Bugged Patrol Assignment? (Philippine Sea Crash)

[Nikdunaev]

Hi All!

I have recently encountered a very strange technical problem that I do not recall seeing before.

I seem to be stuck on the third patrol since the beginning of my current career.
It is March 42, and I get an assignment to patrol off the east coast of Japan, in the Philippine Sea. The orders literally say "Patrol off Honshu Island".
So, I head out in that direction, and everything seems perfectly fine, may go bite a random convoy along the way, but then, *suddenly*, as soon as I get past the Mariana Islands, and into the sea, it starts lagging and stuttering *like crazy*, at any decent rate of time compression and just crashes.

Like, in the open ocean, it runs liquid smooth at x8000. I can make the trip from Pearl in a couple of hours of real time no problem. But about the time I cross the islands, it becomes laggy at as little as x64 or x128. Barely responding and unplayable at x512. A bit like when you suddenly bump into a bunch sound contacts and it stutters for a second or two before resetting the time compression. Except this effect is continuous and no contacts show up.

Then it just crashes without warning.

It could crash when switching to a different crew station or view, or giving an order, or just completely randomly.
Could crash anywhere between immediately after entering the area, and several days in while roaming around. With or without contacts in sensor range.

But it always does crash within the laggy area.

It is very weird, because during my previous two patrol sorties, I was hanging out in the area extensively, with the only trouble coming from the Japanese escorts.

Initially I thought it was a save game problem, so I decided to load from the home base, and repeat the whole patrol from scratch. The result was exactly the same. And I seem to be stuck on this assignment. Like, even if I load in the office, back at Pearl, at the end of my previous patrol, I still get the same exact orders every time.

I run the latest steam version from the Silent Hunter Collection. (1.5 + UBM)
NO MODS, completely stock game.

What is happening there?
Any ideas?

Update 1

Right, so I tried to load one of my earlier saves, albeit from a different career, with a different boat. This patrol was from December 41 through January 42. I left Pearl Harbor and headed straight for the area of interest to hang out in there for some time.

Guess what, it worked like a charm. Worked the very same way it worked for the first two patrols of my current boat and crew.

Update 2

Then I wanted to somehow test it with my current career.

So I loaded the supposedly bugged patrol, at base, once again received the same orders, but, in order to avoid doing this assignment, I decided to deliberately run the boat aground shortly after leaving and just damage it to have an "excuse" to return to base.

Surprisingly, despite my "poor" seamanship, the headquarters praised my decision, and I even got decorated, I suppose, for bringing everyone home alive. But more importantly, I was offered a new command, a brand new and shiny Gato class boat, and new mission orders.

Once again, I took this boat straight to the Philippine sea, and from there even further, to my assigned area in the Korean Straight.

Once again, it seemed to work perfectly fine. No trouble enroute, or when loitering in either area.

What is this? Could it be, that the *at base* save is, itself, corrupted?

****, I definitely do not want to have to whack my boat and hurt my crew, just to get out of these impassable groundhog days, even if, somehow, I get rewarded for it

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Nikdunaev

Hi All!

What is this? Could it be, that the *at base* save is, itself, corrupted?

****, I definitely do not want to have to whack my boat and hurt my crew, just to get out of these impassable groundhog days, even if, somehow, I get rewarded for it

a couple of things, Nik.
1. welcome to SH4
2. what version of SH4 are you running? best thing to do when posting a problem is to include your config by using the JSGME Tasks-Export Mod List -To Clipboard and then pasting that into your post.
3. without knowing your installation location or your mod set, it SEEMS as if your problem is memory usage. you need to install and use Large Address Aware (aka LAA). https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/dow...o=file&id=3634

we will leave the rest until you respond with #2 and #3.

Good Luck!

[Nikdunaev]

Originally Posted by Nikdunaev

I run the latest steam version from the Silent Hunter Collection. (1.5 + UBM)
NO MODS, completely stock game.

Thank you!

I have no mods and no JSGME. Actually, never had them on this particular installation.

My actual install location is in a dedicated Steam Apps folder, *not* in Program Files, if that is what you are asking.

Thanks again for linking the patch. I remember reading something about it, need to check my memory usage.

