GAAAAH this is really frustrating - CTD again!

[frau kaleun]

I went through several very short careers (2-3 patrols max) while I was trying out different mod combinations - very short because after a couple patrols I would start the next patrol of the current career and never get out of the Nordsee because somewhere during the passage through it while running at anywhere between 128-1024 TC the game would freeze and I'd get the "encountered an error" message and I'd be back at my desktop.

I attributed the problem to all the switching around I was doing with "big" mods in between patrols, since those TCs did not normally cause problems for me, and since I'd finally settled on a combo I liked before starting another new career I thought I'd be good to go. BUT NO!

After two patrols where everything worked fine and I was able to run up to 1024 TC without any CTDs, I started a third patrol. Once again I'm unable to get more than a couple days into it (in game time) without things freezing up and shutting down. This happens at TC as low as 128 which is my normal cruising around TC and at which I never encountered any difficulties in the first two patrols.

Here are the mods I'm using:

GWX 3 St Naz and Schluese and other units V4
WB's GWX campaign with VonDos' ships v2.7
TMT v2 + ThomsensShips V4.2
WB - TMT fix
WB - add Q ship
WBNN Mission Orders Lite
GWX - Alternate Loadscreen - Full Circle
GWX - Captain America's Officer Icons
GWX - Enhanced Damage Effects
GWX3.0 Contact Color
GWX3.0 All_Weather_Guns
DD_OH_V3.09_with_GWX_Integrated_Orders
DD_OH_V3.09_ConningDeckCam_Fix_20091210230737
Grey Brown Cloth Map
Scirè-Tikigod- repeated order
Waterstream+Exhaust Combi V2.3 for GWX3
Waterstream+Exhaust Combi - Single Exhaust for TypeII
Rapt0r's Unis V2.0 Grey [All Leather No Medals] Modified
FK's Valkyrie Cap Emblem
b25_SF_Grass_Full_V2
electric torpedo trail fix
Flags_enlighten
No continuous 'Ship spotted' V1.2 for GWX3
OLC's Modified Searchlight Beams for GWX3
Pascal_Port_People
sobers real smoke darker and a brown tint1.1
LifeBoats&Debris_v4 [Modified]
FK's Sound Mod
SH-5 Water for GWX 3.0 V0.9 Atlantic campaign (default) [ATI FSF]
Sobers 3D waves
Foam
Turm 7B Your Way
Black Boat - VII - NZ

The only thing that changed while I was in base before this patrol was with the last one, I disabled the boat skin I was using for the first two patrols and enabled the Black Boat skin. And I changed the time in base in Commander from 21 days to random and gave my WO a flak gun qualification. Also I had dished out the 4 promotions that the game told me were available for my crew, altho I did that in-game before I exited after ending the last patrol. That's it.

Am I just having incredible bad luck, or what? Does anybody see any issues with the mods I'm using that would allow me to complete a couple patrols with no problems, and then suddenly cause a crash in the next one?

Would a corrupted save still load and allow you to start playing, or do those only crash during the load process? And how bizarre would it be if I had a corrupted save issue with the game's autosaved "in base before mission" savegame at the start of a third patrol of several successive careers?

Is there some factor in the game that changes over time that would make TCs of 128 and above cause CTDs in, say, October 1939 when it wasn't an issue in August and September? At first I thought it was because I was running up the coast of Norway, not anywhere near enough to be in sight of it but staying within the deeper water there... thought maybe there was increased traffic in that area as the war progressed and maybe I should keep the TC lower there. But I seem to have no problem getting away from Wilhelmshaven at 128 TC and we're encountering plenty of other ships and aircraft there.

I even tried running northwest farther away from the Norwegian coast but even then I still got a CTD at just 128 TC.

Anyway - any ideas from the experts here, please let 'em fly... I need to get this figured out because I'm tired of starting careers only to get hit with CTD over and over again three patrols in.

