Save game crash important discovery!

[brett25]

i know the save game crash is a plague apon us all, and i have taken it apon myself to troubleshoot this issue for along time now. I have put many hours testing each variable i could possibly come up with. Tonite I have located a cause that is definitive. This many not be the only cause, but in this particular case it was...and it is due to SH3 Commander. Now let me emphasize, its not SH3Commander itself thats the problem, of course, but rather, the data that was inside my particular install of Commander.

What I am recommending to people who are getting reapeated save game crashes is to point your Sh3 install to a fresh install of Commander. Over time i belive that Commander can get corrupted with bad data and should perodically be cleaned up. If anyone wants to verify this and let me know that would be helpful.. But like I say in this case im 100% certain that this was the issue.

The hint was that the corrupted save would only occur when a ship had been sunk...not a damaged ship on the surface but only after a ship had gone under the water...no save would load after that point...reintstalling Commander, this no longer occurs...

good luck and may we defeat this bastard once and for all:salute:

[Marko_Ramius]

Hi guys !

I'm a victim of the dreaded save game crash since i decided to play again this fantastic game.

This really drive me crazy cause in the past, it was not an issue (maybe one crash in two years of playing but not more than that).

I play GWX 3.0 on windows 7 x64 (not in program files..), SH3Cmdr, HSie V16B1, Stiebler4b addon, and several GWX mods.


So, i can confirm what Brett25 said : All my save games crash ( i don't save underwater, nor near warships or land, etc ..) BUT : a saved game made before sinking a ship will not crash !!

No matter where and when i save my game, if i have sunk some ships, saved games will crash ( i mean, always crash ! it's impossible to play the game anymore .. )

I tried without HSie patch, Stiebler4b addon but with no luck : same crashes ..

[Anvar1061]

SSS
Very important discovery!

[Marko_Ramius]

:hmm2:

I tried to do what Brett25 said : Reinstalling SH3Commander, but my games still crash .. ( The saved games was a backup )

I tried to play without using Commander, using the GWX shortcut but with same fatal issue . .

I feel mad !

[brett25]

marco,
this is what i did, im not sure of the exact point things resolved so i will mention them all as it could be a combination of things:

Save your entire game folder somewhere else
uninstall sh3
do a registry scan and fix what it asks
reisntall sh3 to the default directory (this may be important)
reinstal GWX
completely reintstall commander (make sure there no old files in there)
then you can place your old install back into its place (or maybe just your MOD folder is needed)


point Commander to the location of your SH3 Install

now you will have to go back to the point before the ship sinks, luckily i had a save where i had already critically damaged the ship but it was still on surface and was the first attack of my patrol....

when i did this, once the ship sank i did a new save and i had no problems after that.

this fix will not allow you to resurrect you corrup save, but i believe once your bac kin your game and you have a new sinking it may be good from there

**you may not have to do all the reinstall SH3 steps, just try the Commander thing and get back into your game with a good save point and then let me know...

You see that fact that you can confirm that it is upon a ships sinking that this issue happens is good and helps to pinpoint the problem for others. So hopefully more people can confirm this and we can rid the world of this for ever. By the way, I have saved at 150 meters below the surface witha full depthcharging happening, and in every other concievable situation with no currupted save---only when the ship sinks.

Finally it may be a little early for me to say 100%, because I will need to sink more ships and see if itt happens again, but at least things can focus on the sinking ship as a cause

:up:

[rudewarrior]

now you will have to go back to the point before the ship sinks

Ok, I was wondering about this. There is a methodology issue here. If you go back to the point before the ship sinks, then there is no conclusive proof that SH3 Commander is the problem.

During one particular mission, I kept having CTD's upon loading. I would engage a convoy sink a bunch of ships, get way out of range, and save the game. Upon loading, I got a CTD. This sequence occurred during three different saves. Two of the times, it was the "same" convoy, then the third was a different convoy. Each time I went to the save prior to engaging the convoy, so "before a ship sank." After the third, I wound up engaging another convoy and doing the same thing, but this time, after returning to the game, it loaded up just fine. I used SH3 Commander throughout the entire process.