Though I think it is very weird that it only happens on this very specific patrol. Is that actually possible, that something happens here, in terms of usage of memory, that does not happen elsewhere?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Nikdunaev

Though I think it is very weird that it only happens on this very specific patrol. Is that actually possible, that something happens here, in terms of usage of memory, that does not happen elsewhere?

yeah...
stop me if i start sounding like PB.
where you patrol controls which convoys/TF/single ships are created and spawn. each of those formations is a single entity, sailing along from start to finish, until it closes within a certain range from you. that range can vary, just like your detection capabilities. so, if Patrol1 took you to the Carolines and there was not much happening, you might not notice.

now if P2 is in the Home Islands, where there is a lot happening, you would experience many formations which are spawning into multiple ships. this is where you can use SH4 with LAA enabled.

add to the above explanation the fact that your Win10 memory may have become fragmented and when SH4 made a call for a certain block of contiguous memory Win10 replied with multiple blocks rather than one block and SH4 went kaput.

so, yes, the memory use CAN be noticed on one patrol and not on another.
keep in mind that you may be have 32gig of RAM on your PC but SH4 is only going to access 2G (4G with LAA). so, you may still experience CTD because Win10 memory has become fragmented.

so, here's your plan: implement LAA, reboot, rerun your mission. the problem should be resolved.
if not, post back again.
if it IS resolved, remember to reboot the next time it happens. (i hate saying that but it is the fastest-best fix)

[Nikdunaev]

Cool, I am going to try the memory patch tonight, and see what happens.

Yeah, the sudden stuttering thing did feel like I was being overwhelmed with an unholy number of contacts in the vicinity. Even though few contacts actually showed up.

Still kinda find it puzzling how a stock, unmodified game needs such adjustments to, well, work as intended. Does it mean back in the days when it was first released there was no fix for this?
Like, for people running x32 system?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Nikdunaev

Cool, I am going to try the memory patch tonight, and see what happens.

Yeah, the sudden stuttering thing did feel like I was being overwhelmed with an unholy number of contacts in the vicinity. Even though few contacts actually showed up.

Still kinda find it puzzling how a stock, unmodified game needs such adjustments to, well, work as intended. Does it mean back in the days when it was first released there was no fix for this?
Like, for people running x32 system?

probably.
i could never get SH4 (or 3 for that matter) to run on my Win-XP box.
i had to buy a new Dell with dual cores and 32g ram and then use LAA.

Res ipsa loquitur, tabula in naufragio

[Nikdunaev]

Sorry about the delayed reply, did not have a chance to test it properly yesterday.

So, this is getting interesting.
Now I am not sure whether the fix is working or not as it could be just a coincidence.
For the sake of experiment, I decided to run it just once more *before* applying the fix, and it actually worked. Just magically worked all by itself. No lags and no crashes.

I guess I am going to keep the fix in, just to be on the safe side here...
But overall, it seems to be very random.

[propbeanie]

These "bugged" assignments can also happen if you changed the games configuration, such as you had a fully stock game, and applied a mod, but didn't delete the Save folder, you would probably run the risk of troubles with the game running correctly. Likewise if you remove a mod, and then try to use the Save from the modded game. The game runs of off the Save folder, and if it can't find the appropriate info, it will do strange things. It can get very frustrating, especially if you haven't played the game in a while, where there is an old Save folder from years back. Lord knows what's to be found in the dregs there... If you don't have much of a career going yet, you might be best off to delete the Save folder, and try again. It is generally "C:\Users \UserName \Documents \SH4" and all of the folders and file below that. You do lose all progress made thus far, as well as re-setting the display and other options in the game, but sometimes you do what you gotta do...

All that said, besides the modders making mistakes (who? me?... ), the devs also made mistakes in the game. There is one ship with no sonar indication, some will not allow a player to track them, though the sonarman can follow them. There are also some bad spawns that can happen in the stock game. It is by no means "perfect", but I wouldn't expect it to be. It actually does rather well for its age...

[Nikdunaev]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

These "bugged" assignments can also happen if you changed the games configuration, such as you had a fully stock game, and applied a mod, but didn't delete the Save folder, you would probably run the risk of troubles with the game running correctly. Likewise if you remove a mod, and then try to use the Save from the modded game. The game runs of off the Save folder, and if it can't find the appropriate info, it will do strange things. It can get very frustrating, especially if you haven't played the game in a while, where there is an old Save folder from years back. Lord knows what's to be found in the dregs there... If you don't have much of a career going yet, you might be best off to delete the Save folder, and try again. It is generally "C:\Users \UserName \Documents \SH4" and all of the folders and file below that. You do lose all progress made thus far, as well as re-setting the display and other options in the game, but sometimes you do what you gotta do...

All that said, besides the modders making mistakes (who? me?... ), the devs also made mistakes in the game. There is one ship with no sonar indication, some will not allow a player to track them, though the sonarman can follow them. There are also some bad spawns that can happen in the stock game. It is by no means "perfect", but I wouldn't expect it to be. It actually does rather well for its age...

Oh...

So, you are saying that certain bugged or corrupted save files can still cause trouble merely by existing, even when they are not being used at the time, is that right?

This is interesting, cause I did delete a few saves, that seemed to be abnormally crashy. In fact all the saves from that patrol, except the start at the home base.
Yet there are *no traces* of *any* mods anywhere. This install was *never* modded.

