Hyborem crash bug reports/search for cause of bug

I made this new thread on suggestion of Sto. Since XP users don't seem to have this crash and it appears that only a few people experience this. Please report every crash bug related to hyborem/infernals in this thread, perhaps post a saved game, the options used for the game, which FfH version, and any info that could be useful. This way, we should be able to hunt down just what is going on with this without cluttering up the main bug report thread. Also, I use Vista and at least one person who said of a similar problem has vista as well.

So far I seem to have narrowed it down to the hell terrain, but the crashes are still random. So maybe something with the coding that is not neccesarily directly observable ingame?

anyways, here is the sort of summary I had over on the main bug thread. I did have a savegame earlier, but I've moved on in trying to figure this out.

hmm, I got a crash and I think I know why others aren't experiencing this. I was going along just fine with the infernals when I decided to save the game and then reload to fix that wait at end of turn bug. I think the crashes are connected to this because it wants to go ahead and do the turn but the options says wait and so there is a conflict of some kind.

Or maybe this bug is causing a conflict with the autosaves. I'll try the load with the wait turn off.

edit: ok, it didn't work and it still crashed two turns after the savepoint. hmm, is there a conflict with the saves??? maybe it has something to do with the worker trying to mine on the hill on the next tile below it.

Still, it was going fine after I switched to the infernals, seemingly until I made the savegame. I'll try messing around with the worldbuilder.

hmm, I think there may be a connection between invisible or hidden nationality units because I was having a crash each time one of those specters or something (invisible unit along with near invisible graphic, mistform I think) attacked my main city, however this doesn't quite always happen and somehow doing a savegame right before the crash made the crash not happen. I also just had a crash when I was watching a barb tortoise move around. I think I'll use the reveal all tiles thing to get a look at what is moving around before the crash or if something else moves right before the crash.

ok, this is getting stranger, I removed all the barb sea units that were around and those mistform never showed up, so maybe the barbarian units are causing the crash? some kind of conflict coming from the fact that the infernal use the black territory?

You know, I think the saves are somehow changing the random number of whatever is causing the crash because loading from a save can actually prevent a crash if you save right before the crash. I know it makes no sense, at least to me.

Arg, when is Kael getting back? I've tried various things and I've probably gone to the extreme here with removing all units and civilizations and even erasing all improvements and still got a crash, which I got right after the territory expanded. The next step is probably to convert all land except the tile the city is on and if there is STILL a crash even then, I have no idea what to do next.

Well, I turned everything to ocean and it DID NOT crash, so hell terrain +????= crash???

okay, it looks like somehow the burning sands is causing the problem, I'm not sure if the blaze is also causing it or is independent.

When I used a burning sands outside of my cultural borders and outside of my view, I let it go to blaze, and then removed the burning sands and when the blaze went out, a burnt forest appeared. So, maybe there is a conflict going on there that is causing the crash. In order to find out the cause, I think we'd have to go into the python code, but I don't know anything about the python coding and I'm not sure the xml is doing this.

Also, when I put a patch of burning sands inside my cultural borders (using WB obviously), it instantly crashed the next turn, so there is something there. I'm not sure how it would explain the randomness of the crashes though and I don't even know why it would even be causing one in the first place.

The strange thing is that none of the saves crash for me . Can you try that :

And tell me what happen . Back up your file and check one of your crash save with this 3 tests . made to test the spread of flames .

Tcho

Had this one as well (save to be found in the bug-thread) and placing life 1 Adepts in World builder + sanctyfying all hell terrain worked. What exactly did the crash is not sure in the end. But it was clearly related to the hell-terrain.

So much tussle for such an easy fix... But without the clue in the forums i whouldnt have pinned that down in some time...

To note: It didnt crash immedeatly the turn after Hyborem appeared / the Sands burst into flames and not allways / different behavior at different random seeds. So perhaps try ending another few turns and you might get the crash as well...

Blackmantle said:

To note: It didnt crash immedeatly the turn after Hyborem appeared / the Sands burst into flames and not allways / different behavior at different random seeds. So perhaps try ending another few turns and you might get the crash as well...

Click to expand...

I've passed about 20 turns with the 3 saves . Then change spread flames to 100% , then put all graphic settings to Max... still no crash .

how many are using the creation.py maps script with Vista? Blackmantle is having this problem and so am I...

it doesn't look like I have the creation.py map script, so maybe it's not that one?

Anyways, with the first customfunctions, the burning sands I had already burst into flames the next turn and it didn't crash, but when I expanded and added 2 more desert tiles which turned into burning sands, the end of that turn crashed.

With the second one, it looks like you have the blaze turned off. I went over 50 turns without a crash, so it looks like the blaze thing is the cause?

The third one crashes the very next turn, lol

So it's definetly that blaze thing, I'm going to use that second customfunctions as that seems to have fixed it. You guys should check those things out, if the second one fixes it for both of you, then we have our answer, or at least part of the entire answer.

The savegame below is what I was using to test this, just for reference to everybody.

okay, the bug still seems to be there somewhere because I got a crash just now playing as hyborem. Kael and some of our python code masters need to take a look at this. For those that don't know anything about python such as me, I don't think there is anything else we can try to do than what we are doing now.
edit: nm on the above, I had forgotten about the patch of desert next to me.

Can you try that ?

