What is up? I am happily playing :king: along for a while, maybe an hour or so and BAM I get a message and my Windows2000 kicks me out of the game. Message reads "Civilization3.e.exe has generated an error and will be closed by Windows". First of all what kind of exe file is this? It has an extra period and "e" between the delimiter period and the exe extension. Has anybody else had this problem? I know the Civ executes a file called Civilization3.exe to run the game.

Isn't anybody else having this problem?:crazyeyes

I don't. I'd suggest getting the latest version of .dat files for your virus scanner (you have one right?) and do a virus scan on your computer just be sure.

I have the same problem. Also, when I start the game it gets past the splash screen and the intro movie. However, when I am at the selection screen the monitor is split into four seperate screens. I think this is related to the infamous NVIDIA refresh rate problem/Default Monitor problem.

I've experienced this as well. I played several "test" games, just getting an idea for how the changes worked, and never progressed past the Middle Ages era. Then in my first "real" game, I was playing right along, and suddenly while I'm waiting after I finished a turn a message came up saying "Civilization3.e.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. You will need to restart the program. An error log is being created." Now this happened shortly after moving into the Middle Ages era, so I've gotten past this point in the games before. I loaded up the autosave of the turn this occured after, and the same thing happened. :(

I did a "search for files or folders" in Windows, and looked for "error log" (without quotes around it). This brought up 178 files, so I listed them by date to see what had been last modified the most recently. Sure enough, there were only a few that had been modified the day this happened, two of which at the exact right time. One was titled "logfile" and was in the Civilization 3 directory, but it was just an empty text document, with no writing appearing in Wordpad and taking up 0 KB of space. The other was titled "drwtsn32" and was located in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\DrWatson. Each time that I reloaded the autosave of that turn after making some changes (shutting down other programs, restarting my computer, etc.) this error occured, and the empty "logfile" would have its modified time as the time of the latest error occurance, but the "drwtsn32" modified time remained the same as the original occurance.

Now I sent all this information off to Infogrames from their tech-support page, including the contents of the "drwtsn32" file. I waited a long time for their response, and in the meantime started a new game of Civ3. This of course overwrote the autosaves of my previous game, so when I went back to test something with it (still no response from Infogrames at this point), I had to load it up several turns before the point where the error had occured. I went through the turns pretty quickly, remembering for the most part what my decisions had been before, but this time the error occured one turn earlier! After 270AD as opposed to after 280AD. I don't know if this means anything, but its kinda weird.

Finally after almost 2 weeks Infogrames sends me an email, and it suggests that I update my video driver :rolleyes: . I stated in my first email that everything was up-to-date, but just to humor them I went online and downloaded the latest video driver for my system from Dell.com, which was listed new as of one month prior to me getting this machine. I installed the new driver, tried out the game (from several turns before the point where the original error occured because my autosaves had been overwritten) and the same error came up after 270AD (the new error point). I sent them another email, explaining everything I've said here, including the error point moving, and am still waiting for a response.

If anybody wants me to post the "drwtsn32" contents, I will, but they are rather long and mostly computer gibberish that only programers would understand. ;)

When I posted this problem I was running Win 2000. I am now running Windows XP. GUESS WHAT!!! Same problem. My video card is a (MSI) NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS PRO w/64mg. I have played around 8 or 9 games with 2 games going into the 1400's. As the game has more to do, i.e. keeping up with the various CIV's as they grow, SO does the amount of errors generated. Near the end I am restarting the game every 100 years. And some times every couple decades until I get past what is causing the problem. Here is a list of Video drivers I have tried: Win 2000 default, XP's default, NVIDIA drivers 12.41, 21.83, and a beta 22.xx driver. ALL have the error problem. The ONLY difference I have seen is that 21.83 and the 22.xx NVIDIA drivers run the animation SLOWER. The older and default drivers are faster. With XP you can go into the games properties and choose the compatibility tab. I have tried running with the compatibility set to: Win95, Win98/ME, and WIN2000 NO difference. I am just hoping The Game folks identify and fix the problem. Is everyone who has replied using a NVIDIA CARD? If so, there may lay the common thread to the problem.

My video card is an ATI Mobility M4. I'm running Windows 2000 on a Dell Latitude laptop.

So VetteCiv, you're saying that you can get around the error message by loading the game back a ways and playing from there? How far back do you have to go? I tried it by going back about 5 turns and I still had the same error message, but it came sooner. :(

I've been getting the same error when I try to buy a computer player's world map.

Has any one been able to fix this I don't think its a video card problem? I can send you the game if it would help.


I'm running:

Dell Inspiron 3500
win2000 directx 8.1
NeoMagic MagicGraph256AV driver for MagicMedia256AV card
256 meg memory


Thanks

Apollo, No I don't get around the error "by loading the game back a ways and playing from there". What I do is, go to my last saved game, usually the auto save version or one of my saves that I do all the time while playing and restart there. Some times the newest version gives me an IO error and wont start. I then go to the next newest and restart it. It will always start running and then it will run fine or soon die again and I restart again. Eventually it will keep running (for awhile). Sometimes it works the first time others it takes several tries. I know it is a pathetic way to play the game, but I am desperate. I think by retrying until it works I get around the command causing the error. I have not been able to see any pattern to when and how it occurs yet.

