Can one of the moderators make this sticky please? I went thru all the posts in this forum, which took a long time, as well a few web sites, and made a listing of all the common errors that people have as well as the solutions, and where possible an explanation so that you know how it happened. Sure you can find this stuff by searching for it, but a lot of people don't, and besides it's easier to have everything in one place.

There are other errors and solutions not on this list, so if you have anything to add it would be much appreciated.

AAS_MAX_PLANES=n
Extremely high walls cause this problem for some reason. Apparently, there was a version of bspc that caused that problem but was fixed with an update.

Bad PointToPolygonFormFactor
You’ve got a mesh too close to the sky box.

Brush with no normal
A brush has a dodgy face. Usually means that you can't see it in the editor, but can in the map (in game). You can use Bob Toolz brush cleanup to get rid of these in some situations, in other situations you might have to search your map file (in notepad) and look for decimal points (in the first 3 numbers in the brackets) and round them off (get rid of the decimal point). Also you might of manually rotated a patch and its went all funny, best not to rotate patch meshes manually (by using rotate and then move the mouse around to move them)

DEFAULT_MODEL (munro) failed to register
This error occurs when the lightmaps in your map are just too complex and/or large for the EF engine to handle. To fix it, you just have to lower the resolution of the lightmaps in your map. To do that, go to your worldspawn entity and add in key: "_lightmapscale" value: "2". The shadows won't look as sharp, but at least the map will run. If you still get this error, increase the value to 4 and it should fix it.

Entity 0, Brush 0: degenerate plane/mirror plane/bad normal
Select Find Brush... from the Misc menu and search for the brushes with those errors.  Then delete them.

Entity 0, Brush 0: duplicate plane
When you were editing a brushes vertices, at some point you dragged the vertices in such a way that the two planes opposite each other were in the same place.  While this error isn't necessarily a vital problem in the compile process, it can cause some weird visual side effects as you basically have a double-sided texture.  It is generally best to avoid this, but it is technically okay to leave it as it is. In EFRadiant, click Plugins, Rogue Brush Repair, Remove duplicate planes.

Entity 0, Brush 0: MAX_POINTS_ON_WINDING
This error often occurs when there are just too many vertices on a brush.  Do a search for the offending brush and clip it (Shift-Enter) into multiple brushes to get rid of the error.

Entity 0, Brush 0: mixed CONTENTS_DETAIL and CONTENTS_STRUCTURAL
This means you have a hint brush or area portal set as detail.

Entity 0, brush 0: mixed face contents
This just means that one of your brushes has different textures on two or more sides. You can usually ignore it.

ERROR: Allocwinding: failed to allocate winding
Not sure what this means. Revert to an older version of your map in the snapshots folder until it goes away.

ERROR: Backwards tree volume
This error can be caused by several problems. The two most common are start position in the void or start position on a floor with a detail surfaceparm. Make sure that you place the start position on a floor made out of a solid texture and that it isn't too close to a wall.

ERROR: ClipWindingEpsilon: 90 > MAX_POINTS_ON_WINDING
This error often occurs when there are just too many vertices on a brush. Look for long, thin brushes and clip them (Shift-Enter) into multiple brushes to get rid of the error.

ERROR: DispatchBSPCommand failed with a COM exception
This is a Q3Build/GtkBuild error.  The .dll must be put in the plugins directory, and you must be using a version of xxBuild that is compatible with the editor.

ERROR: Error opening c:\progra~1\raven\startr~1\baseef/maps/purectf.bsp: No such file or directory
The vis stage of your compile was unsuccessful. This error is caused by another.

ERROR: LoadPortals: couldn't read c:\progra~1\raven\startr~1\baseEF/maps/unnamed.prt
Your map has a leak somewhere that needs to be fixed.

ERROR: MAX_BUILD_SIDES
Usually means you have a really complicated complex brush in your map, thats not allowed! you need to make it less complex!

ERROR: MAX_FACETS during vlight (maxfacets >= 65XXX)
You’ve got too many spheres and/or cones in your map. The maximum number of facets allowed is 65,535.

ERROR: MAX_MAP_BRUSHSIDES
This is normally a problem with your total amount of brushes on the map being over the limit, the limit is apparently 32768, so you should try to get rid of some brushes. If your amount of brushes is around that area or you can remove some brush sides, each brush has multiply sides so try removing some of the sides that wouldn't be seen when playing.

