blew your head off with a       |                                   |
|rocket launcher.                         |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|Any ideas?                               |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|The level in which this error appears    |My guess and this is only a        |
|only appears in that one place, and it   |guess is that an improper set of   |
|is a "flashing error"--i.e:              |clipping hulls was generated.      |
|intermittant. It has a "peeling" effect: |(you are able to walk through an   |
|like the textures are peeling away from  |area you are not supposed to,      |
|their positions in binary space. This is |thus the hom type effect). If      |
|similar to the "Hall of Mirrors" effect  |for some reason the player is      |
|from DOOM, but not identical. (see       |larger than a shambler it could    |
|screenshot.)                             |happen. What you might do is       |
|                                         |insert a CLIP textured brush at    |
|Level in screenshot has been VISed at    |the problem area, run qbsp         |
|-level 4, so it's not a leak or an       |again, and see if that fixes it.   |
|improper VISing. Fullbright. - Phil Hall |- Troy Mann                        |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|Compiles just fine, but gives this       |                                   |
|message in Quake:                        |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|SV_STARTSOUND: NOT PRECACHEED            |                                   |
|SV_STARTSOUND: NOT PRECACHEED            |                                   |
|SV_STARTSOUND: NOT PRECACHEED            |I've had this problem with         |
|(repeats indefinitely)                   |func_trains before and the         |
|                                         |problem is that you have the       |
|The map runs, but the func_train is      |sound attribute set to something   |
|stuck in one position. The map is a      |other than 0 or 1, 0 being no      |
|Tricks & Traps candidate called Mother   |sound at all, and 1 being the      |
|of All Spike Shooters. It is supposed to |ratchet train sound (blech!). I    |
|simulate a huge spike shooter that fires |recommend 0. - Shawn Allen         |
|giant instant-gibbing spikes by          |                                   |
|"recycling" func_trains. There are 4     |                                   |
|path_corners. The map was made in Thred. |                                   |
|- Evan Thompson                          |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |When I shortened the pipe, my      |
|                                         |VIS time (full) dropped by 15      |
|                                         |minutes! - Neal White III          |
|                                         |                                   |
|                                         |(ed. And in more detail...)        |
|                                         |                                   |
|                                         |You have a very narrow, very       |
|At one particular spot on my level, I    |long tunnel to look down. There    |
|can look down a long tunnel. Quake       |are a couple problems with this:   |
|displays a icon warning with the word    |                                   |
|"RAM". The tunnel is just large enough   |                                   |
|for a player to walk through and about   |1. The tunnel is presumably        |
|1000 units long. There are perpendicular |textured, and Quake has a          |
|walls near the ends of the tunnel so the |significantly tough time drawing   |
|number of non-tunnel polygons visible is |distant, textured faces. I would   |
|very small. The tunnel itself was formed |definitely recommend shortening    |
|by subtracting one 12-sided cylinder     |the tunnel, as the amount of       |
|from another. Hence, its cross-section   |memory used to texture large,      |
|is a 12-sided, regular polygon and it    |continual surfaces (with           |
|takes twelve polyhedrons to make the     |increasingly reduced texture       |
|whole tunnel.                            |size as distance increases) is     |
|                                         |rather horrendous.                 |
|As a last resort, I reduced the number   |                                   |
|of sides to six and the problem went     |2. The portals generated by this   |
|away. All the usual metrics, however,    |tunnel are very akward in that     |
|like looking at the tube with r_drawflat |they are of many differing         |
|didn't reveal why this particular        |widths (in order to accomodate     |
|situation gives Quake such a major       |the tunnel's sides), and they      |
|intenstinal blockage. Any clues? - Dave  |are, where the tunnel meets the    |
|Wiley                                    |rooms at either end, in excess     |
|                                         |of 1000 units long. Try a full     |
|                                         |VIS, and I guarantee that you      |
|                                         |will still get sluggish            |
|                                         |performance. SHORTEN THE           |
|                                         |TUNNEL!!! IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO    |
|                                         |SAVE YOUR LEVEL!!!!                |
|                                         |                                   |
|                                         |- Shawn Allen                      |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|What in the world can be causing the ram |                                   |
|icon to appear and the R_SPEEDS xxsurfs  |                                   |
|number to be scrolling at a high rate    |                                   |