Well I started a new game and after a while the same error came up. For me it has always happened around 300 AD, the first time was in 280AD and this time was in 360AD. The thing is, the second time it happened I was much further along in score and technology, so it varies in that regard. Also, no matter how far I go back in saves and autosaves the error always comes up on the same date, except in one case where it came up a turn earlier, so I guess I can't use you're technique VetteCiv.

I did a "Search for Files or Folders" and looked for those "Containing text" "Civilization3.e.exe" and came up with no results, other than that Dr. Watson file I mentioned above. I had hoped I would find it in some command line and be able to change it so it would not have the extra ".e" in it, thinking it was some programmer's typo, but no such luck. Still no response from Firaxis from my emails...:(

Well I'm still getting this error message after installing the (corrected) patch, so I guess whatever is causing it wasn't solved in the patch. Have the others that have been getting this error message noticed any change with the patch?

And BTW, still no acknowledgement that I exist from Firaxis, and its been two weeks. :mad:

I'm having the same problem. I'm running win 98 se, AMD Athlon 850mhz, ATI Xpert 2000, and 384 ram.

The funny thing is that this is my second game. When I played my first game I never had this problem. In my new game it keeps on crashing after 640 AD. I also tried reinstalling Civ3 and installing the patch but nothing works.

Oh, btw, heres the error message it gives:

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 018f:0046046e.
Registers:
EAX=084d743c CS=018f EIP=0046046e EFLGS=00010202
EBX=00000004 SS=0197 ESP=00c1fa48 EBP=00000000
ECX=00000000 DS=0197 ESI=00000078 FS=0d2f
EDX=00000001 ES=0197 EDI=fffffffe GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 01 52 ff 90 80 00 00 00 50 56 57 b9 c8 b0 5e
Stack dump:
00000000 084d743c 0b8c0078 084d743c 00467196 00000001 fffffffe 00000078 00000007 00609970 005dc980 084d743c 004835d0 00000000 00000007 084d743c

Originally posted by poseidon
Oh, btw, heres the error message it gives:

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 018f:0046046e.


Are you sure this is the same message the rest of us are talking about? The one we're getting is for "Civilization3.e.exe" with that extra ".e" in there.

I guess not, but the symptoms are the same. Crashing for no reason after a turn. When you guys get your error message is there a "Detail" button? If there is plz post what it says in there.

Thanks governor.

No "details", no nothing, only the message that Windows has shut it down..

I also use Win2000, and have experienced this numerous times... If I reload, the same thing happens at the exact same time.

Most of the time, this crash will occur when the computer declares war on another computer, but I don't know if that means anything. Other times, it just crashes for no apparent reason, but the error-message is always the same: "civilizatione.exe has forced windows to shut down the program".

Just wanted to say that I experience the same problem.
I have NVIDIA GEFORCE MX2 32MB. Win2k, p4 1.4GHZ, 256RDRAM.
But it's worse that what you have:
I get the message when I start the game, I don't even get to see the intro. Just by clicking on the "Civlization III" icon I get:
" Civilization3.e.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows. You will need to restart the program.
An error log is being created. "

Well it seems that the list of people with this problem just keeps growing, without anybody offering up a fix. It's been over two weeks since my last email to Firaxis tech support, and there hasn't been any response. Maybe if more people who've experienced this Civilization3.e.exe problem started going to their tech support page and filling out the form to send them an email they'll take a look at this problem and come up with a fix.

I would like to add a few things, maybe it would help you to solve your problem.

When I had this problem, I've had the latest patch 1.16f, when I removed it, the game still didn't work, but after I had reinstalled the game ( fully removed it and installed again ) the game worked finely.

Also, I have noticed, when I ran Norton Utilities 2002, Norton WinDoctor, it found an error in Application Path, it says:
Missing or Invalid Application Path Entry
The Key, "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\yourapp.exe," refers

I would like to add a few things, maybe it would help you to solve your problem.

When I had this problem, I've had the latest patch 1.16f, when I removed it, the game still didn't work, but after I had reinstalled the game ( fully removed it and installed again ) the game worked finely.

Also, I have noticed, when I ran Norton Utilities 2002, Norton WinDoctor, it found an error in Application Path, it says:
Missing or Invalid Application Path Entry
The Key, "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\yourapp.exe," refers to an invalid application path, "D:\Civilization III\yourapp.exe".

A note of importance(?): This problem only occurs in W2K, because after a lot of experimenting, I never had the bug once in Win98, whereas it occurs all the time in W2K (and maybe also XP, I don't know that though).

are you guys serious? You expect to run video games on an application based os? This is like trying to play starcraft on a windows nt4 system... maybe it would work, but why would you bother?

everything works great now.
All that was problematic is mixing the crack with the patch.
I have win2k and it works fine.

I'm running win98 and still get the problem of the game crashing after a certain point. However, I don't receive the civillization3.e.exe error. Also, I haven't downloaded any cracks...just some graphical mods. Hmm, maybe it could be that.

Yes, I have the same exact civilization3.e.exe problem. I am using W2K (SP2), 800mhz, GForce2 MX Video card, 384mb RAM. I think I've tried everything known to man, but cannot fix this problem. Tried uninstall/reinstall, patches, updated video drivers, defrag, more RAM, etc... Nothing. Did anyone ever find a solution for this?