ERROR: MAX_MAP_DRAWINDEXES
Your brush work is too complex. You need to simplify your design and try again.

ERROR: MAX_MAP_DRAW_SURFS
This might occur if you have put tesssize 1 in your shader by mistake, this means that texture is being tiled thousands of times so to speak. You need to enlarge the number to around 128, 256, etc.

ERROR: MAX_MAP_LIGHTGRID
You have too many lights in your map. In the worldspawn enter key lightgrid and for the value, 64 64 64. Infinite brushes can also cause this error.

ERROR: MAX_MAP_LIGHTING exceeded
Reduce the total surface area of the drawable polygons in the map. This will reduce the number/size of the lightmaps, reducing the number of lightmap pages created, reducing the total size of the lightmaps in the .bsp. Drawable polygons are created for a surface even when that surface is hidden by a detail brush. Apply textures/common/caulk to these surfaces, or delete them entirely if they are patches. Drawable polygons are also created for surfaces that are only partially hidden by structural brushes - and, providing that the drawable polygon is convex, parts of it may still be hidden behind structural brushes, taking up extra lightmap area. If there is a significant amount of the area on a surface hidden by a structural brush, split the surface up until only the visible part exists.

ERROR: MAX_MAP_VISIBILITY exceeded
MAX_MAP_VISIBILITY means you reached VIS's upper limit.  However, it IS fixable. Anything brushes that aren't structural (ie. chairs, consoles, etc) should be made into detail brushes. Also make sure to use caulk on any non-visible faces.

ERROR: MAX_MAPFILE_PLANES
You have two choices: cut down on the number of brushes in your map, or don't add bot support. You can try putting clip brushes around heavily detailed brush work, but no guarantees that it will work.

ERROR: MAX_ORIGINAL_EDGES
Don't know what this one is. If you have a solution, post it below.

ERROR: MAX_PATCH_PLANES
The visible brush face is being split too many times. Extra vertex points are created by q3map on visible face edges, where they are split by other visible face points (corners, or vertices). So if you have too many visible face points touching the edges of another face, that particular face will be split many times and have many vertex points.

ERROR: MAX_SUBMODELS exceeded
There is a maximum limit of 255 "brush" entities. The only solution is to get rid of some of them.

ERROR: MAX_SURFACE_VERTS
VERTS (VERTICES), means you've got a lot of patches and curves. If this is the case, try deleting some of them and go for a less ambitious design.

ERROR: MAX_TW_VERTS exceeded
If you have this error, then you have a cluster of geometry getting sliced up too much in the compile. If you can't figure out where the problem is, then compile your map using Q3map2 with -debugportals (assuming you have the q3map.shader installed & in shaderlist.txt) then run your map and look for areas with lots of portals (the portals should appear as colored transparent walls in the game if you used the -dbugportals switch). Once you find the area that looks like it might be causing the problem, see if you can cut down on the geometry there and/or make sure your using detail brushes as well instead of only structural brushes. If you can't figure out where the problem is, then your only option is to run the -light phase in the compile with the -lomem switch (using Q3map2)to disable the trace tree subdivision, but use that as a last resort.

ERROR: No file to process. Run with -? for help
You're either compiling in DOS which is bad, or you are using an old version of the compiler. Get the latest version of Radiant.

ERROR: RE_LoadWorldMap: maps/test.bsp not found
EF defaults to PURE SERVER mode, and will not let the client game see anything not in a .pk3 file that has been CRC checked against the server's copy of the same .pk3 file. When you load a map with \map or \devmap in EF, you are running both the client and the server. If you're running in PURE mode, and the map you're trying to load does not exist in a .pk3 file in your baseef folder, the game will think it is not there at all. Type /sv_pure 0 in the console to go into unpure mode.

ERROR: safe_malloc failed on allocation of 71058624 bytes
Set com_hunkmegs to half your RAM, exit the game normally (don't type /quit), and load it up again.

ERROR: SV_SetBrushModel: NULL
The map has some brush ents which are only one unit thick (paper thin). I'm not sure what the minimum thickness is supposed to be, but it apparently needs to be thicker than one unit. You may also get this error when you have a brush model entity which does not have any valid brushes, i.e. a func_rotating with nothing but a common/origin brush. This could also be caused by a func_areaportal with a common/areaportal brush.

