Topic: WARNING: Couldn't load map file

[kat]

When compiling and testing a multi-player level for Quake 4 the following error message may display in the in-game Console;

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---- dmap ----
--- LoadDMapFile ---
loading maps/C:/Quake4/q4base/Maps/[yourmap].bsp
WARNING : Couldn't load map file : 'maps/C:/Quake4/q4base/Maps/[yourmap].bsp'
The error message will generally occur for a number of reasons;

• You have spaces in your directory file path somewhere
• You're using a capitol 'M' for your 'maps' folder
• You've not saved your working into the correct working directory

1: Spaces in your directory path
This means you've most likely installed Quake 4 to something like;

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C:\\Program Files\Quake 4\..
Quake 4 and the compiling process is usually 'ok' with spaces in file paths, but, occasionally it simply refuses to do anything related to compiling when it finds a space and decides to FUBAR. When this happens it means installing to a path that doesn't have any spaces in it, commonly;

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C:\\Games\Quake4\..
No spaces in the directory path.
The developers recommend this as a matter or course when creating mods, they typically install to;

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C:\\Quake4\..
2 : Capitalized 'M' for 'maps'
The Doom 3 engine, which Quake 4 uses, doesn't like capitol (upper case) letters in the folder names, especially when those folders sit inside the main content folder; 'q4base'. To fix errors caused by this rename the folders using lower case letters;

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Maps
Becomes;

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maps
The same rule is applied to all folders within a Doom 3 or Quake 4 installation, the games are quite fussy about this one.

3 : Incorrect folder directory
Sometimes the error above happens when you have maps outside the default location Quake 4 uses for multi player maps; which is;

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\maps\mp\
You can work outside that location but you need to do a bit of work to tell the editor where your files are; usually you'd do this when editing content for a mod(ification). Using the wrong name or wrong directory structure when working with default content will often return errors so make sure you've used the correct folder structure and names and that there are no typo's.