This is what I get from my Dr Watson log file when I get the Civilization3.e.exe error.


Application exception occurred:
App: (pid=872)
When: 12/16/2001 @ 22:46:31.095
Exception number: c0000005 (access violation)

*----> System Information <----*
Computer Name: not putting it here
User Name: not putting it here
Number of Processors: 1
Processor Type: x86 Family 6 Model 2 Stepping 2
Windows 2000 Version: 5.0
Current Build: 2195
Service Pack: 2
Current Type: Uniprocessor Free
Registered Organization: home
Registered Owner: again, not putting it here

*----> Task List <----*
0 Idle.exe
8 System.exe
160 SMSS.exe
188 CSRSS.exe
208 WINLOGON.exe
236 SERVICES.exe
248 LSASS.exe
428 svchost.exe
472 SPOOLSV.exe
512 svchost.exe
532 INOJOBSV.exe
552 LogWatNT.exe
568 regsvc.exe
556 mstask.exe
652 stisvc.exe
712 vpn5000service..exe
736 WinMgmt.exe
840 explorer.exe
884 devldr32.exe
940 hpztsb02.exe
1000 tgcmd.exe
1016 realplay.exe
1032 msmsgs.exe
1040 exautoup.exe
1048 realmon.exe
1052 ExShell.exe
500 IEXPLORE.exe
872 Civilization3.e.exe
1276 ~f51e43.tmp.exe
488 DRWTSN32.exe
0 _Total.exe

I have the problem and I have installed nothing but the game and the patch.

I am running on Win2K. Is anyone still having the problem on Win98?

I have confirmed that the same problem that causes the Civilization3.e.exe problem on Win 2K causes the problem reported by others on Win 98. I ran the same game after installing on Win 98 and it quit at exactly the same point and reported the error Poseidon reported in this thread.

Are all of you with this problem contacting Infogrames? You can fill out a form and describe your problem by sending an email to them from this page:

http://www.ina-support.com/faq/civ3_pc.asp

Just scroll to the bottom and hit "email support"

I contacted them Sunday. I plan to try again today, having heard nothing yet.

BTW: Here is my error message from Win 98:

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module ~DF394B.TMP at 0167:10055fc0.
Registers:
EAX=02149339 CS=0167 EIP=10055fc0 EFLGS=00010246
EBX=00abfe28 SS=016f ESP=009c0000 EBP=009c001c
ECX=0058f1d9 DS=016f ESI=00000001 FS=3fcf
EDX=02149339 ES=016f EDI=8196295c GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
e8 8a 00 00 00 5a 7a 02 c3 1a 8b 55 fc 8b 42 04
Stack dump:
02149339 8196295c 00000001 00abfe28 00000000 00000000 02149339 009c007c 10057e8d 0214651c 0000000e 0058f1d9 8196295c 00000001 00abfe28 02149339

I've been having the same problem. I go to a saved game and start again, and eventually it crashes again, but at a different point. I go to the save, so on and so forth. Eventually it hits a turn that it just can't get past.

When that happens, I change a bunch of things - I lower my tax rate, increase my luxuries, delay production of wonders/units/improvements. Typically this works for me -- I change enough things that the error condition doesn't repeat.

Yes, a complete kluge. But I'm winning a game on Emperor, and I've never done that before. Must keep playing!

Dan

Originally posted by Dunster
I've been having the same problem. I go to a saved game and start again, and eventually it crashes again, but at a different point. I go to the save, so on and so forth. Eventually it hits a turn that it just can't get past.

When that happens, I change a bunch of things - I lower my tax rate, increase my luxuries, delay production of wonders/units/improvements. Typically this works for me -- I change enough things that the error condition doesn't repeat.

Yes, a complete kluge. But I'm winning a game on Emperor, and I've never done that before. Must keep playing!

I'm having the same probs with the patch on a WinME machine.

From what I have gleaned in the other posts, it seems to crop up immediatly after an AI declaration of war.


Until Infogrames gets a clue, I can only suggest copying out your saved game, uninstalling, and then re-installing without he 1.16f patch.

Im getting the exact same "civilization.e.exe" error message using windows 2000 (sp2) and V1.16f..."second version" (why would anyone release a broken patch then fix it and re-release it under the same version number ??) but anyways...
Unlike most people, it seems to occurs much earlier in the game (maybe after 10 or so turns) and doesnt seem to tie in with any particular event happening. If after crashing I then go back and run from an autosave game it will go on a turn or so then crash again.
The only way I've found to get round this is to uninstall the entire civ3 then reinstall minus the patch...
Incidentally I emailed InfoGrames reguarding the problem and theyre reply....? <see below>

This facility provides technical support to customers residing in North America, only. Support for Infogrames Interactive products in your area will be listed in the back of your game manual. Please consult this manual for the proper support contact information

I thought this was really..well...crap after I'd spent some twenty minutes giving them as much info as to the problem on their website support page, even changed my area to UK in the fill in form... no mention at that point that they wouldnt help me as I didnt live in the UK....Maybe the real exercise here is gathering email addresses.....

I have had this problem when playing on the large maps. I updated the drivers for vidio and sound and so far (touch wood) I have played two full games and no problems!!