To put it simply, you are introducing way too many factors into your control sample in order to truly verify that SH3 Commander is actually the problem. :know:

Unfortunately, your methodology does not support SH3 Commander being the culprit, and I actually find it highly unlikely that this is the case.

[brett25]

hi rude,

well if you read my post, i only said that in my case it worked and that something related to Commander seems to have resolved it for me for certain, but of course the issue could be somewhere else. This was not an attemp at a rigerous scientific study, but a possiblilty that others would need to verify, in the hope of coming closer to a resolution. If there is one aspect that I feel is of real vaue its the crash due to a ship sinking:salute:

I dont pretent to uderstand this fully, but there is something related to ships, that much we know (and indeed this is a big step). Now we also know that the save generates a problem after a ship is sunk (what is the differece between a ship that is sunk (under the waves) and one that is not (still on surface) in terms of game data ? ( i dont know this) So...the save (which now includes a sunken ship) is having a conflict with the loading game data (the state of the world that the game exects to be in). Now what aspects of the game are related to this conflict (ie campaign files, ship files, Commander files (ship rosters)

but more people would have to verify this

I just dont see it as a memory or mod issue, for me at least , so im hopeful that what i am proposing may be along the right track

[rudewarrior]

well if you read my post

Well, I did actually, and as I said, I don't think that SH3 Commander is the problem even in the case that you mentioned.

This isn't about scientific rigour, and in your case it didn't actually "work."

Let's assume that your "pre-sinking" save game would have loaded just fine before you did any of this, just to be clear.

All you have done in your sequence is taken a save game that is working, completely uninstalled and reinstalled the programs that were using it, and loaded it again. In between loading that save game and sinking the ship, any number of things could have happened that could corrupt the game you are playing.

No, it is more likely to be mods you are using or some other factor.

Here is a personal story to show just how cranky SH3 can be. I had a mod soup that was causing a CTD every time I reloaded after sinking a ship, every time. Well, one day, I took the save game that would CTD, and started disabling all the mods that would cause the problem, and for some reason it loaded. I traced it down to a particular mod, and disabled it. Started playing the game, thinking everything was fine. Started getting CTD's again. Did some research, and found that a particular mod that I was using was notorious for causing CTD's for certain people. I removed that mod, and since then CTD's upon loading reduced dramatically. The story that I told in my previous post about the 3 CTD's was definitely an exception. I usually get 1 CTD save game load about every 3 missions, (possibly even 4-5).

Bottom line is, I read all of your posts and your methodology, and there is nothing there that says you conclusively proved that SH3 Commander is the problem for you or anyone else.

Trust me, I would love for this to be true, but I understand enough about troubleshooting and (computer) science problem-solving to say, that unless there is information you haven't included in your previous posts, the statement:

...but in this particular case it was...and it is due to SH3 Commander.

is not true. Sorry.

[brett25]

not sure whats up with this confrontation,... anyway im not getting into a ridiculous argument with you which seems to be what your looking for.....good luck

great you proved my post is useless, and in the process showed how clever you are...you win...

in my ignorant and useless way im trying to help the community by posting some findings that may or may not be usefull...good day..

[rudewarrior]

not sure whats up with this confrontation,... anyway im not getting into a ridiculous argument with you which seems to be what your looking for.....good luck

great you proved my post is useless, and in the process showed how clever you are...you win...

in my ignorant and useless way im trying to help the community by posting some findings that may or may not be usefull...good day..

I am not arguing with you. I am also not trying to take you down.

If you want to take it that way, then you are free to do so.

If you want to get upset about it, then you are free to do so.

If you can't accept a reasoned explanation for why your conclusion is incorrect, then maybe you should reconsider posting.

I can't change your mind, only you can. Good luck.