ERROR: WindingFromDrawSurf failed: MAX_POINTS_ON_WINDING exceeded
This error often occurs when there are just too many vertices on a brush. Look for long, thin brushes and clip them (Shift-Enter) into multiple brushes to get rid of the error.

Fatal: empty .aas link Heap
You have a very complex structure in your map that is causing problems for the bots.

FloatPlane:bad normal
Caused by faulty vertex manipulation. You'll know it when you're trying to move a vertex and the brush suddenly "disappears." Hit undo if this happens. Delete the brush from the map if you've already run into the error during the compile process.

Leaf has too many portals
A leaf is a leaf-node, one of the leaves in the BSP tree that is used to store your map. Each leaf-node is a small convex volume of space within the player-space inside the map's outer hull. Each leaf-node in the tree has a set of faces, which are flat (planar) surfaces which form portals where they meet the faces of other Leaf-Nodes in the map. This error is results when one of the leaf-nodes in your map meets too many other leaf-nodes, and therefore has too many portals. To fix it you can split the offending leaf-node up, or reduce the number of leaf-node it meets. Leaf-Nodes are created at the first q3map compile stage when the BSP Tree is generated. Put simply, the compiler arbitrarily splits the inside space of the map up into convex sections, using the faces of the brushes in the map to split along. To reduce the number of splits made you can simplify the brushes in the map. You can also make the compiler ignore certain brushes by tagging them as "detail" (Ctrl+M with selected brushes). To force a split in the map, you can use a Hint brush, which is an invisible nonsolid brush which only q3map can see and use (Hint brush = axial brush with all faces common/hint).

LoadTGA: Only type 2 (RGB), 3 (gray), and 10 (RGB) TGA images supported
You’re trying to use a .jpg in a shader script. All shader scripts call for .TGA textures, even though the actual texture may, in fact, be a .jpg. If the shader script is correct and you're still getting the error, then it means that you have saved the textures as progressive .jpgs. You've seen these on some web sites, where the picture is downloaded in phases, showing increasingly detailed versions of the entire image. The Q3 rendering engine cannot render these textures. You must save the .jpgs as baseline optimized.

MatchToken( "(" ) failed at line xxx
You have an error in a custom shader. Most likely you forgot to close out a final shader stage or you have two brackets instead of one.

Passage Portal Flow (23940)
You've got some complex brushes that are creating tons of portals. eg) spikes at the bottom of a pit. Make them detail so that vis ignores them during the compile.

SetQdirFromPath: no 'STARTR~1' in c:\stvef\baseef/maps/mymap.map
This happens when you install EF to a non-default location. Open up BaseEF\scripts\EF.qe4 in notepad and change all "startr~1~quot; to "stvef"

SHADER_MAX_VERTEXES hit in FillCloudySkySide()
A sky shader can't have more than 2 layers in the shader script.

Textures/dirpath/texturename had odd vertex count autosprite2 shader
You’re implementing a shader script that uses vertex deformations that are greater than the size of the brush you’re using it on.

WARNING: Couldn't find image for shader noshader
This error is harmless and can be ignored.

WARNING: light grid mismatch
Can mean you havent done the part of the light compile possibly due to a leak or other error, which has resulted in full bright in map and that error message, so check for leaks and other errors, or run a full compile if you forgot to run the light part and had full bright light.

WARNING: MAX_FACE_POINTS EXCEEDED: 65
This error seems to be similar to MAX_POINTS_ON_WINDING.

WARNING: Node without a volume / Node with unbounded volume / node has 0 tiny portals
An infinite brush, usually caused by bad vertex or edge manipulation. Use Bob Toolz' brush cleanup to get rid of it.

WARNING: ProjectSurfaceLightmap: Chose a 0 valued axis
You may have capped a cone, in which case you need to delete the cap. This error has been reported on maps that don't even have cones.

Warning RE_Add Poly To Scene: Null Shader
Usually an error with a shader which you need to find, it can prove difficult, you have to move custom pk3 files one by one into a temp folder and then see if you still get the error, when you dont get the error you will know what pk3 file to look in and look for the broken shader you have made.

My bots just stand there in my map and don't move or do anything untill I walk by them
Download q3map2toolz and run bspc with that. make sure you check the -forcesidesvisible box. Using -forcesidesvisible will solve your problem, however, it will also increase the size of your aas file and take longer to compile.