Glitches

Glitches are unwanted effects from the programming of any video game. Glitches can range from being helpful to a player, meaningless, a nuisance, or game-wrecking. Spore itself has many glitches, but most rarely happen. The most common are programming errors - like citezens wondering out of cities and getting stuck, or vehicles 'glued' together.

Call Glitch
Occasionally, if the music is off and a player tries adjusting the sound for their creatures, they would endlessly hear the call of the Primate mouths looping constantly, even if they turned off the sound option for their creatures.

Twitch Glitch
Not precisely a glitch, but a player would be able to rapidly push a command button in Test Drive mode, and their creature would twitch while trying to go through the entire command, but having to start over every time a player pushed the button.

Spit Glitch
When a player would put a spit weapon on their creature's mouth and pressed the spit button the spit weapon would go inside the creatures mouth and come out again at the bottom of the creature's mouth and slowly move up to its original place.

Domesticate
While you are in creature mode, you should share your creature then save. Then when you enter tribal mode on the same file, you might see your creature in an earlier evolution and 2x bigger! This may be a glitch, or it might have been purposely put in.

Black Screen
If you have the Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, then make a creature, and make it have three babies. Once this is done, go to the creepy and cute animations, and repeatedly click the bee button. Each time you do this, the animation resets, making more and more bees swarm around the screen. After five minutes, the screen will be black with bees. By seven minutes, the game will have froze. Hold down Ctrl., Alt, and Delete to go to the task manager of your computer and end spore, and then simply re-start it.

Clothed Animals
Sometimes, but not often your own species will appear on the biosphere as a non-sapient creature. If you ;however, remove your cloths during civ stage and leave a tribe standing, in space stage the village sites will be deserted and your creature will appear as a non-sapient species with their tribal cloths.(Encounter ,but method is uncomfirmed)

Twitch Glitch
The Twitch Glitch still exists in the final game.

Rotating Part Glitch
If a Creature standing with one foot on the slant part of the platform in any Outfit editor, preforming "Punch" will cause the animation to glitch and clothing parts (especially masks) will rotate or flip in a random direction.

Floating Landmarks
Similar to the Underwater Tribe Glitch (see below), but the game tries to spawn a Planetary Landmark above a body of water, thus it floats above water.

Abducted Chieftain
Sometimes, in tribal stage, your chieftain will get abducted by a spaceship, however he will not be reborn. The only way to fix this is to go back to the last saved game, however, if you save the game after he is abducted you will have to start the game over.

Rotating Camera Glitch
During Creature stage, the camera can sometimes get stuck in a constant rotating movement. The camera circles the Creature constantly and, although the creature can still mate, fight and socialize, it can be extremely confusing and irritating. (Note: no solution has yet to be discovered) Before concluding that you are experiencing this glitch, make sure your mouse cursor is not all the way to the edge of the screen.

Infinite Music Glitch
If a tribe member tames a creature and a UFO Abducts the Creature before the music stops, the music will continually play from the tribe member until they die, it is not impedeing but is extremely irritating, the only solution is to kill the tribe member, interact with another tribe, or Progress to the Civilization stage. This may also happen in Space phase after destroying colonies, the war music still plays for the rest of the game.

Multiple Tools
Sometimes during the Tribe stage, when you tell a tribe member that already has a tool to pick up a different tool, they might not drop the first one and have both at once. Only the most recently acquired tool will affect the tribe member's abilities, but it can be annoying when you think a tribe member has one tool, but doesn't.

Planets with no Spice
Occasionally, a planet other than the one specified to not have Spice will not have any, the best way to find these are to look for T1 or higher Planets in Grox Systems.

Stuck Babies Glitch
Sometimes, in the Tribal stage, if there are many babies near a wild animal nest, they will become "stuck." They will usually not be doing anything but staring at an adult animal, not only can they not move around, their whole body in incapable of moving. If a tribal member walks through them, or if you wait, they will start moving again.