Bru, what operating system are you using? Also, which video and sound cards do you have? Thnx.

I am running ME. Creative SB live. Nvidia Ge Force2 32 Mgs.
1.2 Athlon with 600 mgs ram.

Has anyone gotten a response from infrogrames?

I finally did. They told me to end some of the processes that were running to see if that helped, but it didn't fix anything. Here is something that was in the message they sent me:

"IMPORTANT NOTE: During the months of November, December, and January, our response time to your mail may not be as quick as normal. This is due to the high volume of customer contacts around the holiday season in December. We will answer all e-mail in the order it is received, and will respond to you as fast as we are able during this difficult and very busy period of the year."

I think this is their way of saying they released a really buggy game and are getting swamped with customers wanting solutions.

For what it is worth, they told me not to have real player running in the background. I never tried it after removing real player, but someone else may want to. CIV3 games are just too damn long.

I tried it with nothing running in the background other than the device unplugger and a dsl modem driver. No difference.

i have the same problem to there i was playing a game of civ3 i think it was about 1910AD or something like that i have 3 ironclads and a man-o-war surrounding the last ( i hope) chinease ship and i attack it and then just after that a screen pops up saying The Chinease and Russain trade embargo on us has been lifted i think ok cool i press the circle button to get out of that message im waiting and waiting and boom i got the error to. what ever this is i hope they fix it real soon or they are going to have a real riot on there hands

WOW am I happy,

I solved the problem... in my case anyway.

I also had the civilization3.e.exe problem in windows 2000, tried to load the savegame in windows ME, but it also crashed. After long fustrating searching I found a work around. Appearently the bug has something to do with the civil disorder pop-up, when I disable this option in preferences the problem was gone :)

Strangely when I enabled the option again after the crash point it worked fine :confused: ..... I still get the same problem a few times per game but then I just load a savegame disable civil disorder pop-up and enable it again after the crash point.

Wow, congratulations! Unfortunately it didn't work for me. Whether the civil-disorder pop-up was enabled or disabled didn't affect me getting that Civilization3.e.exe error. One thing I was thinking about is that the Preferences menu was added on to with the patch, and I don't think the civil-disorder pop-up option was there before the patch. I could be wrong on that however. But if its true then those of us who had this problem before the patch need to look elsewhere to find the solution. So with that thought in mind I disabled everything on the Preferences menu, so that nothing was checked, and when I hit the circle in the bottom right corner the error happened! Now what's weird about this is that previously it always happened between turns, but this time all I did was hit Ok for the Preferences menu to trigger it, so I'm pretty sure that the Civilization3.e.exe error is somehow related to the Preferences menu. I'm off to fiddle with it to see if I can find a solution.

In short: SeVeN, good job in finding that. You solved your problem by disabling the civil-disorder popup, and I think others can solve their problem either the same way or with some other change to their Preferences menu.

Well, scratch that. Of course the error happened right after I exited the Preferences Menu, because I had unchecked the button that causes it to wait at the end of the turn, so the bug was still happening between turns, just like always. :rolleyes: I went back and tried unchecking everything but the Always wait at the end of the turn button and was able to exit the Preferences Menu, and when I clicked to end the turn the error happened just like normal.

If my memory is correct and the Civili-disorder pop-up option was not in the Preferences Menu before the patch, then your trick SeVeN could solve the problem for those who have only experienced this error since installing the patch. For those of us who've had the error all along though there isn't a solution yet. :(

For what its worth...

First, try disabling any extra background programs. You should just have
"Explorer" and "Systray" running in the background. Anything else may cause
conflicts. You can do this by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL and using the "End Task"
button on all the extra programs one at a time. Alternatively, if you are
using Windows 98 or Windows ME, you can go to START->RUN, type in "msconfig"
(without quotations), and hit "OK". This brings up the System Configuration
Utility where you can put the computer into a "Selective Startup" and remove
the check mark from the "Load Startup Group Items" check box. Click "OK" and
the computer will ask you to restart. Go ahead and restart, and when the
computer comes back up, you can tap CTRL+ALT+DEL and verify that just
Explorer is running. If not, manually end task on the extra programs and
then test out your game.

If that doesn't work, verify that you have the newest drivers for your video
card and update as necessary. You can obtain information about your video
card by going to START->RUN and typing in "dxdiag" (without the quotations).
This will bring up the "DirectX Diagnostic Tool". Go to the display tab and
you can find out the "Name" of your video card, the "Main Driver" which it
uses, and the "Version" of that driver. Once you have that information, go
to START->SETTINGS->CONTROL PANEL, double click the "System" Icon, go over
to the "Device Manager" tab, open up the branch called "Display Adaptors",
double-click on the entry for your video card listed there, and go to the
"Driver" tab on the new window that comes up. Here you can see the "Date"
and "Provider" of your video driver.

With all of that information, you should be able to go to your manufacturers
website, and download and install the newest video drivers. If you are
uncomfortable going through that process on your own, you should call the
people who support your computer and have them walk you through the process
of updating video drivers.

