Is my Zoo's save file doomed? :( Please help!

[rabbithaver]

Hi! So I spent like seven hours on this Zoo a few days ago, and I'm kind of obsessed with it. I'm on year six! It's actually profitable! I've played this game since before I was in Kindergarten (I'm 27 now) and this is the most proud of a zoo I've ever been! It looks so good!

 

Devastatingly, something seems to now be wrong with the file, and I don't know what it is. The game loads fine, but it plays for maybe a minute tops before the entire game closes. I don't even get an error message when it does. I play completely vanilla -- no mods, nothing. My game doesn't crash like this for anything else, just this particular zoo, and I don't have any backups. Is there any way to find out why it's not working and fix it? I'm so desperate for a fix that I've made an account here to ask for help. 

Thank you so much for reading. <3

Black Forest Zoo.zoo

[(Admin)Cricket]

Which zoo map did you use as your base?  There are a few that are known to crash.  Two main ones are Jungle River and Lake Resort.

 

You also may want to check out this link:
http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?board=246.0

[rabbithaver]

i used the Crater Lake map. is that one of the ones that crashes?

 

also... it looks like my zoo's walls themselves are one tile away from the edge of the map. is it supposed to be like that? is that what's causing the crashing?

[(Admin)Cricket]

I just took a look at your zoo.  One thing that stands out to me is the fact that you used the zoo walls as one side of your exhibits.  I've had issues with this before.  One of our club zoos was crashing due to this issue.  I moved all those exhibits one tile away from the zoo wall and it stopped crashing.  You may want to try that and see if it makes a difference.

[rabbithaver]

oh my god, that seems to be exactly what it was! i moved the exhibits away from the walls and the game hasn't crashed! i'm so so so so so happy, thank you so so much!!! this means so much to me!

[(Admin)Cricket]

You are very welcome!  The advice that we give is usually due to us going through the same things!  

[VNDragonV2]

On 6/2/2025 at 9:37 AM, Cricket said:

I just took a look at your zoo.  One thing that stands out to me is the fact that you used the zoo walls as one side of your exhibits.  I've had issues with this before.  One of our club zoos was crashing due to this issue.  I moved all those exhibits one tile away from the zoo wall and it stopped crashing.  You may want to try that and see if it makes a difference.

Wait, is this a well-known issue? Literally ALL my zoos are built with exhibits flush into the zoo walls. O_O 

[HeatherL]

On 6/1/2025 at 7:37 PM, Cricket said:

One thing that stands out to me is the fact that you used the zoo walls as one side of your exhibits. 

Does it make a difference if the walls are more than two tiles away from the edge? I can see it being a problem if they're within that 1 or 2-tile distance, but it seems like it shouldn't be an issue if they're further away.

[Fern]

From Jay: The reason the zoo crashes is because there is exhibit fence against zoo walls that are 1 tile away from the map edge. In particular, it is the exhibit fence that is at the back of the snow leopard, markhor, and bighorn sheep exhibits. Even though most of that has the zoo wall elevation at a different level than the exhibit fence elevation, it is still considered against the zoo walls. When I deleted the exhibit fence at the back of those 3 exhibits, which caused the zoo walls to be used to enclose the exhibits, the zoo continued for several game weeks without crashing. Some of the bighorn sheep fence is already deteriorating. When an exhibit fence is 1 tile away from the map edge and deteriorates, ZT crashes trying to figure out how to get a maintenance worker there to fix it. The "Exhibit fences 1 tile away from map edges can cause crashes" topic at DG explains this problem:

http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?topic=5938.0

The exhibit fence at the back of those 3 exhibits in the crashing zoo are in position A in the screenshot that is in that DG topic. As that topic says, it is okay if zoo walls are in positions 1 and 5 in the screenshot, as long as no exhibit fences are against them. Those zoo walls may still be used to enclose an exhibit and have exhibit fences touch them, as long as exhibit fences are not against them. And it is okay if exhibit fences are against zoo walls that are at least 2 tiles away from the map edge, such as position D in the screenshot.

[VNDragonV2]

On 6/7/2025 at 7:04 PM, Fern said:

From Jay: The reason the zoo crashes is because there is exhibit fence against zoo walls that are 1 tile away from the map edge. In particular, it is the exhibit fence that is at the back of the snow leopard, markhor, and bighorn sheep exhibits. Even though most of that has the zoo wall elevation at a different level than the exhibit fence elevation, it is still considered against the zoo walls. When I deleted the exhibit fence at the back of those 3 exhibits, which caused the zoo walls to be used to enclose the exhibits, the zoo continued for several game weeks without crashing. Some of the bighorn sheep fence is already deteriorating. When an exhibit fence is 1 tile away from the map edge and deteriorates, ZT crashes trying to figure out how to get a maintenance worker there to fix it. The "Exhibit fences 1 tile away from map edges can cause crashes" topic at DG explains this problem:

http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?topic=5938.0

The exhibit fence at the back of those 3 exhibits in the crashing zoo are in position A in the screenshot that is in that DG topic. As that topic says, it is okay if zoo walls are in positions 1 and 5 in the screenshot, as long as no exhibit fences are against them. Those zoo walls may still be used to enclose an exhibit and have exhibit fences touch them, as long as exhibit fences are not against them. And it is okay if exhibit fences are against zoo walls that are at least 2 tiles away from the map edge, such as position D in the screenshot.

Great explanation! And it fits previously established game-crashing issues.