Mac Freezes When Deleting Saved Games

[docbud]

I have a recurring problem when deleting or opening a saved file. Note that it is a regular save and not a quick save. This only happens when when I first launch Civ V when I am ready to play. This is single player and not multiple. I am not using Steam. App and all the DLCs were purchased via App Store.

Basically, and this is happening practically every night, I get to the screen to play. I select load game. I then click the top of the list to delete an old save. It deletes, I then click on the second one and I get the spinning pizza of death. I am forced to force quit it. I have even waited up to 15 minutes in the hopes that it will respond, but it never does.

After that, all my other apps on my Mac get the spinning pizza of death as well. They are not labor-intensive ones (i.e., mail, iCal, TextEdit). I then try to force quit them, but then the entire system freezes. I have to push the power button to shut down.

I then restart, and of course, Civ V launches as it had been open before I force quit it. And, it doesn’t respond. It just plays the intro video and I can click to my heart’s content, but I can’t get to the play menu.

So I force quit again, and then force quit all my other apps, but am able to shut down completely without pushing the power button.

I then reboot and all is well, except that the first few turns of the game take an extremely long time (even in early years).

It does this practically every night and I don’t understand it. It always freezes/spinning pizza of death when first starting it and deleting a previously saved game. Or if I had deleted them the night before, it freezes/spinnig pizza of death when I try to play the last saved game.

My specs are:

2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
24 GB 800 MHz DDRS F8-DIMM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB Graphics
Apple 23 inch display
OS 10.7.2
I also have the latest version version of Civ V (per the App Store).
Any thoughts or ideas? I’d appreciate it.

 

[FeiLing]

Doesn't surprise me much that a common game can have trouble with a 24 GB RAM dual CPU setup. That rig is made to handle certain special tasks at which it good at, not common tasks. What is your job anyway, if we may know?

Other than the general incompatibility between game and hardware (that is most likely imho) I'd suspect a defective HDD (or your Raid-Controller, which is likely to exist in that setup).

 

[docbud]

^^I only do book publishing (i.e., Adobe InDesign, Photshop, etc.). I do some audio and video conversions, but nothing major. I only put in that much ram because I had the money and I wanted to try to fill it up. It holds a max of 32 gigs ram.

The set up is not really non-standard--except for the extra ram. I bought the Mac standard from Apple and only upgraded the video card when I ordered. The RAM was aftermarket, and never had a problem before.

The hard drive is fine, and I've ran diagnostics on it. I have a clone to my second hard drive, and it happens there as well (I tried that a while back). I'll check into the Raid-Controller.

It's just weird that it only happens when first launching the game and deleting a previously saved file or trying to play the last one. After I have to force shutdown and reboot again, the game runs fine.

It's like Civ V is taking over the Mac and the GUI or CPU. And I can't figure out why once Civ V freezes/spinning pizza of death, everything else on my Mac goes wacko.

Thanks for your tips.

EDIT: This never happened until I upgraded to Lion and purchased the DLCs.

 

[AlanH]

Eight core Mac Pros are not so rare. I have a four core one from 2006. And there's no problem with 24 GBytes of RAM. The more the merrier, generally.

I know this may sound a bit radical, but have you tried NOT deleting an old save before loading the game? I don't expect you are pushed for disk space, so it may be worth trying. It's just that being able to delete files from within an application has never been a major feature of Mac applications, so it's possible that OS X might not like it.

You can always delete old saves directly from outside the game, by going into ~/Library/Application Support/Civilization V Campaign Edition/Saves/single/. In OS X 10.7/Lion you get to the ~/Library folder in Finder by holding down the Alt key and selecting the Go menu, which shows Library as a menu option.

 

[docbud]

^^Thank you very much, AlanH. I will try that tomorrow night when I play again. And you're right--it is radical. I've been using a Mac for 20 years and I don't think it's ever been a problem deleting files from within an app. But I've never really had to do it that often.

I appreciate your help and I will let you know how it works out.

And you are right--disk space is no problem. I just save a lot, and frequently.

I had tried to find the files, but didn't know about the Lion thing as I'm new to Lion.

