Troubleshooting

The headings below are the messages Creator actually puts on your screen, so you can search this page for the words you are looking at. Starting Creator comes first, then your Rust content, the biggest source of trouble. If none of this covers it, report it: at this stage, confusing counts as a bug.

Starting Creator

“Open Crucible and press Play on Creator.”

The window is titled “START CREATOR FROM CRUCIBLE”. Creator starts from the Crucible launcher.

Fix: press QUIT, open the Crucible launcher and press Play on Creator, as on Install Creator. To keep it on the taskbar, pin it while it is running from the launcher; that pin starts it through the launcher.

A shortcut to Creator stopped working after the update to 0.1.8

In 0.1.8 the program file was renamed from RustCreator.exe to Creator.exe, so a shortcut you made to the old file points at nothing. A taskbar pin made while Creator was running is not affected: it starts Creator through the launcher.

Fix: delete the old shortcut and start Creator from the Crucible launcher. Where your files live lists what else was renamed.

Content

“loaded but expose NO renderable prefab meshes”

The full message names the folder it tried and the fix. Creator refused the load on purpose, and there are two causes.

1. You pointed at a dedicated server install. A server install has no usable art.

   Fix: point RUST INSTALL at the CLIENT install, …\steamapps\common\Rust\Bundles\Bundles, and not at anything under a Server\ folder.

2. Steam is mid-update. Patch-day hotfixes briefly leave the client bundles incomplete.

   Fix: let Steam finish updating Rust, then start Creator again. Creator waits for Steam by itself (see the next heading), so this cause only reaches you through an old private copy.

Both are covered step by step in Your Rust content.

“Rust is updating in Steam; Creator will continue when it finishes.”

Steam is downloading or applying a Rust update. Nothing is wrong and nothing is lost: Creator waits for Steam to finish, then opens your Rust files. CREATE BLANK works meanwhile, and if you have a private copy Creator uses it for that session. A private copy you are making waits the same way: CHECK AGAIN looks straight away and CANCEL stops it with nothing changed. More in When Steam is updating Rust.

“Steam is trying to update Rust. Close Creator so the update can finish.”

Creator keeps your Rust files open while it runs, so Steam cannot finish an update until Creator is closed. Save your map, close Creator, let Steam finish, then start Creator again. The map you have open keeps working until you do.

“Rust was updated while Creator was open.”

Rust moved to a newer build while Creator had the older files open, so Creator will not generate a new map in this session. Save your map, close Creator and open it again; generating works straight away on the new build.

“Creator could not find your Rust install.”

Set RUST INSTALL on the start screen yourself (DETECT looks in every Steam library). The path ends at …\steamapps\common\Rust\Bundles\Bundles. Creator opens the files as soon as the path is right. CREATE BLANK works meanwhile and gives you plain terrain with no Rust art.

“Rust’s game files are incomplete in Steam”

Steam says Rust is installed and idle, but the client Bundles file is missing. Creator waits for it. If it does not clear, trigger a validation (Steam’s Verify integrity of game files, or steam://validate/252490 in your browser); Creator carries on once the file is back.

“Rust changed in Steam while Creator was copying it”

A Rust update landed while Creator was making a private copy, so it starts the copy again once Steam has finished. Nothing else changed.

“Rust has updated since this version of Creator was tested”

The Rust you have installed is newer than the build this Creator release was tested on. Most things work. If something looks wrong on the newer build, report it. The message shows once per Rust build.

“Creator needs a copy of Rust’s game content before it can render anything.”

You have Use the private copy switched on and no copy has been made yet. Either make one (set RUST INSTALL on the start screen, DETECT finds it, then press SYNC), or switch Use the private copy off in Preferences > CONTENT and start Creator again, and it reads your Rust install directly. CREATE BLANK works meanwhile and gives you plain terrain with no Rust art.

“is behind your Rust install” or “does not match your Rust install”

You are using a private copy, and it is from a different Rust build than the one you have installed. Nothing is broken: the copy keeps working exactly as it did, and monuments or prefabs added since it was made are simply missing until you update it, which is expected. Press SYNC when you want the newer content, and read what a re-sync changes first.

“re-sync to pin the world generator”

That private copy is older. Update it when convenient.

Rust updated and my seed generates a different map now

Expected. New Rust content moves monuments and adds props, so the same size and seed produce a different world on a newer Rust build. A seed is only reproducible against the Rust build it was generated on. A map you saved does not change. If you need a seed to stay put while Rust updates, make a private copy; an older private copy stays on disk until you delete it.

How the map looks

The ground is cyan or blue

Grass, dirt and forest draw in flat cyan and blue in Creator 0.1.9 when Preferences > GRAPHICS has Tier at 0 · Potato, 1 · Low or 2 · Medium-Low, or Texture size at Half or Quarter. Your graphics card is not the cause, and the map file is not changed.

Fix: on 0.1.9, set Tier to 3 · Medium or higher and Texture size to Full, then open the map again. 0.2.0 fixes this at every tier.

