Troubleshooting CTDs?

[tokala]

As I mentioned earlier my belief was that unit spawning (particularly barb/demon spawning) may be the reason for the crashing (crashes certainly seemed a lot more common after I switched to Hyborem and the AC started ramping up), so reducing their frequency would reduce the frequency of the crashing. Obviously this is not a final solution and it would be better to solve the reason for the crashes than simply reduce their frequency because of a wild guess I have.

Disabling lairs and the "no unique features" let me play a total of some 1000 turns over the weekend. Only one crash, after the AI managed to pop a named monster out of a hill giant fastsometing.
Barbarian+animal activity was set to standard.

Usually I would had a few dozen crashes in this timespan.

So it indeed seems that someting related to the spawning of "special" units is inducing the "random" CTDs.

 

[MattEG420]

I have suspicions about the barb's and demon's causing my CTD's also.
I'm playing on a huge/marathon/fractal map. I didn't have a CTD until around turn 1200 when i started to invade another Continent.
They started off strangely when it would crash when i went to next turn only if i was looking at the new Continent i was attacking. If i went to next turn looking at my old Continent (usually at my capitol, but not always) it wouldn't crash.
That worked for about 15 turns or so.
After that they would happen every turn. I would go back, do something a little different and try again. Some time it worked on the first try, other frustrating times it wouldn't. I sloshed threw another 75 turns or so until i had taken over the new Continent and was looking to the next. By this time the AC was 40 and the demons were popping out and moving to the other Continent with the 2 remaining civs on it.
I am playing as the Calabim, the other 2 left are the Doviello and the Cualli.
At turn 1290 it just kept crashing. No matter what i did on my own, it just kept crashing.
I had allot of cultural gaps on my new continent so barbarians were popping up every ware, on top of the few demons i would see pop up and head to the other Continent.
I broke down, put a piece of tape on my screen where the map was and went into world builder.
I tried a few different things with different results.
The first was to put a skel on every uncultured spot on this new Continent.
With that i made it to turn 1301 with out a crash.
During that time i also started to attack the Cualli (who i was also at war with for the past hundred or so turns) and took one of their city's. I gave it back and made peace than chilled for the next few turns till 1301.
I tried doing that and just chilling and not attacking them and made it to turn 1301 also.
Than i had the better thought of instead of just dropping skels all over the map, i would just increase my culture enough to cover the new Continent.
Interestingly, i could only make it to turn 1296 like that, than had CTD's.
After that i went back into my 1301 save and tried that with just the culture and no skels, but it still crashed just the same.
Now all i can do is wait till the next patch (fingers crossed that it doesn't break saves , this is one of the best games of Civ Ive had in years!!). I can think of nothing elans to do.
Hope this info helps some how. You guys have made a fantastic mod-mod! I cant wait to get back to playing it!

 

[JimMorrison]

I have also been plagued by random and unpredictable CTDs. So much so, that I was looking at FfH, but I just couldn't bear to go play it, with the amazing amount of changes and additions in Fall Further.

So I tried what has just been posted, I ran the game with all of the same variables that I prefer, but I removed Barbarian, Animal, and Demon spawns. Boom, 300 turns played without a single CTD. I think we have a winner here.

 

[Iceciro]

I've noticed, in my experience, two things that lead to crashes.

1) The barbarian spawns. Just disabling demons helps a lot, and it seems to get more stable the more kinds of barbs I disable.
2) An AI that wanted to attack across an ocean but had no sailing techs, and just built up a ton of guys. Game got stable when I deleted his stacks >_>

 

[Iceciro]

Ah crud, wrong thread for that one...

 

[lemonjelly]

I get these random CtDs as well. Iv tried re-installing BtS but still get them, sometimes even while loading the mod. They happen in FFH and FF.

Has anyone tried playing without barbs and without Hyborem? <--Most reports come from these, so it would help if we knew what one it was causing it.

 

[Locust-71]

Trading maps almost always means CTD.

 

[ICanHasName?]

Removing scions seems to help somewhat. I also fixed a consistent CTD by going into worldbuilder and removing Alcinius's madness promotion, although I got another consistent CTD a few turns later.

 

[vdex34]

I get CTDs when trying to exit singleplayer games (prolly multi too), mostly just annoying when I'm trying to get back to the main menu.

