I hate having to put up a thread with such a non-specific problem, but this is truly baffling. As it is, I currently have a map (a test map with unmodified landscape, only one modified side) on which I can reach the original spawn screen, but won't spawn.

Now, a chronology of the errors I've had:

First, I made a new unit, but it was basically a copy-and-paste of an older unit's .odf; only the weapons were changed. I localized the new unit, added its .req and added it to the side's .req, and called it in the .lua.

Nothing abnormal, but when I munged and started up the map in BF2, it crashed at the spawn screen. (Wouldn't let me select anything). It appeared to be symptomatic of an incorrectly called .msh or something, but wasn't, as the new unit was a carbon copy of another.
A few tries to no avail to fix this, and I got fed up. I deleted the unit and purged it from the .req files and the .lua.

However, then my map still wouldn't open. Made the map exactly how it was pre-creation of the new unit, and the problem persisted. I reached the spawn screen and BF2 crashed. "Odd," I thought - and so I recreated the .lua file using a new .lua that was from a map that would work. (No CP names have changed; the new .lua and the old .lua both would have used 4 CPs with the stock CP names.)

Now I arrive at my current situation. It appears very much like the problem one would have if they had a map in which something had been done to the spawn points (sunken too far into ground, not called in .lua), but keep in mind, I've not moved the original spawn points at all, and the .lua has remained unmolested. I've narrowed it down to a problem in the modified side (duh); when I tried moving the modded side over to a map that worked otherwise that map had the same problem. (Well, actually, it crashed at startup like my earlier problem, but it did have a problem).

There's obviously something wrong here, and the only possible lead I had on it was some ambiguous error message that popped up only twice in the numerous munges I tried; something about a shell file that didn't exist. However, I've looked through my entire modified side, and there's nothing that seems out of place (or not in place, as it were).

Can anyone help? I've been working on this new side for weeks, and I'd rather not have it entirely corrupted.

Show us your LUA please, I know what your problem is and I know how to fix it, but I need to see your LUA. Or, replace your current LUA (I'm assuming it's called ***c_con) with the backup version of it (which would be called ***c_con.bak).

My apologies for those of you that dislike scrolling down:

TDSc_con.lua wrote: EDIT: .lua unnecessary

Well, assuming your map's ModID is PMC, it isn't the problem that I thought it would be. Make sure that you have the side folders CIS and Common in your side folder. If you have, run the BF2 log and see what it comes up with.

Rekubot wrote:Well, assuming your map's ModID is PMC, it isn't the problem that I thought it would be. Make sure that you have the side folders CIS and Common in your side folder. If you have, run the BF2 log and see what it comes up with.

Right. Forgot to change that when I copied over the other .lua [/embarassed].

Well, that would explain why it wasn't having the same problem as the other map. Regardless, having fixed that minor error, now both maps (the original and a recreated one to check the bugginess of the side) do the same error: upon reaching the startup screen, they crash BF2. There's no .lua problem here, it's definitely a problem with a side.