Beyond that, you should consider checking what monitor drivers your computer
has installed. Go back to the "Device Manager", but this time open up the
"Monitors" branch. You should just have one monitor listed here. It will
probably say "Default Monitor" or "Plug and Play Monitor". It is ideal to
have a driver installed for your monitor which actually has the monitors
proper name. For example, "Dell 1726" is listed on my computer. You can ask
your hardware manufacturer if they have specific drivers for your monitor.
If such a driver is not available though, you should try one of Window's
standard monitor types. To do this, start by making sure you only have one
monitor listed in this section of the Device Manager. If there is more than
one, "Remove" the extra monitor (highlight the monitor click remove). You
can usually tell which one should be removed by looking at the name. Always
remove the "default" or "plug and play monitor" instead of whatever else
might be there if there are two monitors listed. If there is just one
monitor, we can get started.

Double-Click on the monitor listed there. Go to the "Driver" tab on the
window that should pop up. Click on the "Update Driver" Button. This will
give a welcome screen, click "Next". You will now be presented with an
option to "Search..." or to "Display a list...". Choose to have a list
displayed. On the next screen, select the option to "Show All Hardware".
Now, on the left side, scroll up and select "Standard Monitor Types". On the
right side you will now have several options to choose from. If you are
using a laptop computer, select "Laptop Display Panel 1024x768". If you are
using a desktop computer select "Super VGA 1024x768@75Hz". Then keep
clicking "next" until you can eventually finish the process. When it is
finished, restart the computer, and then test the game.

The above process is not known to be dangerous, but you may want to consult
your hardware manufacturer before doing any system changes. It may
invalidate your warranty and there are some models of hardware which are not
compatible with certain settings.

Finally, if none of the above steps help, try reducing the number of fonts
in your Windows\Fonts folder to something below 256 fonts. The game uses the
"Lucida Sans" font. You might consider deleting any Lucida fonts from your
fonts folder and replacing it with the Lucida Sans font from the
Civilization III folder.

If after trying all of these, and the game still tends to crash, reinstall
the game and make sure that it is installed into the default directory, and
not in the root directory of the C drive. Download and install the patch we
have available from http://www.ina-support.com/patches/ and hopefully that
will eliminate the problem.

I hope this solves the issue, but if you have any trouble please reply!

Terran G.
Infogrames Technical Support
North America

When replying to the Email, be sure to keep the entire history intact.
Due to the volume of Email during this time of year, replies may be delayed.

I haven't tried one of my old saved games yet, but this fix may work for some. The main thing seems to be upgrading to DirectX 8.1 (despite the fact that I recall someone somewhere saying not to upgrade to it). I took the plunge and have played a game past the point where I'm certain the bug should have bitten me. But I still could find out differently, and I will test one of my previous saved games tonight, if I have time. Here is the link to the thread with the possible fix:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13298

Obviously we haven't pinned down the real problem(s) for crashing yet. This is not our task anyway but if it helps....
I spent half the day reading (almost) all the threads here and I'm afraid I'll add to the confusion.

I tested the same critical savegame at 3 different machines. Be sure I've got a great variety of driver versions on them.

1.
Athlon 700
VIA KX133
256MB
TNT2 pro
AC97
WIN98b

2. old
K6III-400
ASUS TX97
64MB
TNT
WIN98b
SB16

2. newer
Athlon C 1,2
ASUS A7M266
512MB
NVidia Quadro2 pro (some kind of GeForce2 Ultra for professional users)
W2k sp2
AC97

The access violation appears on all these at the same (game) time. It happens when the AI turn is over and the player turn has already begun! I confirm a new build order and zap. Civ is gone.
When I delay the build process in this city the turn before (nothing to confirm next turn) the game crashes anyway. But now it looks like it happened during the AI turn.
This looks like a hardcore Infogrames/Firaxis bug to me not a mere driver problem.

Their statements are not satisfactory at all. They only target the usual suspects. I had proposed this without knowing the game. I hope they use the time saved by not really answering for finishing and releasing the killer patch tomorrow.

I've traced my crashes to a city going into disorder. I never see the actual disorder message - the crash occurs before the event is seen by me. But I've been able to clear up all my recent crashes by rigorously going through my city list/luxury rate/luxury items and making sure no cities erupt the next turn.


I can't be sure that is what causes every crash. But it has caused every crash of mine in the last 2 weeks or so.

Dunster

Originally posted by BradC
I haven't tried one of my old saved games yet, but this fix may work for some. The main thing seems to be upgrading to DirectX 8.1 (despite the fact that I recall someone somewhere saying not to upgrade to it). I took the plunge and have played a game past the point where I'm certain the bug should have bitten me. But I still could find out differently, and I will test one of my previous saved games tonight, if I have time. Here is the link to the thread with the possible fix:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13298

BradC, where you able to test out a saved game? I really want to know before I plunge into Direct X 8.1. Thnx.

I tried the save game and it still crashed. I got a new game to crash last night, too. The conditions are obviously much more complicated than we thought, but I do tend to agree that it's not a driver issue. I'm going to try disabling the civil disorder popups, but I doubt that is going to help.

Sorry for the false alarm. I guess it was wishful thinking.

Sorry I didn't post sooner. I've been getting the runaround from MSN and my company's new ownership prohibits me from posting on forums while I'm at work (even on lunch).

Big THX to Dunster.

