Fixing the Pilots License/Taxi Mission Glitch

[RARusk]

After letting a bunch of mail pile up on this game I have decided to do an update to my San Andreas guide. I am doing the Xbox (AO Version) right now (on the Xbox 360) to get the Pilots License/Taxi Mission Glitch so I can confirm that you can still finish the Mike Toreno mission even with the bug activated.

 

However, this still leaves the Taxi Mission affected. After all of these years has anybody found a way to fix the bug once it occurs (by doing some action within the game) or do you still have to go back to a previous save point (or restart)?

 

It has been awhile since I returned to San Andreas. After playing around with GTA IV it looks and feels old. But it is still the same classic game we've all come to love. It is now just a matter of getting back into the swing of things San Andreas wise.

[zmoonchild]

The Pilots License doesn’t contribute to the Taxi Mission Glitch. The Taxi Mission Glitch is when you start the Taxi Missions, and no passengers appear at all; no matter how much you drive around, you’ll never find a passenger. It’s attributed to going too far off of the main map, by flying, boating, or swimming out across the ocean, and just keep going and going. Going too far off the main map will also create extra Gang Territories. I’ve also heard one person say they got the glitch without going off of the main map; they guessed that it may have to do with the location of a hidden interior, but there’s no confirmation to that (that I know of).

A Pilots License does nothing at all to create any sort of glitch; that’s a false myth, like bigfoot, etc.

You can acquire a Pilots License at the very beginning of the game, and it will not affect the game negatively at all.

 

As far as fixing the glitch for XBox, I don’t know of any… I don’t own an XBox, but the Taxi-Mission glitch can’t be corrected through normal gameplay.

Hope that helps.

[RARusk]

Thank you zmoonchild.

 

I've read some of your posts on the subject while doing some research into the matter in hopes that an in-game fix was discovered (which, of course, you said there isn't).

 

I was probably the first person to encounter this problem and called it the Pilots License Glitch in my guide when I created it because it was how I found it. As a matter of fact you were the one who originally informed me of how the bug actually manifested and I included your contribution in one of my previous versions.

 

I don't know if you already know but I've had some people tell me that you can still finish the Mike Toreno mission even if the bug has manifested. This is what I am trying to verify (on the Xbox version). I am also playing it on the Xbox 360 through BC. We'll see if that does anything to it.

 

I am considering renaming the bug to better match its origins. I am trying to think of something catchy. Any ideas?

[NTAuthority]

 

I am considering renaming the bug to better match its origins. I am trying to think of something catchy. Any ideas?

Zone Marker Corruption Glitch? It has the same cause as what's popularly known as 'Territory Glitch', but in a more serious data section, corrupting the ending marker of the zone name. Funnily, I obtained it while doing LS Oysters, but since I'm on PC I could simply edit my save game to get it back to normal. Sadly, the glitch can't change the '01' back into '00's.

 

 

It has been awhile since I returned to San Andreas. After playing around with GTA IV it looks and feels old. But it is still the same classic game we've all come to love. It is now just a matter of getting back into the swing of things San Andreas wise.

 

 

For me, the PC versions of III/VC/SA just never look old, but the console versions of them do when compared to the 1280x720+ native console versions of IV.

[RARusk]

Well, this bug keeps getting more interesting. At least on the Xbox 360 BC mode.

 

I got to the mission "T-Bone Mendez" before I went to go off map and acquire the Pilot License to trigger the bug.

 

It didn't work. After I came back to San Fierro and stole a cab I found that I could do the Taxi Mission. Interesting. Then I tried the "Mike Toreno" mission and that worked fine.

 

So I went back to one of my first game saves (in Los Santos) and went off map. This time I triggered the bug (no Taxi fares). However, I still had to go forward through the story again back to the "Mike Toreno" mission.

 

And the mission worked fine. Even more interesting.

 

It seems that the emulator for GTA: SA limits the damage this bug does. It still messes up the Taxi Mission but "Mike Toreno" can now be done. I also noticed that, regardless of what time you set on the X360, the timestamp for your game saves is always about five hours ahead.

 

The bad news is that I now have to go back to the original Xbox unit to do further testing and I don't know what saves I have left on the memory units. It may take me more time to get to where I need to go to verify the information I was given on the "Mike Toreno" mission.