Stuck as a Baby
When being born in the Creature stage, sometimes, if a creature kills the creature you are interacting with, you are stuck as a baby. To fix this, just save your game and restart. Alternatively, you may press the escape button to instantly become an adult. this also works if you don't feel like learning abilities you already know how to do from you parent.

Communication screen glitch
A common problem can happen when communicating with other empires - the empires captain speaks but has no voice.

Dancing trees
Sometimes two trees spawn in the same spot and they look they are moving. Simply moving away from the trees usually solves the problem. This can happen with vehicles and creatures as well.

Following glitch
Very rarely a spaceship (usually an ally) when deleted from the fleet wont fly off but continues to follow the player. The spaceship can't be destroyed and the player will be stuck with it for the whole game.

Empires changing color
Very occasionly the players empire will change color, this is extremely fustrating for players who like the colour of their empire. The original color can't be restored even when the player changes the color of their creature. This can happen with saved games. It can also be very annoying and fustrating if another empire has the same color as their changed color.

"Colorblind" Terrain
Sometimes a planet terrain is messed up, resulting in multicolored planets, strange tints of color, and reflective terrain. This is most likely a graphics glitch and disappears after an hour or so.

Messed up pollination
Sometimes vehicles and buildings get mixed up such as when buildings start moving and collecting spice or when anonymous vehicles pollinate off the Sporepedia and fill up the entire planet. This can happen due to a vehicle or building not being selected from the colony menu, simply selecting a new model should fix this problem.

Tool glitch
Sometimes tools appear in the communication menu, but are completely useless, they have no picture and instead they have three stars - *** in the middle. They are not worth purchasing. (Creature Creator) If you have Exo-Skeleton parts, that pressing i and hovering you're mouse over the foot/hand that comes with the limb, this effect also happens.

Turret glitch
Sometimes city turrets do not stop, even after a battle, the best thing to do is to quit the game and the glitch should subside.

Gas Giant Rings overlapping Planet Glitch
Occasionally,a gas giant very close to a non-atmospheric planet will overlap rings.

Rock in Colony Glitch
Sometimes, a rock will appear in a colony in the Space stage

Mini Epic
In the Civilization stage, sometimes there will be an epic creature that is the size of a normal creature instead. Half-Epics also exist.

Disappearing Water
Occasionally, the water on a T0 planet, usually a low temperature and low atmosphere, the frozen water will not generate and there will be a hole in the planet that you can see through. To make the glitch disappear, you must Terraform to at least T1.

Still breathing epics
When the epic falls, between a tree and some bones, it will start moving by itself. It's like it is sleeping.

Dead Empire Planet Drone Communication
Sometimes, if your game is glitchy enough, when you receive the message from the drone the static will flash lower than its supposed to and it shows your empire creature instead of something else.

Glowing Sphere Mission Communication
Sometimes after players complete the first mission they get after they enter Space stage (Fly through seven large glowing spheres.) the communication screen will not open up, no matter how long you wait or how much you press the communication button. This can be very alarming for players who experience this glitch and don't know about it. If you can't communicate you cannot complete the mission and you will not be able to earn the interstellar drive and get out to where the real action, fun and exploration is, in outer space, thus completely wrecking the stage. Players will usually resort to exiting and starting off from their last save. Players should not panic when this glitch occurs, it can be fixed simply by entering an editor from the City Planner and then leaving. After that the screen should open up as soon as you click it.

Aircraft laser glitch
Sometimes in Space stage, the player may come across a planet still in its Civilization stage. If aircraft are attacking a city with green lasers and the player joins in with a spaceship laser, the aircraft lasers turn red.

Player's nation
In the Civilization stage, right when the player captures a city, and contacts the nation. Sometimes the only discovered things are that it acts like a normal nation at first look, but if the player gives them a gift,they will say "***".