Preventing one city from falling into disorder prevented disorder in my computers memory as well. This worked although I already had disabled the disorder popup in preferences.

BradC: Updating DirectX didn't help.

Thanks cht2000 you solved my problems!
I had two different kinds of problems, one not so knowed and one well knowed problem. Eatch time I klicked on the civilization buttons in the player setup screen the game crashed again and again. That problem happend also every time a picture of one of the civ leaders was showen. Fore some how, it had a big problem to show up the different pictures in the art map. Beside of that problem, I had also the font bug, no matter how many it was of them in windows. It also crashed some times in the into movie and even when i klicked "start new game".
So I was in really deep trouble.......

And the solution was to install the game in the default folder of the c drive. So (strange) now it works fine, without any bugs. :)

These problems appeard after I had reinstalled the game fore a week ago, before that it worked ok. Something was messed up in the registry after the secound install, but i can't figure out what was missing(screwed up). But it's sad that I not longer can play the game on different drives, since I don't like to have my games on the c-drive, because of the viretural memory and the disk space.
I have seached throw the registry by typing "civ" and deleted a lots of invalid adresses with no luck.
So if any have any other solutions of how I can fix it up so I can use a different drive again(my k-drive), I would be happy. :cry:

Hiro, I'm glad it worked for you.

BradC, it's NOT the popup - it's the disorder itself. Turning off the popups won't help. The city has to NOT go into disorder, regardless of message status.

If going through the cities one by one doesn't solve it, try cranking your luxuries up to 100%, just for one turn. If that solves the crash, it gives you incentive to go back and see what really was going on.

Dunster

The civil disorder solution didn't work for me. Only one of my cities was growing between the turns where the error comes up, and was in no danger of going into civil disorder. Even so, I set my luxuries to 100%, and the error still happened, so its something else.

My Civ CD is the Limited Edition one, and I just noticed that Limited Edition is actually printed on the CD, so maybe the problem lies in a faulty batch of CDs used in the Limited Edition. Anybody else that's having this error using the Limited Edition CD?

I'm not

Originally posted by Apollo
The civil disorder solution didn't work for me. Only one of my cities was growing between the turns where the error comes up, and was in no danger of going into civil disorder. Even so, I set my luxuries to 100%, and the error still happened, so its something else.

My Civ CD is the Limited Edition one, and I just noticed that Limited Edition is actually printed on the CD, so maybe the problem lies in a faulty batch of CDs used in the Limited Edition. Anybody else that's having this error using the Limited Edition CD?

I forced my luxuries up to 100% even though I, too, could not imagine any of my cities going into civil disorder on that turn. It made no apparent difference. Crash like always.

I am not using the limited edition, either.

If I can stomach it (I'm kind of picky this way) I may play a whole game with the standard rules and the (ick!) stock empires to make sure that is not the problem.

Brad C

Not sure if this add to the growing confusion... :rolleyes:

I get the same Civ3.exe failure, but my occurs for different reasons (I believe). I've had 4 games crash as I enter the "Industrial Age". It repeatable and have been unable to prevent it, even changing tech tree didn't help.

I've had several games give me the Civ3.exe crash as I'm about to invade a city. Even adverting this did not help.

This happens on all size maps and civ's.

Win XP (I play the game on WinME, won't play for me in XP)
Geforce 3 64MB
P4 1.7
256MB Ram
Version 1.16f

Turning off the civ disorder pop up in prefrences worked for me too. Cool!

I am running Win 98 SE. AMD Processor clocked at 900, 128 ram, NVIDIA GEForce2 MX/MX 400, w/ 32 ram. :D

I downloaded the patch, and upgraded my video drivers to the new detonator and it fixed a few problems. I actually thought I might get thru a whole game. But a few turns into the industrial age I receive this message - :(

CIVILIZATION3 caused an invalid page fault in
module CIVILIZATION3.EXE at 017f:00460461.
Registers:
EAX=07d1a258 CS=017f EIP=00460461 EFLGS=00010206
EBX=00000001 SS=0187 ESP=00abfa48 EBP=00000001
ECX=0133a980 DS=0187 ESI=00000034 FS=12df
EDX=00008a27 ES=0187 EDI=fffffffe GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
8b 0c 91 8b 54 24 14 81 e2 ff 00 00 00 8b 01 52
Stack dump:
00000000 07d1a258 0af90033 07d1a258 00467196 00000001 fffffffe 00000034 0000000b 00609970 005dc980 07d1a258 004835d0 00000000 0000000b 07d1a258

I am in a war with the Germans. (a masacre btw) :king: I am using pangea, with 8 civs. I have a leader presently on the board, with an army.

Why is this game so hard to get thru without having so many crashes? Here is another one....why did I buy this stupid game? Once bitten twice shy; I will never buy another game w/o first looking for forums like this to gadge whether it is a game full of bugs, or a game that is worth my hard earned money.
:mad: :mad:

I had the same crash problem, it always happened between turns, regardless of what I did to effect it.

Turning off the disorder pop ups worked for me too, but I'm still a little nervous of getting the same problem as some people have had. This is the first game I have ever had a crash bug with, so I'm not used to the protocol. These things get fixed often?

Greadius asked:
These things get fixed often?

