Bashy
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game crashes to desktop

Sun Jun 18, 2017 11:54 am

The game crashes on the main campaign frequently. Previously, I have been able to continue the campaign after the crash (reloading the game and redoing the turn has not resulted in a crash). However in the 3 campaigns I have run, there is always a turn which cannot be processed without crashing.

The logs and saved game of the most recent one are attached. I have tried the suggestions pinned to the top of the forum without success, does anyone else have any other suggestions?

Cheers
Attachments
Logs.zip
(13.53 KiB) Downloaded 241 times
Save Game.zip
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Durk
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Location: Wyoming

Re: game crashes to desktop

Mon Jun 19, 2017 4:28 am

I am not certain what the pinned suggestions encompass, but two thoughts:

1. Most crash to desktop issues come from not running the game in admin mode

2. Occasionally, not installing as an admin also causes this issue.

Bashy
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Re: game crashes to desktop

Mon Jun 19, 2017 8:52 pm

Hi Durk

Thanks for your suggestions, unfortunately it hasn't worked. The game still gets a critical error and has to be terminated. Do you know of anything else I can try?

Cheers

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Colonel Marbot
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Re: game crashes to desktop

Tue Jun 20, 2017 2:36 am

A couple of things that helped me are:

1. Disconnect from the internet and then shut down your virus control programs.
2. I had problems in a windows 7 environment but very few in a windows 10. When I had the older operating system, I had luck loading task manager and then shutting down a lot of the processes and background programs that took a lot of system capacity and would click on without warning.
3. Always save before you end your turn. If you generate errors on the turn, after two or three such errors, completely shut down and reload the game. I found that a system crash would come a couple of turns after these turn ending errors showed themselves. By reloading the game, it reduces errors and postpones any crash.


Hope this helps.

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Captain_Orso
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Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: game crashes to desktop

Tue Jun 20, 2017 2:55 pm

The only thing I might be able to point a finger at is your RAM. Near the end of your !Main log.txt file I found:
11:44:55 (Reporting) Application.Run Starting app... 172076 kb

When I compare to the only main log I have on my work notebook, which has 8GB RAM installed, is:
11:27:14 (Reporting) Application.Run Starting app... 1128168 kb

That's 1.13Gb vs 0.17Gb :blink:
Minimum game requirements are:
Game Requirements
Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10
Pentium 4 or higher
RAM: 2 GB
VIDEO: 1024Mb video card
3Gb HD space
SCREEN: 1024 x 768 or higher

So, that would be the first place to look, how much RAM you have free when you start the game.

You also haven't explained how the game CTD'ed.

What did your event log entry say? Did you check it?

To clarify some of the points Durk and Colonel Marbot were trying to make,

- Installing and running AGEod games. Some, many, most AGEod game have some issues with permissions to update files within the '..\Program Files' and '..\Program Files (x86)' folders, because the AGEod game engine was originally written at a time when windows was not nearly as restrictive on what processes could write beneath those folders. Because the game engine updates the <installation folder>\NGC\Settings\General.opt file, each time you load a saved scenario, or start a new scenario, it needs to write to below one of those 'Program Files' folders, which depending on your system configuration, might not work, which can be recognized by getting a pop-up stating 'access violation'. If you don't get that, usually when you quit the game normally, then that is probably not your issue.
-- Solution to this, is to install outside the 'Program Files' folders, preferably into a folder you maintain specifically for installing programs (aka Apps, in the young kids jargon :siffle: ), eg: 'C:\Games', or 'C:\sbin', or 'D:\My Programs', or 'Z:\Da Apps B Crass AF' ;)

- How deleting '<installation folder>\Userpath.ini' is supposed to help you, I haven't the slightest idea. It is used to determine where your Saves are written to; not by any content, but simply by it's presence.
-- Without 'Userpath.ini' Saves are writting in the original method, underneath the installation folder; eg: '<installation folder>\NGC\Saves'.
-- With 'Userpath.ini' present, Saves are written to C:\Users\<User Name>\Documents\My Games\<installation folder>\NGC\Saves, which since it's an unshared user folder hardly will have any permission issues for updating and writing files programmatically.

- There is absolutely no reason to click on the 'Save turn' button before clicking on 'Proceed to next turn', although I often do it myself, out of habit. :bonk: In all AGEod games, when you click on 'Proceed to next turn', the games always makes a save of your orders as the first step, before anything else.

Bashy
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Re: game crashes to desktop

Thu Jun 22, 2017 6:20 pm

Hi All

Thanks for the help. I don't think I have a problem with the spec, I have 8GB RAM and an i5 2.5 GHz processor. CPU and RAM maxes out at 50% usage when running the game - with some extra programs running in the background. I have previously discovered no connection between amount of background programs and crashes in the game.

A little more info on the crash - it happens during the AI's turn processing. It has reached the stage where happens early on in the processing of AI turns. In previous crashes it has sometimes happened later and the next turn has been saved and I am able to continue. I have attached a picture of the message I get when the error occurs (the black background is because I had task manager up to see the CPU and RAM). I don't know where the event log is, it's not in the log folder.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Cheers
Attachments
CriticalError.png
CriticalError.png (67.62 KiB) Viewed 9082 times

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Durk
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Location: Wyoming

Re: game crashes to desktop

Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:48 am

You know, this does sound like a lack of providing your game Administrative Privileges, as previously mentioned and discounted

Try this. Make sure your have got your game ready to resolve the turn. Save. Exit the game. Restart your computer. Resume the game. Run as and Administrator.