[brett25]

wow, you are being annoying..its almost perfect how you did that...please just go away:down:

[Jimbuna]

Cool heads gentleman...we are all here to help one another.

[rudewarrior]

Cool heads gentleman...we are all here to help one another.

Agreed and thank you! :salute:

Out.

[brett25]

thanks jimbuna...aye aye captain:salute:

[Jimbuna]

Agreed and thank you! :salute:

Out.

thanks jimbuna...aye aye captain:salute:

Resuming patrol http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[brett25]

thanks again Jim:salute:

now that we are back at sea, i suppose it would be helpful if people could report in as marco did and lets see if there a consensus around weather the save game crash is connected to a ship sinking, whatever the exact cause, i think this is a step that will be quite helpful. There are several on this forum whose understanding of the game is quite deep and perhaps in time this may become worthy of their notice.

This issue is such a show stopper for many that it deserves whatever attention can be leveled at it. Of course Ialso know this topic has been hashed out many times before.....

you cant imagine how excited I was when I got this to work, its nothing more than that:yeah:


***as an aside to those interested, in case i wasn't as clear as i could have been:

the save game would crash 100% of the time once the ship in question has sunk. I repeated this many time with many different attempts to fix it (including re installs, mod removals, registry clean up), then I pointed my game to another install i have of J scones most excellent SH3 Commander (i cant imagine playing SH3 with out it) and then went back into the game from a good save, waited for the ship to sink and tried a save...this worked...then i dove to 45 meters and did a save...it worked...now the game seem stable again.....could it be a coincidence? yes it could, or it could be something else

that is all i have to report

[Mittelwaechter]

Well - the save game bug is as old as the game itself.
I guess a later developed SH3 Commander is not responsible for the bug.

By the way - I don't use savegames on a regular basis, but when real life calls me I save and leave the game. It happens.
In all those years playing Vanilla, GWX or LSH - modded and/or tweaked by myself + running SH3 and Commander on three different computers - no such bug has yet occured to me.

I had and have SH3 problems with CTDs, GameExplorer, UAC or even my firewall - and this PatrolLogEditor doesn't work in my set up - but my save games do fire up. :yeah:

I'm knocking on wood...

[Marko_Ramius]

I did a complete reinstall of GWX 3, without installing SH3Cmdr.


Began a campaign in 2nd flotilla. I made several saves, with no sinking ships and with some after sinking 2 enemy ships.

Well, exactly the same issue : save game crash if i load the one in which i sunk targets.

The game saved before shooting load fine :hmm2: So, in my install, it's not SH3Cmdr problem. I will investigate with the mods i have installed, it takes time :/\\!! but it's weird because it's the few mods i was using in the past and all was ok.

[brett25]

ok Marko, thats interesting, well at least your issue is related to the sinking of a ship and thats exactly the issue I have as well...I can conceed that the Commander fix i suggested, although it appears to have fixed my issue, may not be the cause, and that's ok for now...but I at least want to know if more peole have crashes specifically due to ship sinking....:salute:

regarding mods, I have had many heavy mods installed and when the game is woking fine , there is never a save crash, and as stated earlier, when the game is working I can save in the middle of a batlle and at depths...but when the game is not workin (ie after I have sunk a ship), then no amount of fussing around will result in a good save.....

[Marko_Ramius]

Yep, definitely something to do with sinking ships.

I tried again, but this time without one of the mods installed,and without hyperthreading (never knows ..).

Same thing : as long as i don't sink a target, game load ok ; but not after a hit ..

i'm lost ..

[brett25]

marko do me a favor, hit a ship and then try to save after hes sinking (broken ship icon on nav map) but before it goes under and see if that save will open///aslo do one again once it goes under and see if that will open (though we know it probably will not)....