Uh.... often in geological time maybe. This problems has shown up in a half dozen threads, and despite Infogrames apparent kind-hearted attempt to resolve it.... it remains a pervasive problem.

Any word on the 2nd patch? This has to be fixed.

Hey I have just quit trying to play it until a 2nd patch comes down, but I am not holding my breath about it fixing this problem. Why would they? They've got our money now. And they have obviously paid off the Gamer Mags to give em a good rating, I saw where this piece of calvary dung got simulation game of the year in PC Gamer, my subscription is up next month, think I'll be re-subscribing? :mad:

I check this thread daily, and Apolyton as well loads of problems related to mine. We get the generic post for Infrograms/Firaxis - turn off all the programs, etc. I tried all thier fixes, no dice!:mad:

At least they could update thier own website, tell us that they are working on the problems. But why should they, it might put someone on notice that has not bought this trash heap the up and up on all the bugs.

I thought maybe I would not buy any games until I swept the web and got as many reviews as possible of a game, but looking at all the reviews so far, no one has address the wide, myriad of problems with this game.

Word of mouth, is the best defense for this travesty. I went to the mall the other day and stood by the civ III display for an hour and told 15 people that the game sucked, and asked if they could tell another 15 or so of thier friends. HA Firaxis/Infrogrames that's $600.00 you didn't get a$$ O's

The latest suggestion I got from Infogrames Tech Support is to uninstall my game and then install it in the default directory, C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III, because not installing it there can cause problems. I always thought that you could install it anywhere, that's why it allows you to change its installation location. I've never had any problems with any other programs that I installed in a different place than normal, but Infogrames says this can cause problems. I installed the game in C:\Games\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III rather than the default, and I installed the patch there too, so I don't see how there can be any problem. Have any others who are having this error problem installed the game in a different location than the default?

I always had installed in the default directory. That's not my problem. I got a feeling I don't have a problem, it's the game's.

Just thought I would glance over this end of the board.

You know I might get some info on my game but...

Okay how does this sound for a wierd crash?

I am at war with the Americans and the Aztecs and thourghly (bad spelling I know) whipping them. I have managed to beat a path through to the Aztec capitol, and then decided to make them suffer ;) I moved in my tanks and destroyers and pounded there rroads into dust...

That is until I came to the last road, I got the famous crash message for W2K (not good). I reloaded immediatly and proceeded to do exactly as I had before (surley cant happen twice) :sheep:

Needless to say I have tried replaying this moment many times...with only one solution. Dont take out the road.

I have managed to play past this point by well over 20 turns. Hope this enlightens any 'tech-support' onlookers and if not I am sure my civ was not about to errupt into disorder due to one road?

Digitalis

Wasting away in the glourious north.
(why as the anasthetic worn off)

Yes, I had that problem to Apollo, when I had the game installed in a different direction. But all kinds of problems was gone when I installed it into the default directory. Also note that I dowloaded and installed the "second" V1.16 pach.
Everythime I was in a war, or when a city run into disorder it crashed.
But no I have played throw 4 games, and everything works OK.
So that was the key to solve those problems on my comp.

Well, after three months of correspondance with Infogrames Tech Support, several times not getting a response for three to four weeks and having to remind them, a total of 50 pages of text in Word, and I got the dreaded response today:

"Well, we've exhausted any conventional means of troubleshooting."

They said they couldn't do anything to help me with the infamous "Civilization3.e" error, and suggested I update my BIOS because that helped one customer. Oh well, I guess its up to us to fix this problem.

I just bought this computer in August, so shouldn't the BIOS be new enough? I don't know much about what the BIOS is, not even if its hardware or software. Would it hurt anything to update it?

If you are unfamiliar with Bios(cmos) don't mess with it. If you know someone that are familiar with it, try to ask them fore some help. Somethimes it can help to flash bios, and sometimes not. It depends of what kind of configurations you have inside your comp. But it can also be other kinds of hardware problems like: your motherboard do not suppord the video card 100%, your motherboard do not get enoth power, and many other kinds of problems. So once again, if it Is a hardware problem, get professional help if you not can handle it.
But also try to play some other games(powerusers) first, and see if you have problems with them. If you not have any trouble with them, I belive it have to be somthinge else. Also try to run your virus-scan.
Have you checked your viretural memory? That can also make crashes, if you have memory-leak. I'm not remember if it was the video card or the ram that occured it, but I know that many people had some problems with it. After some gameplay it crashed, and they got *.exe errors. The solution was to install Cachemanager. This utility can close your memory leak, if you have it, because it will control your viretural-memory, instead of windows. It will also increase you system recourses, and finally it has been a great utility fore many people with such kinds of trouble.
So if it is no other solutions try it... http://www.outertech.com/

I assure all that this problem is also present with 98se.

I also not that it seems to make no difference the year or nations involved. The common thread in all these messages and on my machine is that it happens when one or more pop-ups are to open. This seems likely the underlying commonality to some of the "solutions" stated. The adjusting of preferences or lux settings etc. would prevent a popup from opening and just sidestep the problem until next time.

Something perhaps about how the video is implimented for popups. Why this is intermittant is the question. Could this be a virtual memory overrun problem? Would a popup cause a sudden and large scale write or read from/to memory, virtual memory or video RAM?