|when 'standing still' viewing a very     |                                   |
|benign section(s) of a map. There is no  |                                   |
|dynamic lighting (I removed all the      |                                   |
|lights just to make sure it wasn't some  |                                   |
|sort of buggy light entity, but that     |                                   |
|made no difference) or long tunnels or   |                                   |
|anything else even slightly weird in     |                                   |
|those areas. - Neil Manke                |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|Here's the image. The section in the     |                                   |
|picture only has 1 plain wall behind it  |And here is the corresponding      |
|so R_DRAWORDER 1 reveals nothing but     |solution...                        |
|that. So Quake is not rendering a bunch  |                                   |
|of hidden surfaces. One thing that       |                                   |
|should be mentioned is those R_SPEEDS    |                                   |
|numbers, in the image the 4th number     |                                   |
|(172) "actual visible polys being drawn" |                                   |
|is higher than the 3rd number (131)      |                                   |
|"total polys being drawn", are not       |                                   |
|logical and must hint at the prob. How   |                                   |
|can quake say it is drawing more visible |                                   |
|polys than the total polys it is saying  |                                   |
|it is drawing? Also, loading the map     |                                   |
|files into another editor makes no       |                                   |
|difference.                              |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|I have a problem that I can't seem to    |                                   |
|find a straight answer for. I created a  |                                   |
|new DM map that includes 4 DM            |                                   |
|(info_player_deathmatch) starts and 1    |                                   |
|single player start (info_player_start). |                                   |
|When I start up a server and load my     |                                   |
|map, I appear at one of the deathmatch   |                                   |
|start points. I have some lava and if I  |                                   |
|take the lava plunge, I end up           |                                   |
|respawning in the lava. This will happen |Apparently, if you have any        |
|3-5 times before respawning at another   |(i.e. even _one_)                  |
|DM point. If I continually repeat this,  |info_player_deathmatch entities    |
|when I finally respawn at a DM point it  |too close to a wall, it throws     |
|is always the same one (The 4 DM starts  |them all off. I tested this and    |
|are in 4 different corners of this large |indeed it fixed the problem.       |
|room -- the first time I start I'm in    |                                   |
|the NE corner, but the remaining starts  |I haven't tested how far away      |
|are in the SW corner).                   |they have to be, but with my       |
|                                         |previous map I had the dm points   |
|I ended up having other problems with    |in a corner, right against two     |
|this map so I shelved it for a while.    |walls. - from Al Harrington via    |
|The problem suddenly resurfaced with in  |HAL9000                            |
|a CTF game we were playing. We kept      |                                   |
|respawning where we died, over and over  |                                   |
|again. The other team thought I modified |                                   |
|the server to make this happen. :-)      |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|Do you know of anything that can affect  |                                   |
|this? I assume it's map-specific as we   |                                   |
|didn't see this problem with other maps  |                                   |
|(same server). - Al Harrington           |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|I have done NO carving or subtracting. I |                                   |
|was designing some stairs similar to     |                                   |
|e2m2's lift/stairs out of the GoldKey    |                                   |
|water area. One of the stair pieces was  |                                   |
|there and not there, it was visible, but |                                   |
|when I walked on it, I would go into it  |OK, here's a solution for a        |
|and get stuck in it. I deleted the       |problem I've had, and I'm sure     |
|offending brush, started the compile and |others have. It seems that after   |
|got this tidbit:                         |working on a map for a while,      |
|                                         |some of the brushes became         |
|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!           |non-solid, allowing the player     |
|reached occupant at: ( 0, 624,-144)      |to pass through. It was like a     |
|no filling performed                     |func_illusionary wall, but this    |
|leak file written to                     |was not the case. The brushes      |
|d:\quake\maps\tctf821.pts                |were not snapped to the grid.      |
|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!           |After snapping all of them to      |
|3876 outleafs                            |the grid, the problem went away.   |
|--- MergeAll ---                         |Before snapping the brushes,       |
|4826 mergefaces                          |QBSP would report a leaf, and      |
|writing d:\quake\maps\tctf821.prt        |the pointfile would pass right     |
