Bad data in my MC02 file & can't advance to Signing Day

[gluke]

I tried to advance to Signing Day but my game kept freezing before it would complete the process. So I did some investigation...

In looking at the recruit file, I noticed that two players had corrupted information. Their first names had weird characters in there and all of the data was all over the place for them, including missing ID numbers.

I've corrected all of their data except for the ID numbers because I can't seem to change that. In the NCAA Dynasty Editor, here's what I see with one of the two corrupted players:



In the Recruit column, they have a 0 instead of a number. I assumed I could just type in 205 for them since that would be their number but, alas, that field is a drop-down tied to names and the players name isn't on that list:



I'm not sure how to proceed but it seems clear that this ID issue is why my game is freezing when trying to go to the Signing Day week.

Any ideas? I've tried searching the forums but this is a tough error to search for.

[gluke]

Welp. I noticed even more weirdness as I dug deeper. On the Recruiting tab in NCAA Dynasty Editor, there's bad data as well. When sorting by name, I see these numbered records come up instead of people.



Things just seem to be really screwy with my recruit data. I do have .csv files saved from the preseason of this season. There were two guys that had messed up records (one example highlighted below) and I think it just threw off things in the file.



I can see the issues at this point but I'm just struggling with how I can resolve this and fix my file. I'm really hoping someone here knows some magic haha.

[JHamilton9]

If you are using something to create or adjust player names, it is probably using a "special character" or a comma.

When exporting csv files, Excel will still open, read, interpret these characters. The translation after saving the file will mess up your file and will corrupt it.

If a player's last name is "Smith, Jr.", the comma will put "Smith" in one column and " Jr." in the next column - essentially shoving everything over. The comma separates the values, thus csv. If this is the case and it hasn't been caught right away, there's not much you can do to save the recruit.

Now, if the player only has a "special character" in their name, you might have a chance at saving the recruit. An apostrophe that is curved instead of vertical is a special character. Accented characters and some hyphens are special characters. Even formatted text can sometimes be interpreted as a special (yet invisible) character.

If you have a special character in the name, compare the columns to the right of their name with the other players. If the numbers seem to make sense or fall inline with the other players, you just need to change the name in question and re-import the csv. If the numbers seem to be off (ie, a rating below 32) then the values have been shifted over. In that case, you probably won't be able to save the recruit.

[gluke]

Quote: Originally Posted by JHamilton9

If you are using something to create or adjust player names, it is probably using a "special character" or a comma. When exporting csv files, Excel will still open, read, interpret these characters. The translation after saving the file will mess up your file and will corrupt it. If a player's last name is "Smith, Jr.", the comma will put "Smith" in one column and " Jr." in the next column - essentially shoving everything over. The comma separates the values, thus csv. If this is the case and it hasn't been caught right away, there's not much you can do to save the recruit. Now, if the player only has a "special character" in their name, you might have a chance at saving the recruit. An apostrophe that is curved instead of vertical is a special character. Accented characters and some hyphens are special characters. Even formatted text can sometimes be interpreted as a special (yet invisible) character. If you have a special character in the name, compare the columns to the right of their name with the other players. If the numbers seem to make sense or fall inline with the other players, you just need to change the name in question and re-import the csv. If the numbers seem to be off (ie, a rating below 32) then the values have been shifted over. In that case, you probably won't be able to save the recruit.

That makes sense. I use mjavon's Dynamic Dynasty Tool which does alter recruit names. The odd thing is that when I look back at the initial preseason csv file I loaded into his tool, it has the same weird player name issues for two players.

Either way, to your point, in my file, it does mess up all of the data for those players (all the data after is shifted, as you say).

Since I can't save the recruit, does that mean my entire dynasty is finished then? Is there no hope to be able to fix anything or recover this dynasty?

[gluke]

To whoever stumbles upon this in the future, I did fix my issue.

I only ended up doing two things so I'm not 100% sure which one fixed it but I think it's the second one. What I did:

1) Correct the data on the Recruit tab in NCAA Dynasty Editor of the two players that had weird data.

2) Found a player who was duplicated in the Recruiting tab. I also found there was a player that was not on that tab at all. I assigned one of the Duplicate IDs to that missing player.

I assume when it got to Signing Day, it was freezing because it was trying to assign the same player to two teams. When that was cleared up, I was able to advance normally.

[sherrane]

Is this the same dynasty that you opened a thread where a player disappeared from your Akron team?

[gluke]

Quote: Originally Posted by sherrane

Is this the same dynasty that you opened a thread where a player disappeared from your Akron team?

Yup. All from the same season. The player disappearing trick was in the preseason (though I had a backup save file that I went back to and then the issue was gone).

Regardless, there seemed to be something weird going on with that season's worth of data. I'm being much more careful now about double-checking everything in the preseason and having backups in place. I don't want to go down that path again.