Worth a try.

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Captain_Orso
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Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: game crashes to desktop

Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:48 am

The save files you attached to your first post, it appears you didn't copy the '..\Saves\<Scenario Name>' folder.

First, where is your ''..\Saves\' folders?

If you are requested to provide the save from a Scenario you are playing, you should provide the entire <Scenario Name> folder. EG: '..\Saves\<Scenario Name>', without the '..\Saves' folder. If there are a lot of BackupX folders below the <Scenario Name> folder, you can remove all BackupX folders except Backkup1, unless requested otherwise. Doing this will depend on the software you are using to create and manage ZIP files, but it should fairly unproblematic. This reduces file size, as nearly always all BackupX folders beyond the latest are unimportant. Also, if Replay is activated (if you don't know what this is, don't worry about it), all .rpl files in all folders SHOULD be removed, as these are extremely large and useless in trying to discover what happened in a program error.

I was looking into the save you provided to see if there were anything I could recognize. The one thing which is confusing, is that the orders file for GBR is from 18.06.2017, while all the other orders files are from 26.05.2017.

The history file (.hst) has the timestamp 26.05.2017 10:27, while the orders files from all factions other than GBR have the timestamps between 26.05.2017 10:32 and 26.05.2017 10:36. That would be an extremely fast turnaround for planning a turn, but what is weirder is that the orders files from all the other factions, other than GBR are all younger than the orders file from GBR; I'm assuming you are playing GBR.

When you click on 'Proceed to next turn', the first thing that happens, is a save is made from your orders. Because of this, the orders file of the faction you are playing is always the oldest. In your attached saves file, this is not the case.

richfed
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Re: game crashes to desktop

Sat Jun 24, 2017 10:25 pm

OK -- this applies to CWII, but is probably relevant here.

I install clean versions of Windows quite frequently, I seem to always have these types of crashes with my game.

Recently - on a refreshed system with clean installations [as Administrator] - played a full campaign as the CSA. First year was fine. After April 1862, the game crashed every time I restarted the game. Then it would play fine until the next restart.

Started another campaign - same exact settings, system, etc., the game crashed not once. All the way through to mid 1865 - then I had just one mid-turn crash.- restarted the game [I always save my turn before proceeding to next turn] and the turn resolved normally.

So, to me, it seems like there are some circumstances within the game that can cause these crashes. I don't know, but I have just learned to live with it.

Bashy
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Re: game crashes to desktop

Thu Jun 29, 2017 5:47 pm

Hi

Captain Orso - I provided the scenario save file but renamed it to saves. I didn't put any of the backups in because, as you said, the file size was too high even with 1 backup file. About your comments on the order files - the game crashes before the order files of the other countries are made. Also, I tried saving the game and exiting, but the new save doesn't register. No idea why.

I have not had any problems with any of the other ageod games, which is infuriating because this is my favourite.

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Durk
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Location: Wyoming

Re: game crashes to desktop

Thu Jun 29, 2017 10:07 pm

Try this, I am guessing you are both playing against AI. I found that when playing CWII, three turn in a row was a good limit. By exiting at least every three turns, I stopped having crashes. Takes a bit to shut down and restart, but if this works for you it is an easy fix.

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Captain_Orso
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Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Re: game crashes to desktop

Fri Jun 30, 2017 2:05 pm

Bashy wrote:Hi

Captain Orso - I provided the scenario save file but renamed it to saves.


If anything, you renamed the '..\Saves\<Scenario Name>' FOLDER to "Save Game". And you did that, because....? Just to f*ck with the Russians?

Bashy wrote:I didn't put any of the backups in because, as you said, the file size was too high even with 1 backup file.


No I didn't. I stated:
If you are requested to provide the save from a Scenario you are playing, you should provide the entire <Scenario Name> folder. EG: '..\Saves\<Scenario Name>', without the '..\Saves' folder. If there are a lot of BackupX folders below the <Scenario Name> folder, you can remove all BackupX folders except Backkup1, unless requested otherwise. Doing this will depend on the software you are using to create and manage ZIP files, but it should fairly unproblematic. This reduces file size, as nearly always all BackupX folders beyond the latest are unimportant. Also, if Replay is activated (if you don't know what this is, don't worry about it), all .rpl files in all folders SHOULD be removed, as these are extremely large and useless in trying to discover what happened in a program error.


The the size of the contents of the root Saves\<Scenario Name> folder, excluding sub-folders, never greatly varies in size from that of the BackupX folders. So adding Backup1 to your ZIP file would have added about 1.2Mb, and that's not really enough to worry about.

Bashy wrote:About your comments on the order files - the game crashes before the order files of the other countries are made.


So where did the order files for all the other factions come from, and why did you put them in there like they belong. WFT?!?

Bashy wrote:Also, I tried saving the game and exiting, but the new save doesn't register. No idea why.


What do you mean you "tried saving the game", and it "doesn't register"? How do you know what it has and has not done? Please provide some evidence for what you are stating.

8<

Bashy
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Re: game crashes to desktop

Sat Jul 01, 2017 6:55 am

As it happens, I decided to go back one save and continue through to see what happens. It now works fine. Thanks for your help and sorry for any confusion.

Best

Bashy

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