Planet Buster Glitch
Very rarely, when using the Planet Buster, the device will hit the ground but the planet will not blow up, you won't be able to exit the planet and won't be able to die. But roughly 20 minutes later, the planet should blow up and everything should return back to normal.

Black Hole loop glitch
Occasionally the player can get stuck in a loop while entering a Black Hole, however, it will end after a few trips.

Black Hole trails on planets
Sometimes (and usually caused by mods or video glitches) black hole trails (those road like trails that connect black holes in the galactic view) can appear on planets.

Flight of the Bumblebee Achievement Glitch
If the player does the Slugger Achievement, and then add wings to their creature in the final edit, the player might get the Flight of the Bumblebee Achievement.

Destroyed Empire
In one of your first missions, you will have to go to a planet with a destroyed city on it. Sometimes another empire will build an empire on it, and the destroyed city is there and the current empire can get spice even though there are no spice geysers. The planet can be captured or bought, providing an easier way than placing a monolith and having war even though you did not do anything to the civilization.

Quintet Glitch
It is possible to have more than three members in your posse while in the creature stage by going to the menu immediately as the creature is added to your posse, as a result it is possible to get an infinitely large pack, very useful for killing an "Epic Creature".

Underwater Tribe Glitch
By sheer luck, when visiting a tribal planet in Space, very rarely a tribe will be in a shallow lake. And if you terraform a tribal planet and rise the water level, you might sink a village or 2, although the tribe will swim over it, trying to go down to it.

Underwater Nest-Tribe Glitch
Sometimes, after completing or skipping the Cell stage, your creature's nest will appear in the middle of an ocean, and if you try to swim ashore, the Sea Monster Will devour your creature. Since it would make it impossible to ally or extinct, you cannot advance, and your creature cannot eat food, so starvation also occurs. Also, sometimes when skipping stages before the Tribe stage your tribe will apear in the middle of an ocean, too, but tribemen can only swim and fight under water and they cannot do any thing else!

To fix the creature stage problem you must use mods. Simply download any mod to remove the Sea monster, and you will be able to go onto land. After a few mates, you will migrate on land, probably onto another continent!

Mating Glitch
Sometimes, when you mate, you will be stuck outside of the Creature editor and will have to exit and start over from your last save.

Tribal Twitch Glitch
Sometimes when playing a tribe game your chieftain starts doing a twitching "dance" leaving him unable to attack and leaving you unable to play your instruments to impress other tribes.

Unresponsive Tribe Members
Rarely, in version 1.0 tribe members may go unresponsive, there is no fix except to patch, it becomes extremely difficult to play with this glitch. It has also been seen with a flying creature's cheiftain using his power while flying may cause him to go unresponsive.

Sole Tribe Glitch
If, when playing a tribe game, you save and exit before another tribe appears, whenever you load the game may glitch and not spawn any other tribes, making it impossible to continue.

Fewer Cities Glitch
Rarely, during the Civilization stage, a player may only have 7 other cities on the map (sometimes fewer). As it is impossible then to capture/purchase the necessary 9 cities to advance to Space stage. If there are 6 or more cities, the player may use their civilization type superweapon to capture the remaining cities. The only other option is to delete the game file. EDIT : No, there is no need to delete the file. The green thing at the bottom of the screen will either fill up faster or slower if you have less or more city than usual (happened to me soem times)

"Line up for Food" Glitch
Rarely, when tribe members are gathering food, they may stop and line up at the food table. You then cannot command them to do anything else and you must restart Tribal stage to fix this.

No-spaceship Glitch
When you start the Space stage, you have to find a crashed spaceship in a planet of your star system. But sometimes, the spaceship simply isn't there, making it impossible to obtain the interstellar drive and progress. The planet may even look exactly like the Earth, or Venus

Gas-giant Colony and White spice
Rarely, another empire's colony may be in a gas giant, and the spice color is white, because the spice is not actually there. Gas-giants can be bought, but not entered or captured.

