[fixed] Custom guild rank names not well-defined -> game freezes

[merlight]

There's a long-standing bug -- related to custom guild rank names -- that causes the game to freeze whenever you select an "affected" guild in the Guild interface.

As of writing I'm aware of two affected guilds:

• Twilight Market (EU)
• Dark Brotherhood Merchant (??)

The bug only exhibits itself in English localization. Switching to German or French using /script SetCVar("language.2", "de" or "fr") allows you to view the guild interface without freezing. But it has nothing to do with non-ASCII characters, as one might guess at first.

Some time ago, I published an add-on/hack that prevents the freeze by replacing function ZO_GuildRanks_Shared:NeedsSave() with one that always returns false. This is okay for players who can't edit ranks, since we never need to save. I've been told the add-on "works" for officers as well, but obviously prevents them from changing ranks/permissions. So I was wondering why NeedsSave returns true during the very first refresh (before I had a chance to edit ranks), and despite the fact that I don't even have the required permission to edit ranks.

Twilight Market currently has four ranks (note there are only English letters):

1. Guildmaster -- default (en)
2. Officer -- default (en)
3. Steward -- custom
4. Trader -- custom

Strangely, rank.hasCustomName for the first two ranks is not always the same inside ZO_GuildRank_Shared:NeedsSave(). While clicking on different ranks in the guildRanks tab, their hasCustomName is sometimes true and sometimes false. I didn't try hard to find out why that happens, since I think the whole default/custom name logic needs more thought -- guilds are multi-lingual, yet GetDefaultGuildRankName() returns a localized string, not some canonical rank name.

What happens after ZO_GuildRanks_Shared:NeedsSave() returns true?

function ZO_GuildRanks_Keyboard:RefreshEditPermissions()
    ...
    else -- player doesn't have permission to edit permissions (ranks)
        if(self:NeedsSave()) then
            self:Cancel()
        end
    ...
end
 
function ZO_GuildRanks_Keyboard:Cancel()
    self:ClearSavePending()
    self:RefreshRanksFromGuildData() -- !!!
end

And here's the catch: RefreshRanksFromGuildData -> SelectRank -> RefreshRankInfo -> RefreshEditPermissions -> Cancel -> RefreshRanksFromGuildData -> BOOM

I'm going to rewrite my add-on so that instead of replacing NeedsSave(), it will prevent calling RefreshRanksFromGuildData() recursively. Of course, that doesn't fix the core issue with NeedsSave() returning true when it shouldn't.

For testing purposes I replaced global function DoesPlayerHaveGuildPermission() with one pretending that I do have GUILD_PERMISSION_PERMISSION_EDIT. Whenever I switch to Twilight Market's ranks tab, the Save and Cancel buttons immediately show up. In other guilds they only show up after I make changes. This means the core issue really lies in NeedsSave().

[merlight]

Another observation

function ZO_GuildRanks_Keyboard:RefreshRankInfo()
    ...
    self.rankNameEdit:SetText(rank.name)
    ...
end

SetText() triggers "OnTextChanged" event and leads to ZO_GuildRanks_Keyboard:GuildRankNameEdit_OnTextChanged() calling ZO_GuildRank_Shared:SetName(), which is superfluous. You're filling rankNameEdit from rank.name, and it ends up setting rank.name from rankNameEdit (and consequently setting rank.hasCustomName differently from how it was set in ZO_GuildRank_Shared:New()).

If I disable the "OnTextChanged" handler during the SetText() call, I get no freeze and Save/Cancel buttons don't show up. All four ranks have hasCustomName == true. Seems like this little thing fixes it... almost. There's still an issue with the first two ranks. When I select 'Trader' (rank #4 with custom name) and change it to 'Trader123', Save/Cancel buttons show up; and when I change it back to 'Trader', the buttons disappear. Great. But if I do the same with 'Officer' (rank #2 with default name), the buttons don't disappear after I change the name back to original 'Officer'. And now the funny part: I switch language to "de", rename rank 'Officer' to 'Officer123', Save/Cancel buttons show up, rename back to 'Officer', and the buttons disappear!

Now let me guess. The first two ranks -- 'Guildmaster' and 'Officer' -- are the default English names. But they're not default in German/French. So when the actual guildmaster saved these ranks running a German client, they were deemed custom and saved as such. Now GetGuildRankCustomName() returns these names verbatim, instead of empty strings you'd expect on English client.

In short, if (GetGuildRankCustomName(gid, rid) == GetDefaultGuildRankName(gid, rid)), then hasCustomName logic fails, and coupled with the undesirable OnTextChanged behaviour and recursive RefreshRanksFromGuildData, the game freezes.

[QuadroTony]

btw did you report this to the off forum too?

[merlight]

No. The bug has been reported many times on official forums, and you don't get to talk to devs there. Here we have @ZOS_ChipHilseberg who can hopefully check this out, or tell someone who can.

[QuadroTony]

btw this is my ranks, no problem so far

[ZOS_ChipHilseberg]

I'll see what I can do to reproduce this internally.