 

[Quetz]

just throwing it out there that I am getting near constant ctds. After turn 150 or so it happens every 2-9 turns.

Any chance you could specify which ini you mean Xienwolf? it's not the fall further.ini, can't find any others in my civ dir..

 

[xienwolf]

Which ini for what setting? Most likely though you want My Games\Beyond the Sword\CivilizationIV.ini.

 

[Quetz]

Yeah, thanks XD

Doesnt seem related to scions, to me at least. Played with and without them and still crashing. Disabled Demon spawns and that didnt help. Gonna try lairs next (i couldnt deal with turning off Unique Features as I love em.. )

 

[Iceciro]

Lairs seem to be the common denominator. I keep meaning to test them, but fall flat...

I want to add that I currently have it set so that lairs are only deletable by the AI, and explorable as normal by human civs. This is LESS crashy-go-boomy than before. However, disabling the lairs with the options, even under these circumstances, results in a far, far more stable game experience...

 

[kgoodrid]

I just recently rediscovered FFH, and have been exploring FF. I love it. But...

TONS of CTDs! I've been experiencing all of the behavior listed here, with crashes during save game loads, between turns, and even during turns.

I've experimented with different settings, and have had mixed results. I turned off many of lots of settings that were listed here as possible trouble spots, such as lairs and barbarians. Worked really well for a long time while playing a Scions game and seemed very stable. Now I'm playing another game and have started crashing left and right, with the same settings. I'm have a really hard time finding common causes.

I'm currently playing on an older portable, and am curious to see if my desktop will fare better when I get home next week.

I really, really want to use this mod - it truly is amazing. I hope to see it continue to grow (especially in ways that make some civs have truly unique playstyles, like the Scions), and I REALLY hope that time will be spent getting it as stable as possible for as many people as possible.

Removing scions seems to help somewhat. I also fixed a consistent CTD by going into worldbuilder and removing Alcinius's madness promotion, although I got another consistent CTD a few turns later.

Hm...in my current crashing game, things were very stable for quite awhile, but I started crashing around the time of his first madness / suicide / new civ appearance.

Although, in the other game with the Scions that was stable, he was flying around the map fairly often to different civs, and it was fine.

I'm going to try a new game without Scions (which sucks because I love them) and see how it goes.

 

[xienwolf]

We are almost 100% certain right now that the error is a memory leak. These are unfortunately THE most annoying errors to track down without professional development tools, as they don't show up right away, but rather wait for things to get complex enough that memory becomes an issue and a mis-allocation screws everything up (try to release memory which you weren't actually allowed to release, or try to reserve memory which isn't actually available for use).

That's why turning off large ticket items (Scions, Lairs, extra Barbarians) makes it so much more stable, but only for a while. These things make lots of memory requests all over the place and will cause these errors to compound quicker. But with them disabled you still eventually get to the point where it is a problem, and Crashes commence.

 

[kgoodrid]

We are almost 100% certain right now that the error is a memory leak. These are unfortunately THE most annoying errors to track down without professional development tools, as they don't show up right away, but rather wait for things to get complex enough that memory becomes an issue and a mis-allocation screws everything up (try to release memory which you weren't actually allowed to release, or try to reserve memory which isn't actually available for use).

That's why turning off large ticket items (Scions, Lairs, extra Barbarians) makes it so much more stable, but only for a while. These things make lots of memory requests all over the place and will cause these errors to compound quicker. But with them disabled you still eventually get to the point where it is a problem, and Crashes commence.

Hopefully this problem can be overcome. Real shame for so much amazing work to, for those experiencing these issues, go to waste.

Best of luck - I wish there was something players like myself could do to help. Since there isn't much, I just hope the team knows that the modmod has lots of supportive, patient fans who appreciate the work, and look forward to more.

 

[Iceciro]

Wow. So that's why it crashes, then you can reload, play a turn or two, then back to the crashing.

This also explains the peculiar crashes that are caused when you open an advisor screen late in the game too - or when an AI contacts you.

 

[xienwolf]

It can even happen just passing the mouse over a tile if you are sitting right on the precipice of a crash. But at least now we know that we are looking for a phantom, instead of jumping at every bump in the night and wondering if it is a stray cat.

 

[Deon]

I hope it gets fixed. Most of my CtDs are from alt-tabbing. When you alt-tab back to the game it crashes quite often.

 

[xienwolf]

Patch J will have it fixed.