[OrionSR]

I've never had a chance to examine a save with the Mike Toreno glitch active; what are the symptoms? The glitch is probably caused by the same basic problem of corruption in the zone information caused by flying off the edge of the map, but I don't think it would be caused by identical corruption. The problem with the taxi mission occurs when the game can't identify the SAN_AND zone. The Mike Toreno glitch doesn't reference the SAN_AND zone, but it does perform checks for the Doherty and Easter Basin zones. If either of these zone names are corrupt I would expect the Mike Toreno mission to get stuck.

 

Getting an early Pilot's license does not cause the zone glitches; flying off the edge of the map does. There's a routine that regularly checks CJ's location to determine if he has entered a new sector of San Andreas. If so, it will mark that sector so it is no longer grayed out on the map. When CJ travels out to sea the ungraying routine doesn't calculate the location for the sector array properly and it will write to other parts of memory. This corruption is not random. Entering the same sector will always cause the same corruption.

 

Zone corruption has several symptoms:

 

Ungrayed Map - When enough corruption occurs (entered sectors + corrupt sectors => 80) the whole map becomes visible.

 

Turf War Glitch - A density of 1 of each gang member or a drug dealer may get added to a zone.

 

Corrupt Zone Names - If the null terminators of the zone names get overwritten then the zone names will not display properly as CJ travels around San Andreas. Sometimes the game will display the name of the "parent zone" (San Fierro) if a neighborhood zone name (Hashbury) is corrupt. Usually this doesn't matter much, unless the zone is used by the game scripts - like the Taxi and Mike Toreno missions. I'm surprised more problems haven't been observed.

 

The glitches are not random. I was able to identify a particular sector which will cause the taxi glitch on PC v1. It is located about 600 meters east of the south east corner of the map. I use the ship parked on the east side of the LS Docks for reference and travel east out to sea until the ship is just barely visible. When I return to LS no taxi fares can be found. The cars drive on water cheat is useful for testing this glitch.

 

I'm curious if the Xbox version has similar corruption to the PC version. Which zones tend to get turf glitched on Xbox? Can you trigger the taxi glitch in the sector just east of the southeast corner of the map?

[RARusk]

Going off map in one direction to acquire the Pilots License then fly back is how I was triggering it. I was simply doing what I knew to get it.

 

When I first found it when playing the Xbox AO version I thought it had something to do with the Pilots License which is why I called it the Pilots License Glitch but will be renamed in this update.

 

I have seen the whole map become visible while doing this on the Xbox 360 but that didn't seem to make any difference. I will note if this happens on the original Xbox hardware.

 

I am sure that some of the same corruption problems that occur on the PC version also happens on the Xbox version since an Xbox has mostly the same hardware as a PC and with a slightly different version of the Windows operating system. The Xbox version was probably ported from the PC version.

 

I do think that the Xbox 360 BC emulator has some effect on this bug based on my findings. I also found that, in addition to the timestamp problem, it has very bad texture loading and object pop-in. I don't know if that is the DVD-ROM drive, the emulator, or a combination of both.

 

I'll try this method of yours to trigger this bug and see what happens.

[Krawk]

I'm sure OrionSR could answer this better than me, but could not a corrupt Xbox save be imported/exported via PC and be rapaired with hmvartak's (or others) repair tools then sent back? I recall reading the savefile structure is nearly identical.

Obviously prevention is the best fix. When I would start a new game and attain 100% flying skill I would usually muti-task, I would save at Verdant Bluffs, after each save I would fly around the island of LS, making sure to not exit the boundaries, usually about 1.6 times around the island triggers an increment in pilot skill, I would usually fly around for 2 clicks of the skill, crash the plane for mayhem and then work on a weapons stat or some other thing to break the monotony.

[RARusk]

Before I did the mission "Reuniting the Families" I did what Orion_SR suggested to trigger the glitch. I simply swam out off map instead of using any cheats. I did manage to trigger it then saved the game in another slot then saved it again after the mission "The Green Sabre".

 

Then I went back to the same save point before "Reuniting the Families" and went through that mission and saved in another slot WITHOUT triggering the glitch. Then I went to the end of "The Green Sabre" and saved.

 

Just now I went to the glitch free save and went back to Los Santos to try to trigger the glitch now that I have opened up the Whetstone/San Fierro area. I did the same thing I did on the glitched saved - swam out then back again. This time the glitch did NOT happen.