|************ ERROR ************          |through some of the offending      |
|CanonicalVector: degenerate              |brushes. - Don Riegel              |
|* QBSP did not build the BSP file -      |                                   |
|can't continue.                          |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|The *.pts file was blank. - Anthony      |                                   |
|Distler                                  |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|                                         |All I can tell you for certain     |
|                                         |is that it means exactly what it   |
|                                         |says. You have some entity that    |
|                                         |has a movetype of MOVETYPE_PUSH    |
|                                         |that is not a BSP model (so it     |
|                                         |is either an Alias model or a      |
|                                         |sprite); this is not allowed.      |
|MOVETYPE_PUSH on a non-bsp model         |                                   |
|                                         |Unfortunately since the game       |
|That's the error that the server         |exits, you can not see which       |
|sometimes (really ocasionally) crashes   |entity it is. You need to look     |
|with on my map. I'm using the Worldcraft |for anywhere you are setting       |
|QBSP, LIGHT & VIS. It occured a lot more |movetype. Maybe in a touch or      |
|when the level had 8 buttons but i       |use function? Sorry I can not be   |
|removed them & the doors they linked to  |of more help.                      |
|because                                  |                                   |
|1. they slowed down DEATHMATCH play,     |John Cash                          |
|2. they crashed the map more often. -    |                                   |
|Brendan Ragan                            |So basically, there really is no   |
|                                         |solution other than to remove      |
|                                         |the entities and/or any moving     |
|                                         |brushes that are causing the       |
|                                         |crash, which is what I had to      |
|                                         |do. Quake simply does not allow    |
|                                         |that in a game. - Reid Kimball     |
|                                         |after e-mailing J. Cash at id      |
|                                         |Software                           |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|I have an extremely large 32 player map  |                                   |
|that has what I call phantom brushes.    |                                   |
|These are brushes that WorldCraft seems  |                                   |
|to create whenever the hell it likes. I  |                                   |
|thought it was a carving error but maybe |                                   |
|not. The brushes it creates go on        |                                   |
|forever in the game world. Previously I  |                                   |
|had one that went vertical and I had to  |And here is the corresponding      |
|move an area of mine so it wouldnt get   |solution...                        |
|in the way. Now I have one that runs     |                                   |
|horizontally thru a lot of rooms I have. |                                   |
|In WC I can select the brush but it is   |                                   |
|only shown with the bounding box of red  |                                   |
|lines, no white lines (white on black    |                                   |
|background). The brush simply can NOT be |                                   |
|deleted from WC. - Reid Kimball          |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|NO FREE EDICTS                           |Jack Perdue's No Free Edicts       |
|                                         |mini-website                       |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|My map is deathmatch only.               |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|The error on the server reads :          |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|Find Intermission: no spot               |                                   |
|Object error in find intermission        |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|It occurs when the map times out.        |And here is the corresponding      |
|It seems like it is looking for the next |solution...                        |
|level and                                |                                   |
|gets screwed up on the change_level      |                                   |
|routine.                                 |                                   |
|                                         |                                   |
|This was my first map.                   |                                   |
|Did I leave something out?               |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
|error: ifnot 4100(???) branch            |                                   |
|23 client.qc : selectspawnpoint          |                                   |
|client.qc : putclientinserver            |                                   |
|(no function)                            |                                   |
|Runaway loop error                       |And here is the corresponding      |
|host_error: Program error                |solution...                        |
|                                         |                                   |
|-when trying to play my level after      |                                   |
|compiling in Qbsp                        |                                   |
|-----------------------------------------|-----------------------------------|