[Marko_Ramius]

ok, will try that :)

[brett25]

Well I have good news and bad news to report. The bad news is that my crashes are back, and indeed the Commander theory has proven not o be true. The good news is that I have narrowed down the poin of crash to a very specif thing...a ship has to go under water in order to produce the corruption...I saved that game at several points after hitting a ship and inflicting critcal damage, all saves prior to sinking were good, after sinking the corruption occurs...of this i cannot be more certain......I hope this discovery may lead to some new theories and even a solution, but I fear the people who are in a position to propose such things are long gone from this one....happy sailing...out


Marko, please put your modlist up here, thanks

[MLGathome]

The second solution in this thread worked for me:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//showthread.php?t=166283

NO CTD sinds then.

Good Luck, Marcel

[brett25]

@MLGayhorne, thats great news m8

@Rudewarrior rather than send you another PM Id rather make it up with you here. I appreacie your thoughtful message, and im sorry as well for reacting the way I did to your input (your reasoning was sound ), I should not be afraid of a little salt , after all we are pretty crusty bunch of fellows here....perhaps a mug of beer if Jim will join us?:smug:

Actually, heres the deal....in my case it seems to be Lifeboats and debriv4 (hense the ships sinking and corrupt save) I dont blame this mod howver but my choice in using it as im using the POTD steel sharks mod (plug for SteelSharks league right here) and this may be the reason for the conflict with LB&D.. Im hoping to see if Marko is using Lifeboat and Debri as well, so maybe he has his solution as well.

Also For Windows 7 Users it probably would hurt to run the exe as admin, this is a good all round thing that solves many diverse issues in Win 7.

I am coming to the conclusion as you mention in your message rudewarrior that these corrupt saves are general and affect people differently and so may be impossible to pinpoint exactly. I hope my posting has been of help, if not I suppose it can be piled up with all the other save game crash posts:wah:

Well I am happy to be sailing again and in my case at least im all fixed.....

[rudewarrior]

Hi brett,

Just want to say no need for an apology, as we hashed it out via PM, but thanks anyway. :salute:

The only comment I would like to make here for anyone who reads this far is that the true problem here is the inherent buggy nature of SH3 saves. There are several threads that talk about this problem, but it is never stated in a central location. So I will just reiterate it here, so that more people can see it whenever possible.

The best conditions under which you can save a game in SH3 is when you are on the surface with no ships or aircraft of any sort in the area.

This means that your save game is most likely to load. Unfortunately, since it seems that the issue is inherent to SH3 itself, this is the best you are going to get. Once you start adding mods in, your chances of successful load are only going to go down. :down:

It's a shame that you can't use the Lifeboats & Debris mod, since I think it adds a nice effect to the game. However, consider saving away from the wreckage, and you still might be able to keep it. :up: I have quite the mod list. I won't post it here, as it would just be spam (but you can see a posting of it here (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1951068&postcount=688)). Just as a side note, if you read further in that thread, you will see that people who inspire the size of that mod list are like, "Wow! That's a lot of mods!" :o So the problem is that if I change something in there and the game starts to be unstable, sometimes I just wonder where I am going to start. :timeout: The simple solution would be to just discard the new change, but I always just have to have that mod! :stare:

The point of that is to illustrate a story. One day, my wife wasn't home, and I settled in to play SH3 all day. :arrgh!: I started a new patrol, went out to sea, engaged a convoy, and sank an assload of tonnage. Calm weather, I was on the surface the whole time, all the torpedoes were hits, all the ships were sinking right away. I also got some deck gun action on the surface. Couldn't have gone better. :rock: I have a tendency to save right after weather changes, so I don't feel like I'm cheating (or to give me something else to be anal about). So I am heading home. Just before I get to port, the weather changes, I save the game and then exit so that I can edit my pennants to enter port. When I load the game, CTD. :wah: I keep going back through each of my save games, CTD. I finally get to the save game that works, and it is right at the beginning of the patrol. :/\\!! And I know for a fact that the first save that corrupted all the others was on the surface, 0 m/s wind, clear skies, 16 km visibility, and in an area where there is low shipping traffic and nothing was visible. And it still crashed. :/\\!! Since then I've realized that CTD's are just part of life in SH3, and the best you can hope for is that it happens as infrequently as possible. :yep:

Good luck and smooth sailing to you all! :salute:

[LGN1]

Hi,

anyone using TDW's depth-charges disturbance mod? I ask because this sounds similar:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1650520&postcount=93

Regards, LGN1

[rudewarrior]

Hi,

anyone using TDW's depth-charges disturbance mod? I ask because this sounds similar:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1650520&postcount=93

Regards, LGN1

I would like to say +1 on this diagnosis. :up: The personal story that I relay in the 8th post of this thread actually revolved around that exact mod. When I removed it, all the problems went away. It's a shame, because it would be a fabulous addition to the game. :yep:

I was hesitant to bring it up, as it seems that they could get the game to load sometimes, but no one has actually posted a mod list, so it could very well be the case.

Thanx for bringing it up LGN1. :up:

[Stiebler]

There has been some interesting information given in this thread.

One thing that I have discovered is this:
When you make a game save, the game information is just pumped out as a data stream without any checking. Even if the data saved were corrupt.

However, when you reload the saved game, there is a lot of checking of the input data. So the central problem is that corrupted RAM has been output to the save file without checks, but the problem has been discovered during re-input. That's when the CTD occurs.

(I used to keep a small list of corrupted saves, and check what happened during reload with OllyDbug, a disassembler. The CTD always occurred - for me - while a series of ships was being reloaded, always from a convoy in my particular case. Of course, there may be other causes of corrupt RAM of which players are blissfully unaware - until they save the game, then try to reload it.)

Why are convoys the cause of my problems?
There are a number of possible reasons:

1. Ships which have build defects which were not apparent during normal testing. For example, ID conflicts with other ships. Or fitted with inappropriate equipment, which causes corruption of RAM for another ship. Aircraft may suffer from the same difficulty.

2. RAM overflow. If two convoys have spawned near the U-boat, then RAM has to be allocated for every ship. Depending on how much RAM you have available, two convoys may cause this problem. More convoys will increase the probability of a RAM overflow or other conflict, which can corrupt RAM without the player being aware - until he saves the game and tries to reload it.

3. You're in a high-density minefield. Each mine has to be rendered!

The solution to problems (2) and (3) is to add more RAM. If anyone has any doubts about this RAM problem, try taking a U-boat to the narrow waters between Scotland and Northern Ireland in 1944, through which lots of convoys pass quickly and often at the same time. All your game saves will cause CTDs (unless you have a mighty big computer!), and you may even find, if you return to base without any game save, that you will get a CTD as soon as you dock at base.

Faulty mods can also corrupt RAM, but this problem can be solved by removing the offending mod (but it may take some time to locate the problem, since corrupt saves by their nature will not always affect the reloading of a saved game.)

And finally, as others have pointed up here, it may be that SH3 sometimes gets into a muddle when trying to handle sinking ships.

Of course, there may be other ways of corrupting RAM too.

Stiebler.

[Marko_Ramius]

So, i can confirm that :

A ship hit by a fish, but not enough to sink --> games load ok ( even underwater at 48m depth , in the middle of a convoy ! )

The same patrol, loaded with a saved game made after the wounded ship have sunk ---> Crash at the "not so long ago" ; Same with a saved game made hours after sinking ship, at surface, with no visual contact ..

Now, the mods :hmm2: : ( Pay attention to the first two ..)