 

This glitch, it seems, only occurs if you are confined to Los Santos. If you open up any other area then you might not get the glitch if you go off map.

 

However, there may be other ways to trigger it if you open up another area of the map. Are there any other ways that it can still happen in the PC version Orion_SR?

[OrionSR]

Try again. I suspect you will trigger the glitch if you can find the correct sector. I used an End of the Line save and quickly triggered the glitch, but I've got coordinate utilities to help make sure CJ is within the offending sector. The glitch is caused by the the routine that ungrays the map, which as far as I can tell is always active, even after the whole map is reveled.

 

If you really want to fly off the map you could try traveling north of the map. The only effect I could find from flying north was that the sectors became ungray. I didn't observe any other corruption, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. Flying south of the map seems to limit the corruption to the gang density region of memory. I was able to glitch about a dozen gang turfs with 1 of each gang member and a drug dealer by flying south, but that only leads to about 10 new turfs since a couple of the affected zones are gang turfs anyway.

[RARusk]

I took the glitched save and made my way to the "Mike Toreno" mission. And the mission worked fine. So I was kind of frustrated on not being able to trigger that particular bug even though the Taxi Mission is messed up.

 

However, I just remembered that I when I discovered this bug I was trying for both the Pilots License and Maximum Flying Stat. So that is what I am doing now after starting from the save before "Reuniting the Families" (flying east over the ocean from Los Santos and getting about 60% before flying back). I think the max flying stat in conjunction with the off map bug is what is triggering the "Mike Toreno" problem. It is the only thing I can think of.

 

BTW, by doing this method I did manage to ungray the map.

 

Oh, and I may try this method on the "T-Bone Mendez" save tomorrow and see if I can trigger it with San Fierro opened up.

Edited April 25, 2010 by RARusk

[NTAuthority]

I took the glitched save and made my way to the "Mike Toreno" mission. And the mission worked fine. So I was kind of frustrated on not being able to trigger that particular bug even though the Taxi Mission is messed up.

The Taxi mission is the only one that depends on 'SAN_AND' (the first zone, triggered near Ocean Docks) being intact. Mike Toreno, on the other hand depends on 'SF' and optionally 'DOH' (Doherty) and 'EASB' (Easter Basin) for skipping the initial sections (or not, I haven't looked through the mission code thoroughly).

 

The first time you triggered the glitch you likely became unlucky going further the (unknown) glitching direction to glitch a lot of the game zones. I think there might be even more (mission?) things that can become glitched because of this, but these could be the only ones you've noticed. (outside of the obvious zone name glitching)

[RARusk]

Okay, I think I have it figured out now.

 

When I was playing my PS2 versions I was acquiring the Max Flying Stat at the same time I was trying for the Pilots License. What I did was, at the beginning of the game and after I got some Fat on CJ for time I would need for the task, I flew a Shamal straight east over the ocean until I got to about 55% on the Flying Stat then turned around and flew back. By the time I got back to land I would have both the Pilots License and the Max Flying Stat.

 

In addition, this corrupt sector that has been mentioned is directly east of the airport. If you keep east as you fly then you will easily mess up this sector.

 

Also, 55% of the Flying Stat is between 500 to 600 thousand feet. That is really far over the ocean. To get the Flying Stat this way you would need to spend about a hour and a half.

 

Well, I took my glitched save and went back to Los Santos then did exactly what I had done before to make the bug happen which was go after the Max Flying Stat by flying far out over the ocean. After I got back to San Fierro then I saved and tried to do "Mike Toreno".

 

Bingo.

 

When I first found this bug I couldn't get the dock marker to register. Now even the first marker, at the construction site, is messed up.

 

So, if you barely go off map, you will mess up the Taxi Mission. If you go really far off map, 500,000 feet minimum, then you will completely mess up the "Mike Toreno" mission. And I can tell you that there is no way to finish the "Mike Toreno" mission because if the markers won't register then you cannot progress further in the mission. I even went back to the Pleasure Domes as some have suggested and that didn't work.

 

And you can still get this part of the bug even if you open up the other areas.

 

I still have to try this out on the Xbox 360 BC though but I think I can still recreate it because I managed to mess up the Taxi Mission there.