T0 Planets with Spice being mined
If you purchase T0 planet from another civilization that is T0 planet, spice will be mined on the planet even though there are no buildings and the city is a bubble city. This happens often when a colony on a T0 planet is being raided. Since they are being raided, they will have the maximum amount of spice available, although it cannot mine.

No Water
Certain T0 planets (usually of the low-atmosphere, low-temperature type) can be found that no water on them. Where water should be will be a hole into the middle of the planet. There are no known downsides or upsides to this glitch. This is a graphics bug, though not due to graphics lag, as pausing the game and waiting will have no effect. Terrasculpting tools such as Lower Terrain will cause the terrain to "sink" and disappear into the holes as if they were water. Terraforming the planet will almost instantly cause it to return to normal.

Mod Major Mess-Up
This is a game-wrecking glitch. The only way to fix it is to uninstall Spore and re-install it. This glitch will happen rarely when you try to download a Mod or an expansion pack and insert and take it out of the contents folder because you couldn't get it to work or it was no longer desired (and another way to fix it would be to copy the file to where you downloaded). Here is a list of some things that will happen when this glitch occurs:


 * When you open up the Sporepedia, some of the creature's icons will be white and blank. If you click on the button that brings them up and shows their stats, a message reading, "There has been a problem connecting to the Spore server." will be displayed.


 * The game will crash unexpectedly, when triggering some unknown events.


 * When you mouse over a file, it will show you a "?" instead of the creature being used. The game will spawn a random creature. Sometimes the creature will be a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore, even if your creature was something else! However, your creature will still have its original consequence abilities, and you will still unlock mouth from the original trait (this can be beneficial to the player, because the randomly spawned creature may be incredibly strong).


 * Note: if you try to use a building in the Civilization stage whose icon has been blanked out due to the glitch, a white ball will appear whenever you use it in the game. This can be annoying if you are a military nation and are trying to capture a city that has these buildings, because they cannot be destroyed, meaning you must attack religiously or attempt to buy the city. White floating vehicles will also appear for deleted vehicles. You can still get back the stuff you lost to this glitch by re-downloading them from the Sporepedia.

"Stillborn" Glitch
Although rare, sometimes when you try to skip the process of being born from an egg after editing a creature by hitting the Esc. key, you, and your posse members will not be born and will remain eggs.No matter how many times you restart, you will still be in an egg when you start, and your parent will sit patiently waiting for you to hatch.You cannot proceed the game once this happens, and the file must be deleted.

Planet trap
Sometimes the player gets stuck on the planet they are on. None of the ship tools work other than the radar, or auto blaster. This is a nuisance because you cannot save your game, losing badges and other things you might have earned.

Note: This is most likely from using a tool (e.g uber turret, bio protector) and accidentaly clicking an allied ship, thus sending it behind you. Just wait a while and it should work.

Gigantism
Some landforms, trees, and even bushes may appear slightly larger than normal to possibly 300 times their normal size. In Tribal stage, wild creatures are very large compared to tribesmen; only domesticated creatures kept from Creature stage will be "normal-sized".

Hilly Tribe Terrain
Sometimes, when entering the Tribal stage, there will be a lot of hills surrounding the player's Tribal hut. Nests and trees with be scattered in valleys or on top of the cliffs. It will sometimes trap your Tribal members and starve them. The only known way to fix this glitch is to save and exit, and reenter.

Floating Headed Creature
This glitch can happen when you take a hand part and put it together and have the last part of the limb in two then put a mouth on the limb inbetween the arms. Then take the whole arm part and it will make the face float. Note: If you take the arm part and delete it the face will be deleted, too. And if you move the arm part somewhere else it may make the parts on the face scatter around while floating. And sometimes it will not work.

"Cookie Cutter" Planets
Very rarely, a planet (or planets) can have their elevation data corrupted, resulting in the planet looking like a cookie cutter was applied to it. This can even destroy cities. A workaround (that doesn't always work) is to exit the game without or with saving, then reload the game. Sometimes the corruption will occur to all planets.