Its a long shot but it occures to me that there seems to be a common point with the copy protection problems. In the copy protection problem the program tries to read data from the CD and is stopped by the protection scheme. Are these popups, especially the rarer ones like capturing a city with wonders or wiping out a civ, read frome the CD or are they read from the HD?

I don't know if this brainstorming, I am not knowlegable enough in these matters, helps or obscures a solution. I guess it can't hurt much as nothing here really seems to offer a true solution.

I don't know if this is a solution or not, but it seems to work for me. Auto-generated maps NEVER crash for me, but if I use homemade maps, I always seem to get the civilization3.e.exe crash around the middle ages.
On a lark, I made a map with only a thin strip of land along the south pole and it crashed RIGHT AWAY! So I thought, maybe the computer is trying to build cities at the edge of the world (I seem to recall a patch fix in 116 that fixed ships at the edge of the world), and that is causing the crash. I built a map of europe with water around the edges (maybe mountains would work too), and it hasn't crashed yet.
Something to try if you are desperate.

Yeah same thing happens to me only its when I go into industrial age and civilzation crashes.
Its extremly annoying as I cant find what the problem is and I was having a really good game.

AMD Athlon T-bird 1.2ghz
MSI k7
256 mb 133 mhz sdram
Sound blaster live 5.1
GeForce 4 Ti4400
Windows XP pro
patch 1.29f

Hi folks.

I've just managed to fix a stupid bug of this kind for the 1.29f version. This is caused by the displaying of the settler unit at industrial age. On W2K, this gives a `` civilization3.e.exe crash''. If you have MS visual studio, this becomes a ``memory cannot be read'' crash. On other versions of W$, you get other variants.

In the ``art\units\<BLAH> industrial'' directory, ** where <BLAH> is the translation in your local language of the word ``settler'' **, you find a ``<BLAH> industrial.ini'' file. This file contains reference to NONEXISTING files in the directory ``..\<BLAH> modern\'', named ``settlerModernRun.flc'' for instance. These files are located in ANOTHER directory, which is ``..\Settler Modern\'' (untranslated !). Edit the .ini file and your game works again.

This is appalling. Unfortunately, the very nature of this bug makes me suspect that TONS of bugs of the same kind exist...

E.

In reference to:

<<<<In the ``art\units\<BLAH> industrial'' directory, ** where <BLAH> is the translation in your local language of the word ``settler'' **, you find a ``<BLAH> industrial.ini'' file. This file contains reference to NONEXISTING files in the directory ``..\<BLAH> modern\'', named ``settlerModernRun.flc'' for instance. These files are located in ANOTHER directory, which is ``..\Settler Modern\'' (untranslated !). Edit the .ini file and your game works again.>>>>>>>

I checked this and my English version of the game seems not to have this problem.

STATS:

I run Windows 2000 SP3 with Nvidia Riva TNT2 with v4.1.0.9 drivers, 8.1 DirectX, 196 RAM, 2 700mhz processors.

I have Civ III "myth" pirated version plus 1.29f patch and a cracked NO-CD EXE for the 1.29f patch which you can get here:

URL DELETED!

PROBLEM SYMPTOMS:

Now, my problem after applying the 1.29f patch was if I clicked on Military Advisor the game would crash with Civilization.e.exe error. Also sometimes it would do this for no apparent reason. I checked the Civil Disorder dialog, original Infogrames path, and other solutions here, but they did not work for me.

CAUSE:

I traced the problem to a stray Worker. Whenever I would manually try to activate him, or the game would try to activate him, the game would crash. The worker was set on Automate, and when he finally stopped working, i could not get past that turn AT ALL. I went back a couple of Saved games, but even if the Worker was in a different spot, clicking on him specifically at any time would crash the game.

SOLUTION:

So, I got a Civ SaveGame Editor by Gramphos here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7787

I noticed the tile the faulty Worker was standing on, loaded the saved game in the SaveGame Editor, exported the BIC file, loaded the BIC file in the official Civ3Edit Civilization world editor, turned Grid coordinates on and found the coordinate of the tile. Then in the SaveGame Editor I used the filter to input the coordinates and filter units only by those coordinates.

Eureka! I find my Worker on those coordinates, and check this out, the Worker is NOT aligned with any Civilization in the game....it says something to the effect of "Free non-aligned Worker" But, of course, in the game the damn Worker looks Roman (mine) and acts Roman. So that's why the game crashed.
Also, I think when in Military Advisor it would try to display the Non-aligned worker it would crash.

I use the Delete button in the SaveGame editor and kill the Worker and save my changes. When I go back to the game, the Worker is gone and I can play fine. Even the Military Advisor does not crash the game. I haven't finished the game yet (knock on wood), but so far after 50+ turns after that it works good.

CONCLUSION:

So, this is pure speculation, but I think the patched game (1.29f) introduces random corruption in the Saved game files. For some people it's the Civil Disorder dialog, for others it's something else. But it IS a game bug, and NOT an OS/driver bug. At first I thought it's because I have a cracked EXE, but some of you here have a legit version, and you run it on different OSs.

Hope this helps,
Edor

We DO NOT post links to warez sites! :mad: --Padma

i use too have that prob...but when i reinstalled..it was okay again..so i dunno, what Civ3 are u running..Cracked?