[Pooka Mustard]

Rusk, I've read in Glen's guide that the fastest way to do this mission is to just go straight to the airport. Will this method work with you in a glitched save?

[NTAuthority]

Rusk, I've read in Glen's guide that the fastest way to do this mission is to just go straight to the airport. Will this method work with you in a glitched save?

That will not work since that 'skipping' depends on other zones being functional. If the zones near SF are glitched enough, that's also not an option.

[RARusk]

Hmmm....interesting. I'll try that and see what happens on the Xbox side.

 

I did another experiment this morning.

 

What I did was go back to my save prior to "Reuniting the Families" and back to the Airport. The moment I got off the ground I immediately flew north and into Red County then flew east and over the ocean. Basically I avoided the corrupt sector at the southeast corner of the map.

 

I then flew east off map for awhile, not too far, then flew back. I checked the map from time to time to make sure I wasn't drifting over the corrupt sector. I did not get the Pilots License or ungray the map (I don't have time right now to try for the Max Flying Stat since I have to work later). When I returned to Los Santos I approached from the north and then approached the Airport from the west.

 

After landing I got a Taxi and tried to do the mission. And I got fares to show up. So I guess you can go off map as long as you avoid this sector but I still need to do additional testing (getting the Max Flying Stat) on both the Xbox and Xbox 360.

[OrionSR]

I created a CLEO script that scans for zones with corrupt null terminators and displays the appropriate zone name so I could take coordinate readings and zero in on the two sectors that ruin the Easter Basin zones. While I was searching I came across several other sectors that corrupt the San Andreas zone and cause the Taxi Glitch. Simply avoiding that offending sector east of the docks will not assure that the taxi fares will appear as expected.

 

4671.1978, 3093.3921, 46.4953 //San Andreas

4960.8521, 9252.2588, 143.8613 //San Andreas

5143.1782, 8994.5127, 84.4828 //San Andreas

17430.4316, -19185.0117, 90.7473 //San Andreas

4112.5576, -617784.6875, 40.4871 //San Andreas

 

As I traveled farther east the sectors cause corruption in zones farther down the list. Eventually the sectors that glitch San Andreas were no longer discovered, and I found some zones that corrupted the Doherty and Easter Basin zones. These sectors are only 20 minutes from the mainland.

 

65150.8555, 16440.6152, 70.5831 // Doherty 1

65205.668, -2871.7891, 123.4811 // Doherty 2

68176.5234, 27363.7031, 64.2723 // Doherty 2

68363.7891, 46617.7305, 67.9822 // Doherty 1

71503.9531, 5064.7764, 49.8261 // Easter Basin 1

73746.9219, 4153.8843, 96.1689 // Easter Basin 2

73835.8281, 29149.4297, 81.238 // Easter Basin 1

 

The Doherty and Easter Basin zones are fairly close to the top of the list - in the 30s. The area I was searching was east of the mainland. When I searched west of the mainland I saw similar corruption in zones that were still fairly early in the list - in the 50s or so, but I didn't spend much time scanning these sectors.

 

Added: Easter Basin and Doherty have 2 zones. If the zone with the marker is glitched it is still possible to get the mission to progress by entering the other zone. As long as Easter Basin, or Doherty appear on screen when you enter the zone it will count. <pdescobar's zone map>

 

The zone corruption isn't too difficult to repair on PC. Most of the zone info is static so it can be patched from a good save with a hex editor. However, it is my understanding that it is not practical to edit Xbox saves. For starters, they are difficult to get at. But also, I was informed by pdescobar that the Xbox files have some extra Xbox file info stuff attached to the save which makes editing the save very impractical.

 

Other missions that might be influenced by zone name corruption are:

 

Wear Flowers In Your Hair - Easter Basin

Snail Trail - San Fierro

Fender Ketchup - Freeways

Pimping - 80 or so zones used to select the appropriate hooker.

Beat Down on B Dup - Glen Park

Grove 4 Life - Idlewood zones

Los Desperados - gang zone adjustments

Gang Zone - density adjustments

 

The risk of corruption is too high to justify flying off the edge of the map - IMHO. If you want to pad your flying stats I suggest jacking the AT-400 from the LV airport. It is always available (getting it to spawn might be tricky) and doesn't get chased by the Hydra or fired upon by police helicopters. Put the map marker on top of Mt Chiliad and fly around the rest of the map.