Disaster error
Sometimes an ally will ask the player to defend them from attack, but when the player gets to the planet, there is no attackers or pirates. Eventually the mission template says ERROR: NO EMPIRE IN &lt;the stars name&gt; SYSTEM. When the error finishes and the player can't defend that planet they will lose points from their relations with that empire. To prevent lost points to relations: Save before getting any missions from other empires

Eco-Disasters On Saved Games
Occasionally, if you forge an alliance with another one of your own saved games, Eco-Disasters will occur on that saved games' planets, but because you cannot use weapons on their planets, you cannot stop the Eco-Disaster. Loading the affected saved game will play as if there is no eco-disaster in progress, but re-loading the other game will continue the disaster. Planets in question will face biosphere collapse, in all saved games. Your best option for recovery is to let the disaster run it's course, then load the affected saved game, and rebuild the ecosystem. This glitch has been in-game since 1.02 and remains unresolved.

Limitless badge glitch
When a player starts space stage, all the badges and tools get unlocked, this can be a nuisance because it prevents the player from earning those tools.

Double supply of tools
This could be seen as a helpful glitch when a player buys a tool such as a colony pack but gets two in one for the same price!

Wildlife sanctuary glitches
Wildlife sanctuaries can suffer from two glitches, each of which has a distinct impact on gameplay.
 * Sometimes if a creature is placed in a wildlife sanctuary and then later deleted (removed from your sporepedia) whenever you visit the planet your game will crash. You can sit above the planet, but as soon as you descend into the atmosphere the game will crash. A resolve for this problem is unknown. Be aware of this when removing content from your sporepedia.
 * Occasionally, a Wildlife Sanctuary will somehow advance to the Tribal stage. The species that makes up the planet's tribes is usually a randomly-selected creature (not one placed by the player) with no outfit.
 * This can be prevented by putting a colony on another planet in the system.

Communications screen crash
Sometimes, if the settings are incorrect on the game, the game will crash when the player tries just about any method of communication. Talking in the civilization stage does not always cause a crash, but does often produce odd lines that come off of most vehicles that the player made. The same story goes for empires warning that you are in a militarized zone (warriors), that the empire is glad to see you (traders, diplomats, bards), or is just offering you money. While there is no known remedy to this, changing the screen from windowed to full screen reduces the frequency of the issue.

Fading Dark screen
Sometimes when changing the graphics settings, the screen fades into darkness but music and other things stay the same. The best thing to do is to either exit the game or try to activate something like a tool or creature interaction. (another tactic is to reset all your graphics settings to their defaults)

Wanderer Glitch
This glitch can be very common at times. The player's creature (mostly the Chieftain) won't be able to move anymore and will instead just disappear and wander like a ghost. Usually when the player clicks on a tribe member, the member will make a noise saying that he's ready for whatever the player tells him. But instead, if the player click on the tribal member that has become a "wanderer" AKA invisible, then the member won't make any sound saying he's ready for whatever the player tells him what to do. The "wanderer" won't die from an Epic creature, enemy tribe, or a wild creature but the "wanderer" will starve to death.

Blinking Screen Glitch
Sometimes when you have been playing for a long time, the screen starts blinking and you can't do anything. Eventually the screen turns black and you have to exit the game and end it. This is common on computers that run on Vista. This is a nuisance because if you forgot to save, then everything you did will get erased!

Staff Of Life Crash
Sometimes if you use the staff of life the game will crash at t2 or t3, if it crash's once, it will always crash when you use it. This glitch usually occures if you make your own plants. Normal terraforming will still work. To resolve it get the terrascore to t3 THEN use the staff of life and it will halt in the middle and won't crash.

Stuck dead
Sometimes if a creature kills you and you keep pressing esc you will stay dead. If you save while your dead you will have to delete the game.