[HW3]

Sorry you are having problems frau kaleun. I can tell you that corrupted saves will not fully load, they usually crash at the black screen just before the loading process is finished.

[sharkbit]

It's been my experience that when there is a mod conflict, the game crashes during loading. My experience is pretty limited in that respect though.
If you think it is a mod issue, and you're going to hate me saying this, you probably should disable all mods, check the game unmodded. If it doesn't CTD, start adding mods a little at a time and see if it CTD's.

The way I did it when I was having a mod issue last month, I disabled all mods, checked the game, and then added all of my "core" mods-the ones that I have to have-gui, environment, and a couple of others. The rest I considered fluffy eye candy.
It was frustrating, so I feel your pain, but I found what was causing the issue. I ended up having to add mods one at a time until I found the conflict.

Another thing you might consider is a hardware issue.
I had constant CTD's after an hour or so of playing. I could almost set my watch by them. It ended up being a heat issue. I had no case fan, my power supply fan was inop, and the inside of my computer was pretty dusty.
I replaced my power supply, installed a case fan, and blew the dust out and I never had another CTD on that computer. While I was waiting for the parts, just blowing the inside clean and running with the side panel off made a huge difference. It's amazing what heat can do to electronics.

Good luck.

[danlisa]

Back to basics for you!

Disable everything that is not included in GWX 3.0 > Load and Test.

Then start enabling mods one by one.

TBH, usually when you get CTD's at TC it's either a collision (you and/or mine/ship) or a scripted unit with an issue. Try to log game times and locations when the CTD occurs, gradually narrowing it down so that you can be at 1 x TC when & if it should happen. Doing this allows you to check the campaign files and roster to see if a specific vessel or script is to blame.

Also, what's the file name in the error report? ntdll.dll or other?

[sharkbit]

frau,
Check out Wreford Brown's response in this thread if you haven't already seen it-
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=168411

[frau kaleun]

Thanks for the input, guys.

I was pretty sure the corrupted save issue usually crashed things during loading and not once you were already in there playing, and I'm pretty sure that's not the issue here anyway since this problem seems to occur at roughly the same point in every career - 3rd patrol, running NW through the Nordsee, mid to late October 1939.

W/r/t all the mods, I already went through the process of enabling them one at a time in various combinations before I started this career with the combination I liked most that worked. Plus there's the fact that the exact same combinations will work absolutely fine for many sessions of play over the first two patrols of several successive careers. Then I hit roughly the same point in time/location during gameplay and can't get past it.

I honestly don't think it's a hardware/overheating issue either, especially considering that I sometimes have the game up and running for 7-8 hours with no issues but the Patrol 3 CTD will happen even if the computer's only been on long enough to boot everything up and load the game, lol.

One thing I thought of this morning is that I do use the Static settings.cfg in Commander to apply some date-specific edits to the basic.cfg file, and maybe there's something there that's causing a problem with the date range that I just happen to be hitting each time I get to patrol #3. I will take a look at that when I can and maybe try putting back the original file and reload and see if the problem's still there. Altho IIRC I had this problem before I edited the file, so who knows?

Probably will not get a chance to try anything for the next couple of days but when I do I will definitely try to make a note of where/when I am in the game when this occurs since that seems to be one of the elements that is roughly the same in most instances of this issue. With that in mind anything related to this time/location seems to be the logical place to start.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Have you tried starting a career at a later point in the war? And this gonna seem a bit out there, but what about trying a career with the 'Blank Campaign' mod activated, and seeing if it still crashes at that same point?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Weiss Pinguin

Have you tried starting a career at a later point in the war? And this gonna seem a bit out there, but what about trying a career with the 'Blank Campaign' mod activated, and seeing if it still crashes at that same point?

I haven't tried anything w/r/t this issue yet cuz I just ran into it again last night. But yeah starting a career - or at least a patrol - at a much later date is certainly worth a try. I wonder what the max # of days between patrols is, that you can set in Commander? Because I could load the 3rd patrol again and just return to base without trying to make the journey up thru the Nordsee, and then set it up to start a 4th patrol however long after that and see if I have the same issue.