Generation

It looks frozen

Look at the loading screen: it shows the current pass name, its position in the ladder, a progress bar and an elapsed timer. If the pass name and the counter are moving, it is working, not hung. Large maps take a long time and most of it is placing prefabs rather than computing terrain.

If you minimized the loading screen it collapsed to a pill. Click that to reopen it.

It is slow

It is. Generation speed is a known open issue rather than a solved problem, and the first generation after launching is often slower than a second one in the same session. If you are learning the tools rather than building a real map, generate at a smaller size. If memory is tight, restart Creator between large generations: see System requirements.

Opening and saving a map

Opening a map shows the loading screen

Loading a saved map uses the same loading screen as generating one. It comes up as soon as you pick the map and walks through reading the file, building the terrain and water, applying the ground textures, extracting the prefabs the map uses and placing them (with a count), and it stays until every prefab is placed. The extracting step can hold for a minute on a large map. WATCH LOADING shrinks it to the same pill, so you can watch the prefabs appear.

“That map could not be opened.”

The file was not loaded, and the message names why in square brackets: what Creator expected, what it found instead, and what to do.

What you see	What it means
[empty-file], [truncated-header], [truncated-body]	The file is cut short. A copy or download was interrupted, or a disk filled up mid-save. Use a backup, an autosave or a crash copy.
[unknown-version]	The map was written by a newer Rust build than this Creator reads. Update Creator.
[not-a-map]	The first bytes are not a map header at all. It is a different kind of file, or one that was renamed.
[damaged-body]	The compressed data inside is damaged: the file has been altered or partly overwritten.
[missing-height-layer], [non-square-height-layer]	The map read far enough to open, but its terrain grid is gone or malformed. There is no map to show.
[world-size], [prefab-count], [path-count], [decompressed-bytes]	The file claims more than Creator’s safety limits allow, which usually means it is damaged or hostile. If you genuinely have a map that large, launch with -nomaplimits.

“That map opened with N parts missing or ignored.”

The map did open, and this is a warning about what was not in the file: a missing ground-texture layer (the terrain opens untextured), a missing biome, topology or water layer, a height grid that matches neither grid a map of its declared size is saved with, or prefabs with broken ids or NaN positions. A map with four biome channels or five, and a height grid of either size Rust and other editors use, opens without this warning.

Nothing is deleted; saving will not make the map worse.

If a map opens but looks wrong, compare it with a backup.

“That map was not saved.”

Creator refused to save, so your file on disk is untouched. Your work is still in the session. Use FILE > Save Map As… to write it somewhere new, then read what the message named.

“Autosave is failing, so your work is NOT being backed up.”

The rotating autosave could not be written, usually a full disk or a permissions problem on the autosave folder. Every edit is still in memory. Use FILE > Save Map As… now, somewhere you can reach, then fix the folder.

After a crash

“Creator hit an unexpected error”

Creator writes a crash report next to your autosaves and, if you had unsaved work open, tries to save that work on the way down. The message says where both went. Attach the report when you report the bug.

“Creator did not shut down cleanly last time.”

Start Creator again and read the prompt. Creator checks for recoverable work at startup and, when it finds some, tells you what it is before anything loads: which map, when it was written, how many edits it holds, and which file it came from. You do not have to go hunting in a hidden folder.

There are two kinds of recovery copy, and the prompt says which one it found.

• A crash copy. Creator hit an unexpected error while you had unsaved work open and saved that work on the way down, into emergency_<date>-<time>.map beside your autosaves. This is the good case: it holds everything up to the moment things went wrong.
• An autosave. Creator was killed outright (Task Manager, a power cut, a graphics-driver reset), so nothing got a chance to run and the newest autosave is the best copy that exists. That means you can lose up to one autosave interval, 5 minutes by default. Shorten it in Preferences > GENERAL if that is more than you are comfortable with.

The prompt gives you four choices, and none of them touches your saved map until you say so:

Choice	What happens
RECOVER	Opens the copy, aimed at your own map file. The unsaved dot stays on, so nothing is written until you do a real FILE > Save Map.
KEEP BOTH	Opens the copy aimed at a NEW file beside your map (<name>.recovered.map), so your saved map cannot be touched at all. Offered when the map has been saved somewhere before.
DISCARD	Deletes the recovery copy. Use it when you know your saved map is already newer.
GO BACK	Decides later. The copy stays on disk and Creator offers it again next time.

Whatever you choose, open the map and check it before you save over anything.

To work with the files directly, they are all in the Autosave folder listed in Where your files live: emergency_*.map are crash copies, autosave_*.map are the rotating autosaves.

“UNSAVED CHANGES”

Creator asks first, however you close it. The title-bar X, Alt-F4 and the taskbar’s Close all stop at the same prompt the FILE menu’s Quit uses: SAVE, DON’T SAVE or GO BACK. If you have a prefab open in the workspace as well as a map, the prompt says so and SAVE saves both. The start screen asks too: a prefab you left open with unsaved changes after CLOSE WORKSPACE is still covered when you close Creator from there. Nothing closes silently with unsaved work in it.