Home planet glitch
It may appear often if player has two space empires - one near another and they are allies. While playing one of them you may get a message about an ecosystem threat on your ally's home planet. However, you can't kill ill animals there because you can do nothing with other player's home planet. If some species die, it will die in the other save file, too. However, you cannot kill these animals using other save file. Even if all species die, there will be still ecosystem threat, making it impossible to put new species on planet, which will lose all of buildings. Then, sometimes you may get other glitches. You may encounter epic creatures carrying spice instead of vehicles and flying creatures of normal size (even through there are no animals on the planet). The only resolve of it is not to play the save file in which the ecosystem threat message appeared.

Useless laser glitch
Sometimes during eco-disasters or battles, the spaceship laser is ineffective when used. This can be very annoying in eco-disasters. This may also happen with other tools as well.

Empire Conversion Glitch
A Glitch that occurs when you do not talk to your empire after you complete the first mission and talk to another empire which will convert your Empire into that Empire that you opened communications with.

How to "Cook a tribal member" glitch
Sometimes tribal members will do dumb things when they are not being commanded to do anything. One of the dumb things they will do is, they will be talking and a tribal member will push another tribal member and he will fly backwards a few feet, and then he would get up and do the same to the other guy, and then did a jog in place while singing a beat-box/air-guitar song. If one of the tribal members in standing with his back to the Campfire in the middle of the tribe when he is pushed back, he will fall into the campfire! He will get up, but he will be unable to move. You must now simply wait until he dies of starvation, and then replace him with a new baby.

Spore Galactic Adventures
While it is new, it is likely to get glitches, which may be addressed by future patches.

Lose all Weapons and Change Archetypes
If you are using a captain in quick play mode that you also you on a space stage file, then when you earn all the parts of a certain archtype, all the player's weapons and everything in the cargo hold will be gone! The only things you will have is the money you had, and the new ability of whatever archtype you unlocked all the parts of. The game still thinks that you have all the weapons so they do not reappear for sale by other empires. You can either delete the file, or earn money to buy other weapons, and live off of those. (If you have already bought all weapons, you will have no way to defend yourself, and the file must be deleted.)

View screen glitch
Sometimes when placing objects in an adventure, the view screen can fly uncrontrollably around the planet, this can be fixed by entering the test drive mode or the planet editor. This is a nuisance because you'll have to drop whatever you were currently placing, enter another mode, and then go back to delete the object. This can also be stopped by pressing quickly all the directional arrow and left click (spamming them, actually)

Other glithes
Clipping can occur, aswell as texture glitches. Sometimes when editing an adventure, the screen with the stars and planets somehow gets mixed with the editor, this can be fixed by exiting the adventure, and then restarting.

Grox Replacement Glitch
This is technicaly not a glitch. When you place a Grox or over-complex creature onto a planet in the Adventure creator by draging and dropping the image into the game, and play it, it will display the Grox and the over-complex creatures normaly. But if you save it and play the adventure in quick play mode, before it starts it will say, "Some of the creations in this mission contian parts not avilable in your game. Some creations will have to be replaced." When you start the game, all the over-complex creatures will be gone, but the Groxwill be replaced with a Maxis-made creature that resembles a monkey!

Captain Swims in the Air
If you have a hollow building and face it upward so the you can fall down the hollow part, place your captain between the wall so that one side of his body is over the hollow part of the building, and the other half is outside. If done correctly, start the test drive mode and your captain will be stuck in between the building wall and he will be doing the swim animation, as if he were in water. But sometimes the captain can get stuck, and the best thing to do is either to try to jump out the way of the obstacle or quit the mission.

Tribe Member Go Bye-Bye
Sometimes, one of your tribe members just stands still not doing anything, and you can't command him to do anything. Then he will slowly... start... floating... He will get higher and higher until he dissappears from view. You can just replace him with another baby, though. This can happen anytime in Tribal Stage but is rare.