Running with a blank campaign file sounds like a good idea, um, I guess if I have no problems when doing that then maybe it would narrow down the problem to some scripted event?

[Weiss Pinguin]

Yep, that's what I was thinking with the blank campaign file, if it's happening within a certain timeframe every time then maybe it's a scripted event. Do you know what the date was for every time it's crashed?

Also, I think the highest I've gone in SH3C is 60 days, plus or minus. I think I went higher than that, though, then went back down to 60.

(EDIT: NEVERMIND... I figured it out)

[frau kaleun]

I don't know specific dates but it always seems to be mid to late October, because I've been starting careers on 1 Aug and it's always the latter part of October by the time I'm heading out on the 3rd patrol.

I have some ideas for trying to see if it's a specific date or date range right around in there, if that's even the issue. I'll just have to keep trying to eliminate different possibilities one by one until I can narrow things down.

[frau kaleun]

Okay, I reloaded my 3rd patrol with everything exactly the same as when it crashed before, except I started it without using Commander. I got to here:



and the game froze up. Start of patrol was Oct 29 1939 03:52 and when I saw the game freeze I grabbed the screenie and recorded the time and date, Oct 30 1939 20:43. Why it says 00:31 in the time window I don't know, but I was running in 256 TC when I saw it freeze so perhaps it kept advancing in between the moment I saw the clock freeze and the moment I hit the PrintScreen key. However I never saw the time change at all either before or after the error message finally popped up.

I reloaded the patrol, this time with Commander, and started out on Oct 30 1939 18:44. The game froze when I was passing through the exact same area - SE corner of grid AN34. The time and date when I saw it freeze was Oct 31 1939 09:16.

Then I enabled the blank campaign file on top of all the mods I already had running and reloaded the patrol via Commander. There was a very slight lag in the game when I passed through that area of the map, but no CTD.

I've disabled all my mods and am now in the process of adding them back in one by one to see at what point the lag becomes a full blown freeze-up. Once I get to that point I think I'll try starting a patrol earlier and then later to see if the time and date are also a factor. Then I'll try plotting a different course to see if I get a freeze at around the same time/date in other areas of the map.

[Jimbuna]

Pay special attention to what Danlisa posted:

a scripted unit with an issue. Try to log game times and locations when the CTD occurs, gradually narrowing it down so that you can be at 1 x TC when & if it should happen. Doing this allows you to check the campaign files and roster to see if a specific vessel or script is to blame.

I'm betting you'll find this is the problem....a real PITA to investigate.

I suggest you take a short cut and replace both the files below with the newest versions:

GWX 3 St Naz and Schluese and other units V4
WB's GWX campaign with VonDos' ships v2.7

because the newer versions have recently undergone extensive testing and are much more likely to be CTD free.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

I suggest you take a short cut and replace both the files below with the newest versions:

(...)

because the newer versions have recently undergone extensive testing and are much more likely to be CTD free.

I'm sorry to hijack your thread real quick, Frau, but is the St. Naz + Schluese mod in the download section is up-to-date? (Also, where do I find VonDos' ship mod? )

[Wreford-Brown]

Wilhelmshaven thread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=164252

d/l: http://www.filefront.com/15819511/GW...a-ships-V6.7z/

VonDos' ships mod thread (it's now called WB's extra ships for Wilhelmshaven campaign v2.4):
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=137713

d/l: http://www.filefront.com/16312337/WB...aign-v2.4.rar/

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Wreford-Brown

Wilhelmshaven thread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=164252

d/l: http://www.filefront.com/15819511/GW...a-ships-V6.7z/

VonDos' ships mod thread (it's now called WB's extra ships for Wilhelmshaven campaign v2.4):
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=137713

d/l: http://www.filefront.com/16312337/WB...aign-v2.4.rar/

That bloody '7' keeps cropping up