Edited April 27, 2010 by OrionSR

[RARusk]

So basically it doesn't matter where I fly off after all but some areas are easier to mess up than others. I am also going to assume that, since I believe that the Xbox version was ported from the PC version, that all of these zone corruption problems you have described can also happen in the Xbox version as well (outside of what has already happened) on both the original hardware and Xbox 360 BC.

 

As for the Xbox saves I intend to go back to xbox-scene and ask them about being able to transfer some saves from one drive to another and I will probably ask them for info about editing game saves at the same time. See if there have been any advances lately.

 

And why would you need to put the marker on Mt. Chiliad? Just wondering.

[NTAuthority]

 

So basically it doesn't matter where I fly off after all but some areas are easier to mess up than others. I am also going to assume that, since I believe that the Xbox version was ported from the PC version, that all of these zone corruption problems you have described can also happen in the Xbox version as well (outside of what has already happened) on both the original hardware and Xbox 360 BC.

Indeed.

 

 

As for the Xbox saves I intend to go back to xbox-scene and ask them about being able to transfer some saves from one drive to another and I will probably ask them for info about editing game saves at the same time. See if there have been any advances lately.

 

 

On the original Xbox, the SA save games don't appear to have any notable header, and will have the same replaceable zone structure as the PC saves (though you'll need additional software to get them off). I don't know about the 360, but I guess they're unencrypted but with a save header similar to native 360 games, which are signed with a console-specific certificate, which I've possibly read were edited once anyway.

 

 

And why would you need to put the marker on Mt. Chiliad? Just wondering.

 

Well, I guess because that's one of the farthest locations on the map, and a 'safe' place to start moving around the rest of the map... but I'm not OrionSR, so what would I know about what he says?

[OrionSR]

I had my doubts, but when you confirmed that Taxi Glitch sector east of the LS Docks I started assuming that our zone corruption was likely to be identical. The thing of it is: the Taxi and Toreno glitches are only the tip of the zone corruption iceberg. There are lots of corrupt bytes generated for even a short trip off the map, it's just that most of them don't matter at all, and most of the others are very difficult to notice.

 

You might be safe flying directly north of the map. (Wrong! Flying north also leads to gang density glitches.) I haven't run any tests on this recently, but my early experiments only showed the map ungraying. Flying south leads to gang turf glitches. They are fairly harmless, but some can be tricky to locate and capture. PC players are better off editing their saves with a zone editor, but perhaps Xbox players will find them interesting, even if only about ten new turfs can be glitched.

 

The reason I put the map marker on top of Mt Chiliad is that I have a bad habit of slamming into a cliff when I'm flying lazily around at high altitude and I'm not expecting anything to be high enough to smack into. So, put the marker on the only obstacle, avoid that corner of the map, and have a nice leisurely flight. Oh, and I don't get tempted by the bridges between SF and LV. The invisible barriers are a lot bigger than one would expect.

 

In case someone is following up on this for the PC version, I'll post the memory addresses for the null terminators that effect the Taxi and Mike Toreno missions.

 

 

  0A8D: [email protected] = read_memory 0xBA37A7 size 1 virtual_protect 0    // 'SAN_AND' // San Andreas (Taxi Glitch) 0A8D: [email protected] = read_memory 0xBA3C04 size 1 virtual_protect 0    // 'EASB1' // Easter Basin 0A8D: [email protected] = read_memory 0xBA3C24 size 1 virtual_protect 0    // 'EASB2' // Easter Basin 0A8D: [email protected] = read_memory 0xBA3B83 size 1 virtual_protect 0    // 'DOH1'  // Doherty 0A8D: [email protected] = read_memory 0xBA3BA3 size 1 virtual_protect 0    // 'DOH2'  // Doherty

 

Edited April 28, 2010 by OrionSR

[RARusk]

At this point, at least as far as this problem is concerned, I am going to treat it the same as if it was the PC version. I am going to put in a chapter in the first part of my guide about the two major bugs that get the most attention, the "Supply Lines" Glitch (PS2 AO Version) and the "Pilots License" Glitch (Xbox AO Version - and to be renamed the "Off-Map" Glitch).

 

For now I am going to move onto the rest of my mail and make more changes to my updated guide.

 

And I do love playing "San Andreas" on the PS2 using HDLoader. Really speeds up those loading times.....