Put the debugger ON in the ini file (LoggingEnabled = 1, OverwriteLogs = 1, MessageLog = 1). do some tests with your file and when it crash , copy PythonDbg.log somewhere then post a zip of the logs . Try to change the terrain , add units, river , forests , flood plains ... ( every time something different , starting with nothing , then add a thing or two , etc )

Tcho !

Hmm... I'll also try to play in a map where i'll change every flood plains/deserts to plains in WB. Iirc once when i started with Hyborem in a jungle region and i played for many turns without crashes...

Hmm just a question as i don't remember, the hell terrain ONLY spreads from you? or can it starts in other evil civs' territory once the AC hits high enough?
Besides the entropy mana node event?
That way i'll just change the terrain around me.

I'm pretty sure blaze alone is not the cause, i used many times some adept to start blaze in Fol civs!
If it is indeed the burning sand+flame effect then you are my god!

What's your PC's specs? And is it fine under heavy load in other games?

As for the creation script, I really don't see how it could cause any crashes. It just generates a map. If it caused a crash it would be when the map generates.

80ish turns playing Hyborem no crash, changing every desert tiles in plains seems to have worked, not a single burning plain...Not a single crash.
Everything left as before when i was crashing except changing those tiles...So gratz on pinpointing where the problem was!

Works perfect but still it's tedious changing every deserts to plains.

PC specs is Core 2 duo 2 Ghz, 4gb of Ram, 2 geforce 8700 GT, only SLI disabled since i get the dreaded nkvddm error anyway, might be some weird vista incompatibility bug though, wonder if any ffh teams uses vista?
On my old cpu using XP i neer got any crash...

I really think it's when it's calculating the odds of the burning sand to get a blaze that it crashes. Spreading to a desert, making it a burning plain doesn't crash the game unless maybe if it gets on fire the turn it converts, but it definetely crashes afterwards if left unnoticed (flames or not, or calculating the probability of flames appearing).

2nd straight crash after summoning hell terrain and getting hybo next to me (i'm sheim). This is a 3 player game with dot and xaliger (thessa and Varn gosam respectively) no tech brokering, blessing of ama, living world, perm alliances.

Going to try a single player sheim game and see if I can duplicate it.

Quick question... can the sheim create hell terrain with their world spell even if there is no Hyborm (compact inforced)...? If so this may be why my game will crashed every few turns. I will hear a few swoosh sounds and then a CtD.

The Sheaim world spell cannot start the spread of hell terrain; no spell can (except in my modmod)


Hell Terrain is based entirely on the tile's Plot Counter. Each tile starts with a counter of 0, and turns to hell when the counter rises above 10, reverting back when it drops back down.

If a tile is adjacent to a tile with a value greater than 10, then its own value will be increased by 1 each turn, assuming the AC and the owners alignment permit it. Otherwise, it will decrease by 1.


All Infernal controlled tiles have their plot counter set to 100 every turn. I believe this is the only way that plot counters can start rising in the first place. (I think that in in .23 one of the horsemen also raised the counter on his tile, allowing hell to spread without Hyborem, but this does not appear to still be the case.) Once it has begun, Hyborem is no longer relevant and it will keep spreading from anyone's territory.


Edit: I just noticed that the Entropy Node Flare event also sets the tile's plot counter to 100, so there are now 2 ways for hell to start spreading.

I also am using vista and creation

Im not running Vista but Win2k on a side note. So the problem is not only for vista-users.
But since its not so hard to fix once the cause is known its not so bad (save for playing with no hell terrain but if i remember rightly obsidian plains are also broken so that needs to be fixed as well before playing with hell Terrain will work as designed. Will disable (i think that game option exists if i remember correctly.) it at game start in future as long as this bug still exists or until a safe fix is available.)

Good to know about the entropy-flare. Might use this one tacticaly if hell will work as designed again.

I will try playing a multi with Sheim but turning off hell terrain and see if that helps.

Another CTD with Hyborem in game. This time Hell Terrain disabled. maybe its hyborem that does it and nothing to do with hell terrain. Guess we will have to try next game with compact enforced.

Is there a way to load a multiplayer game in world builder? maybe like saving it as single first or something? I'm wondering if dropping hyborem will fix the CTD. Not sure what else is causing it but this game was so damn awesome ;x

I can't start it because it says can't play until all players are ready.

Anyways, guess what guys, I played Hyborem last night for what would amount to over half a millenia ingame (over 500 turns) and no crash. This is with removing all desert/floodplain tiles. This is with the second customfunctions thing.

I did get a few crashes when trying to move to a save a couple turns back, which it doesn't seem to like me doing for some reason. May have something to do with which customfunction the saves want, dunno. Otherwise uneventful.

Does someone have the origional customfunctions file? I deleted the origional when testing out the ones Sto gave us and decided to use the second one in that group. I want to see if it still crashes with that because even with the second one, it still has a tendency to crash with the burning sands.

Xaliger and I tried a test game on a tiny map with Wildlands and Living World. We also did compact enforced.

We successfully passed the Infernal Pact which is where the CTD's were starting when Hell terrain was disabled *but hyborem still allowed to spawn) With the no compact enforced we ended up getting an OOS the same turn I got a crime event in the city with ratcatchers guild (pickpocket event) and repeated OOS' after that.

I'm open for other suggestions on how to test this. Has anyone been able to successfully play a MP game as Sheim since .31D? What about successful MP games where Sheim was played by an AI and summoned Hyborem?

The OOS save comes after the one w/o it.