I really appreciate the tip. Thanks again and I will post the results.

doc

 

[AspyrRyan]

I'll try to reproduce the exact issue with deleting saves tomorrow and see what happens.
Normally, I'd say to send in a technical support ticket, but I don't think there's any way we'll be able to reproduce that hardware setup.

To be clear, you run into problems only after deleting saves, or all the time? Can you go through, play, save/load, etc just fine if you don't try to delete the saves from within the game?

What version number do you see at the bottom of the main menu? It should be 1.0.1.511. There have been some issues with updating via the Mac App Store on Lion after our latest update.

 

[AlanH]

I've been using Macs for 25 years, and I don't remember ever deleting a save from within an app - or even seeing a Delete option in an app

I tried doing it in Campaign Edition last night on my Snow Leopard system, and it worked fine, but you said the problem only started with Lion. I was only trying to narrow it down. It's an easy test to do that will either eliminate or confirm the file delete as the source of the problem. If it doesn't change anything then we can concentrate on other possible causes.

The reason I homed in on the file delete was that Lion does its own new magic with respect to saving and deleting files, so you might just be seeing an adverse reaction by the OS to an app trying to do stuff.

 

[AspyrRyan]

It doesn't appear to be a universal issue with the application. I have not been able to reproduce the issue here.

It seems very strange that it would affect all the other programs on your system if it was just a Civ V problem.

 

[Gyathaar]

to me it sounds like a problem that could occur if there is a bad block on the harddrive where the save is located

 

[docbud]

@AspyrRyan: The problem is when trying to delete files, especially if I have a lot of them. It will delete the first one I delete, but then freezes on either the second or third one. Occasionally I’ve had freezes when playing, but that is extremely rare. It freezes a lot when first booting up and going to play Civ V and deleting older saved games.

My version number is: 1.01.383 (101968). The App Store has a warning about the February 15 release: “Do not install this update while the App Store is experiencing issues with incremental updates. New purchasers of Civilization V are not affected and will get a full install of the most recent version of the game.”

Should I install it?

@AlanH: Yes--the problem started when I installed Lion. It was fine with Snow Leopard. I was able to delete the files by going to my library, and the saved game I wanted to play loaded fine.

If AlanH is right, then I’m thinking that the Finder is getting lost when trying to delete the files and that’s why my entire system is affected. The Finder is still searching for the saved files and ignoring all my other apps that are open.

@Gyathaar--I thought of the HD and I ran Drive Genius, and the sectors were okay.

So now what do I do about the update? I purchased the game a few months ago so I’m not a new purchaser and I have updated in the past. Maybe I’m stupid, but I don’t understand their warning.

EDIT: I don't know why that update is even showing up. I know for a fact that I updated Civ V back then. In fact, the first one didn't take and I did it a second time. Not unless for some reason the incremental updates aren't working. If that's the case, how do I update?

 

[docbud]

UPDATE: I ran scans with Drive Genius 3 and TTP (Tech Tool Pro), and HD is fine. I rebooted from a clone of my HD and still had a problem.So I'm thinking it's a Lion thing.

Deleting from the library (as recommended) seems to work. Apple Store is telling folks to contact Aspyr for download updates as they are not working at the App Store.

 

[AlanH]

Re. the update: It's not just you. My version number is also 1.01.383 (101968), I can't update my copy from the App Store either, and I'm on Snow Leopard.

Strange that AspyrRyan isn't able to reproduce your delete problem in Lion. I'll try it out on my MBP, which is on Lion but doesn't normally run Civ5 very well.

 

[docbud]

^^sounds good, i.e., trying to replicate the problem. It probably is a Lion thing.

 

[Sandgrounder]

Just a thought - but are the saves you are trying to delete Autosaves of the game ? It's something I have disabled as with a game like Civ the amount of saving that would be done would slow the game down considerably in the latter stages !

As Alan has pointed out, you can delete any saves from the saves directory yourself - I find that useful when the list of saves gets rather long !

 

[docbud]

^^Nope. They are regular saves. I don't use "autosave" on this game or any program I have. Deleting the files manually from the library has worked out well, and the game is running great.