- LifeBoats&Debris_V4
- GWX-Ehanced Damaged Effects
- Torpedo Damage Final V.2.0

- GWX - English Nav Map and Grid Refs ( updated ver.)
- GWX No Medals on crew
- GWX open hatch Mod
- FubarSVII58 mrk 2
- GWX-TA1.3_Seafloormod -256mb
- SH4StyleFlags_GWX
- Thompsen's Whispering Ring mod
- GWX - Merged Campaign
- GWX Integrated orders
- TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4.0_SH3
- TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3
- SB_cameras_mod_SH3
- WBNN Mission Orders Lite
- M.E.P_V2_Env
- M.E.P_2_Jake1024x1024 foam
- Undersea_Mod_Reworked


The link provide by MLGathome is interresting ! I will check this out with the mods ( the first two ones in the list ; I don't think the "Torpedo damage final" has something to do with this mess, but will check that too )

Everything, even the more little thing, could be of any help with this strange crash bug, so, Thanks to Brett and everyone else to report :rock:


I repeat myself, but : In the past, it's a bug which i didn't know well. My SH3 was rocking solid ( with the same list of mods !!) so, i really don't know what happened ..

[Marko_Ramius]

That's interesting, Stiebler .

Just for info :

In my last tests , the saved games crashes even when a lonely ship was sunk, with anything else around.

My rig is :

Core-I7 2600K
8gigs Ram
Nvidia 660 ti
Wind 7 x64

So in my case, i fear it's not a "not enough Ram" problem. Witch doesn't mean it's not related to ram, anyway.

And thing very weird in my case : Saved games will be allways corrupted after sinking something .. it doesn't seem to be a random failure, that's why it's driving me nut, lol !!

[brett25]

@Marko, remove the Lifeboats and Debris 4 from your mod list, and return to your game with a good save, sink a ship and let it sink completely, then save again....see if that save works:salute:

also remove these as well: TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4.0_SH3, TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3 as Stiebler recommends.

@Stiebler, wow if your working on the problem too, maybe there is hope for us after all!:salute:

[rudewarrior]

also remove these as well: TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4.0_SH3, TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3 as Stiebler recommends.


AFAIK there is no issue with TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3 mod, only with TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4.0_SH3, with the caveat that different machines work different ways. If you get it working put the fire damage mod back in and see if you have success with that.

Good luck! :up:

[machiavelli]

This is my take on the whole thing. It appears crashes will always occur right after a save after a ship has sunk.

If this is so, I think there is a flaw in the game programming here, as I think the program is confused as to whether the ship is afloat or is sunk.

I think the error occurs in the .sav files in the SH3 folder in Documents.

These files are save specific and tell the program what is happening at the time of the save, instead of just reloading the campaign layers and assuming everything is vanilla and no ships are sunk.

What I think happens here is that the sunk or sinking ship is not written correctly in the .sav file. Thus the ctd. I think in the code it is written as being in pergatory, not sunken not still afloat. Thus the confusion between the engine and the save.

Of course ctd will happen for many reasons, like little ram, but I think the sunken ship issue is a problem with how the engine outputs the .sav files. Because it reads the .sav file, which contradicts with the campaign layer saying there is a ship there and its still afloat. But if its in the process of sinking or just after sunk, perhaps the engine can't understand that.

Can we find the mentioning of the sinking ship with hex editor in the .sav files?


However, as a control, I'd suggest everyone to remove all the mods for testing. Because if this specific ctd occurs during vanilla, then we need to be sure of that and attack the issue from there knowing no other mods create this ctd.

[Marko_Ramius]

So, i removed those mods :

- LifeBoats&Debris_V4
- GWX-Ehanced Damaged Effects
- Torpedo Damage Final V.2.0
- TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4.0_SH3
- TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3
- SH4StyleFlags_GWX

and i loaded a good saved game from my last test patrol (with 1 convoy).
Game loaded fine as expected, and i moved my sub in position and wait for the targets ; i sunk one ship and 2 was wounded and sunk a bit later. I evade the convoy deep and slow, and when they get some distance, i surfaced the boat. No visual contact ; I let the sub moving away from them a few miles more and saved the game.

I quit SH3 and reload and guess what --> Game loaded fine :rock: :rock:

Of course, i should begin again the thing for confirmation, but still, it's a big step forward (in my particular case, maybe), this is the first saved game (after sinking ships) who works ok since a lot of hours/days/week of playing !!

