PC Travelling merchant not spawning at all

[Cpt.Tiger]

Steam or GOG

Steam

Single Player/Multiplayer

Multi

Controls Used

Keyboard/Mouse

I've been playing terraria and building quite a town like I normally would. Everything was normal, until after I killed wall of flesh I think. I noticed that the travelling merchant didn't show up at all anymore and even after several in game weeks. I decided to kill the guide with lava bucket, and this apparently helped spawn the travelling merchant. I've seen other people have this bug occur as well on a Reddit post. Turns out the bug is over 3 years old at least...

 

[Kazzymodus]

Hey @Cpt.Tiger,

Would you be willing to share the world in which you had this happen? I have a theory as to what's causing this, but I would need the world to confirm.

 

[Cpt.Tiger]

I think I might've fixed it but I am not entirely sure what fixed it... I killed the guide with a lava bucket and it spawned pretty quickly.

 

[Kazzymodus]

I think I might've fixed it but I am not entirely sure what fixed it... I killed the guide with a lava bucket and it spawned pretty quickly.

Did the Traveling Merchant spawn before or after the Guide respawned?

My running theory is that when Hardmode started and infection began to pick up, your base(s) became infected. This causes the NPCs living there to become "homeless" (despite still staying in their assigned dwellings), which stops the Traveling Merchant from spawning. We're making some changes to hopefully deal with this in the future, but if your houses are completely infection free then your issue may have had another cause.

 

[wardle2403]

I'm playing master/drunk seed, I'm at WoF and also just noticed the traveling merchant hasn't spawn once.
After murdering my beloved guide and waiting a few days, he has still not spawned.

Update: I've reached hardmode and he spawned!

 

[Kazzymodus]

I'm playing master/drunk seed, I'm at WoF and also just noticed the traveling merchant hasn't spawn once.
After murdering my beloved guide and waiting a few days, he has still not spawned.

Has your Guide respawned? If not, that might indicate that there's no valid house for him to respawn to, which means your current town(s) may be infected.

Alternatively, you could just be unlucky - the Traveling Merchant sometimes just doesn't show up for several days.

 

[wardle2403]

Has your Guide respawned? If not, that might indicate that there's no valid house for him to respawn to, which means your current town(s) may be infected.

Alternatively, you could just be unlucky - the Traveling Merchant sometimes just doesn't show up for several days.

Yes I had valid housing, probably just really unlucky but I've got 14 hours on my world now and the merchant has only visited once which was shortly after reaching hardmode