First CTD

[Zosimus]

I have been playing SH3 with GWX for awhile now, and I've blithely saved anywhere I felt like. I've saved underwater, near convoys, and routinely broken all the supposed rules of saving. I've never had any problem until now.

While loading up the save, I got two CTDs with the same save. An earlier save worked with no problem. The only difference is that I've recently changed boats from the IXB to the IXC.

Obviously I cannot know for certain whether that change is the reason I got a CTD, but it might be a factor. Perhaps this information will be useful to other users.

[Pisces]

You can't change from the IXB to the IXC in between saves. As each requires it's own patrol. So something else must have happend on that patrol that caused the latest savegame to load sour. Not sure if you are asking for solutions, but if you did, you didn't provide much info about the patrol to start with.

[Zosimus]

There was no real indication of what went wrong. From base I started with an IXC. I left, sailed out of Lorient, found a ship along the way, shot it with the deck gun till it sank. Then I till I found another ship, set myself up for a shot on that only to find out that it was Japanese.

Leaving that one, I set along south till I got a convoy notice. I plotted the intercept, got into position, fired a salvo, blew the ship out of the water, and dove to 160 meters. I wasn't detected.

I drew a circle around my position and plotted my escape. I waited until the ships were around 8000 meters, and popped up to the surface. I could still see the rear escort as I started to head out and around. I saved and quit.

I've done that at least a hundred times and never had any problem. This time, however, the save was corrupted. Now lots of people will nod sagely and say, "Well, you have to make sure you're at least 25 km from the nearest ship." Everyone around will nod in agreement and pronounce the case closed.

The thing is, as I've said, I've done the same thing at least a 5 score times with no ill effects. This time, however, on the very first save, catastrophe.

Perhaps it has something to do with saving near other ships in a IXC that didn't affect me when I saved near ships with an IXB. I don't know.

I changed no mods. I changed no settings. I did nothing different.

[Jeff-Groves]

The rule is don't do that kind of save.
I've never had an issue doing what you did but it's a roll of the dice if you do!

You got snake eyes this time!
:har:

It's like playing Russian Roulette.
You know there's a bullet in there but the odds say you'll be OK.
Only difference is you can't bitch if you lose!

[Pisces]

Well, the real cause of this save bug (maybe plural) seems to be very elusive. It has not yet been sufficiently narrowed down. It may just be only a particular npc ship or other model that cause this to happen in certain situations, while others don't. It's just that these submerged, and within-rendering sphere situations have been identified as common cases where it happens, and less likely if you adhere to the rules. There might also be other causes that mix in to why you've been lucky in your earlier savegames. Like it only happened when x amount of memory has been used previously or framerate is at a certain level.

So if the intent of this thread is to narrow down to the cause of it, then it is important to record as many details of what happens in that world. And even more important, that others do likewise to allow comparisson. I'm more thinking of which units you encountered or had around you in the world (also unseen beyond the visible horizon which is kinda hard to know for sure), rather than exactly which tactic or game function you performed. That might still be part of the cause (like the crew configuration shortcuts bug), but so far is seems to be related to your neighbours of the moment and your physical boat state. If we (those of us knowledgeable enough programming-wise) could only have our mittens on the source code for a while ...

You may have a point though. Urban legend might have started to set in over the course of the years. Re-reading the GWX manual on this (I'm not suggesting it is the definitive authority on SH3 game crashes, but I'm sure the team tested and wrote things thoroughly), it only mentions the submerged state as causing possible game instability (tending to crash). Saving in the vicinity of other units could cause them to: A: go sail into waypointless-dead-ahead-zombie-mode when reloading the savegame, or B: become resurrected as before it sank, or C: not spawn at all. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if these cases also corrupts the memory and results in a crash sooner or later. But the GWX manual doesn't suggest this. And I'm too lazy, and tired, to dig deep in the Subsim forum archives for other sources or tests of bug causes. Feel free, I'm happy enough to abide by these best-practise guidelines myself.

[Zosimus]

I suffered two more CTD in my new patrols now that I have upgraded to the IXC. There was no clear indication of what was going wrong. I left Lorient and was sailing towards a well-known convoy lane when suddenly the machine slowed considerably. This normally occurs when I get near a convoy so I just held the enter key to return to TC1. After about 5 seconds, CTD. I had not saved at all since leaving base.

I believe it has something to do with the IXC as I've never had any CTDs while sailing in an IXB.

[sublynx]

Maybe you could try switching back to IXb and see what happens. You can edit the IXb's performance values to a IXc's, if you want the added range.

[GoldenRivet]

I've blithely saved anywhere I felt like. I've saved underwater, near convoys, and routinely broken all the supposed rules of saving.

http://www.reallyghey.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/demotivational-posters-i-found-your-problem.jpg