So, i will now re-activate mods, one by one, and repeat the shoot on this convoy. i will of course let you know the results.

[Jimbuna]

^ Best course of action.

[machiavelli]

So, i removed those mods :

- LifeBoats&Debris_V4
- GWX-Ehanced Damaged Effects
- Torpedo Damage Final V.2.0
- TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4.0_SH3
- TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3
- SH4StyleFlags_GWX

and i loaded a good saved game from my last test patrol (with 1 convoy).
Game loaded fine as expected, and i moved my sub in position and wait for the targets ; i sunk one ship and 2 was wounded and sunk a bit later. I evade the convoy deep and slow, and when they get some distance, i surfaced the boat. No visual contact ; I let the sub moving away from them a few miles more and saved the game.

I quit SH3 and reload and guess what --> Game loaded fine :rock: :rock:

Of course, i should begin again the thing for confirmation, but still, it's a big step forward (in my particular case, maybe), this is the first saved game (after sinking ships) who works ok since a lot of hours/days/week of playing !!

So, i will now re-activate mods, one by one, and repeat the shoot on this convoy. i will of course let you know the results.


I think it was sucessful because you left the rendering radius of the sinking ship. SH3 renders ships and 3d models within 40km of the uboat, I think. Even though it grabs the initial data from the campaign layer upon mission load. It's not rendered until you are 40km within the 3d object.

So, I think you were out of the rendering radius of that sinking ship, and thus the save didn't have to mention it. Therefore, good working save and no ctd.

Because now I bet if you load your save and go back to the sinking ship location, the ship will be there again. Because sunken ships only stay sunken within the rendering radius. If you leave that radius and come back, forcing the game to reread the data it pulled from the campaign layer, the ship will reapper good as new.

[brett25]

my experience with Life boats and Debris was this: game crashes apon sinking ship...remove LB@D, ship sinks...save works, I ddidnt leave the radius of the ship in either case. :salute:

[machiavelli]

my experience with Life boats and Debris was this: game crashes apon sinking ship...remove LB@D, ship sinks...save works, I ddidnt leave the radius of the ship in either case. :salute:

Others say it happens in vanilla. odd.

[machiavelli]

So, i removed those mods :

- LifeBoats&Debris_V4
- GWX-Ehanced Damaged Effects
- Torpedo Damage Final V.2.0
- TheDarkWraith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4.0_SH3
- TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3
- SH4StyleFlags_GWX

and i loaded a good saved game from my last test patrol (with 1 convoy).
Game loaded fine as expected, and i moved my sub in position and wait for the targets ; i sunk one ship and 2 was wounded and sunk a bit later. I evade the convoy deep and slow, and when they get some distance, i surfaced the boat. No visual contact ; I let the sub moving away from them a few miles more and saved the game.

I quit SH3 and reload and guess what --> Game loaded fine :rock: :rock:

Of course, i should begin again the thing for confirmation, but still, it's a big step forward (in my particular case, maybe), this is the first saved game (after sinking ships) who works ok since a lot of hours/days/week of playing !!

So, i will now re-activate mods, one by one, and repeat the shoot on this convoy. i will of course let you know the results.

Try to stay within viewing distance of the sinking ship when you save it too. This will help eliminate one possible issue.

[Marko_Ramius]

Hi again guys,

I reloaded SH3 with all the mods i was used to, except one :

TheDarkWaith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4_SH3

I sunk two ships and evaded ; I made one save with the ships sunk within 10 kilometers, and one far way later.

I reloaded the first save (within 10Km) : Game loaded fine !!
I reloaded the second saved game : Game loaded fine !!

So, for me, it seems that particular mod is the culprit, BUT :

After reloaded the second saved game, i decided to go over my patrol and sank a few ships ( 3 in another convoy) and an other lonely ship later in the patrol. After that last hit, i saved and quit the game.

Today, i reload SH3 and load that last saved game : Crash at the "Not so long ago " :/\\!!

This time, i do nothing and reload SH3 but i choose a saved game just before the last and : Game load fine :hmm2: ( The state of the game is after the second convoy was hit by me, at about 12 Kms of the ships i killed.


So, i don't know what to think .. Things are definitely better for me without this particular mod, but not "perfect"

I will continue testing but it takes so much time !! But i just don't want to give up, not yet :arrgh!:

The next mod which i will remove is " TheDarkWaith_Ship_Plane" and see what happens.

Next ship i sink, i will stay within visual range and save the game.

[DrJones]

Hi again guys,

I reloaded SH3 with all the mods i was used to, except one :

TheDarkWaith_DC_Water_Disturbance_V4_SH3

I sunk two ships and evaded ; I made one save with the ships sunk within 10 kilometers, and one far way later.

I reloaded the first save (within 10Km) : Game loaded fine !!
I reloaded the second saved game : Game loaded fine !!

So, for me, it seems that particular mod is the culprit, BUT :

After reloaded the second saved game, i decided to go over my patrol and sank a few ships ( 3 in another convoy) and an other lonely ship later in the patrol. After that last hit, i saved and quit the game.

Today, i reload SH3 and load that last saved game : Crash at the "Not so long ago " :/\\!!

This time, i do nothing and reload SH3 but i choose a saved game just before the last and : Game load fine :hmm2: ( The state of the game is after the second convoy was hit by me, at about 12 Kms of the ships i killed.


So, i don't know what to think .. Things are definitely better for me without this particular mod, but not "perfect"

I will continue testing but it takes so much time !! But i just don't want to give up, not yet :arrgh!:

The next mod which i will remove is " TheDarkWaith_Ship_Plane" and see what happens.

Next ship i sink, i will stay within visual range and save the game.

What mod is this?? -> " TheDarkWaith_Ship_Plane" ???

[rudewarrior]

What mod is this?? -> " TheDarkWaith_Ship_Plane" ???

TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3 mod. It allows ships and planes to take damage from fires. Excellent mod. One cool thing about it is that you never know if the fires are actually causing damage to the ships are not. On top of that you still get credit for the sinking. :up:

SH3 renders ships and 3d models within 40km of the uboat, I think.

Can anyone confirm this? I'm curious as to what the actual number is. :hmm2:

[machiavelli]

TheDarkWraith_Ship_Plane_Fire_Damage_V1_4_SH3 mod. It allows ships and planes to take damage from fires. Excellent mod. One cool thing about it is that you never know if the fires are actually causing damage to the ships are not. On top of that you still get credit for the sinking. :up:



Can anyone confirm this? I'm curious as to what the actual number is. :hmm2:

The easiest way to ensure what the distance is is to launch at Kiel, then go to external view using Shift to move fast, and follow the canal all the way up until the end of the map. Then find that end point on the nav map, and see what the distance is from there to the boat.

[sublynx]

The second solution in this thread worked for me:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//showthread.php?t=166283

NO CTD sinds then.

Good Luck, Marcel


That's a solution that worked for me too. After that I've only had a couple CTD's. Went from a crash in maybe one in every three saves to almost no CTD's at all. The CTD's (maybe 4 or 5 since the summer of 2012) I've had after the change have all par one been after doing something really stupid like installing a mod during a patrol. I have had one unexplainable CTD after implementing the change though and IIRC the solution Marcel pointed out has not worked for everyone.

Do try the solution described if you haven't already :ping:

[brett25]

thanks for the update sublynx

i did notice in solution 2 the folowwing :

g) I launched JSGME (v2.2.0.120) and I removed the following Mods: "LifeBoats&Debris_v4", "Torpedo damage Final", and "GWX - Enhanced Damage Effects"

Again this makes me very suspicious that LB&D4 is the culprit in the CTD on ship sinking scenario