Could that be the reason it worked?
I mean, it worked at least once on the stock game.

[Nikdunaev]

Also, out of curiosity, what about the commonly quoted thing about installing or removing mods at home base? Is that not enough to achieve stability?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Nikdunaev

Also, out of curiosity, what about the commonly quoted thing about installing or removing mods at home base? Is that not enough to achieve stability?

usually, yes.

however, from time to time, SH4 will attempt to do something and fail.

for example, i've been playing RFB without incident. 6 missions...no problems.
started a mission, played a while, saved before going to bed. woke up, reloaded the last save, no go. tried twice more. nope. reloaded the game at base and then reloaded the game i wanted, but no go. rebooted and then restarted the game and reloaded the last save, no go. i had to go back to the base-save to get it to go. why? NFI.

doing things like enabling LAA and not making config changes while on a mission eliminate the lion's share of CTD issues but not all.

it is kind of like driving your vehicle on the road. you keep your vehicle in good repair, with plenty of fuel. you wear seat belts and drive defensively and that will eliminate 99% of the risk of a collision. can you still be involved in a collision? you bet.

[propbeanie]

Exactly, KaleunMarco... and "yes", the existence of a "bugged" Save can seemingly (though not always) influence the other Saves.

For whatever reason, the devs seemingly did not put any error checking into the Save routines. other than maybe MS dll stuff from the WinXP days. They do have one file in each of the Save folders that is a "counter" (file size), if you will, and that appears to be the only "check". The last Save will usually be written to two folders, but that appears to be it, as far as "integrity" goes, and whatever the game does while it writes the files. It seems that one little "hiccup" in the process will bonk the whole Save, yet not tell you about it. You find out when you go to re-load, what you thought was a Saved game. "Bad" data can include anything from a mod gone wrong, to an error in a ship config (which there are a few in the Stock game), to any one of a number of scenarios. This is NOT to say that most Saves are bad. Most are good, and definitely at a higher success rate than SH3 - but there is no consistency here.

A really odd thing can happen though, if you have a bad Save, and that is that if you go back to a previous Save and it loads, then go back to the Load menu and try the "bad" Save again, it will sometimes load fine. Absolutely no idea why that works. Someone just a couple of weeks ago mentioned loading the "Leaving Port", then stepped through all of the "bad" Saves (four of them??), and had success loading a Save that wouldn't load previously. Very strange.

As far as the Save process itself goes, you are better off saving while surfaced (not 100% necessary, and sometimes not possible). If you are submerged and have to Save, do so above the 500 foot depth. Below that, and your boat does not always come back up. Nothing like loading a Saved game, only to find that your sub is sinking, and won't stop going down... Try to Save when it is relatively quite. Let audio files finish playing, don't be on the sonar screen, etc. The simpler the screen displaying, the better. I will try to Save while on the NavMap with as little activity as possible showing, or on the Attack Map, Periscope screen, etc. Something that is not 3D. Again, this is not 100% necessary, and does not guarantee any semblence of success as far as I know. Not Saving too close to Land might help also (what, after all, is "too close"??). Don't have any ordnance enroute, and it is usually best to not have any repairs to boat damage outstanding, except that which cannot be repaired. Several aspects of the game run on "timers", and as such will re-set with a Save ("weather" is another). As an example, say the repair screen says it will take four hours to repair a leak in a compartment, and you Save at 3 hour and 52 minutes, with 8 minutes left in the process. When you reload that Save, you will have four hours and zero minutes to wait for the repair to be completed, not the 8 minutes that you expected. If you gotta leave the house though, say to pick-up the wife after work, you do whatcha gotta do and expect to have the fours repair left to go on the re-load...

Probably the biggest thing, is do not overwrite a previous Save. ie: You leave port and Save the game with "3rdPatrol Tambor", or whatever. You encounter a Convoy, and Save the game prior to the attack, but use that same name "3rdPatrol Tambor", that would be an overwrite. Instead, use something like "3rdPatrolTambor01", "3rdPatrolTambor02", etc. That's another thing some of us do - no spaces in the names, though again, not 100% necessary, if at all... lol - I will also usually pause for about 10-30 seconds after Saving, and try to make certain the file is finished being written. Another thing is to NOT save the replay, unless you are Saving a SingleMission or WarPatrol for use as a "video". Saving the replay will result in a ~huge~ Save file, increasing the chance of an error, which will compound over time, sort of like mortgage interest ...

A lot of these points are leftovers from the SH3 days, and some folks ~never~ have a bit of trouble with Saves. Go figure...

[Nikdunaev]

Thanks a lot for your help, everyone!

[Nikdunaev]

By the way, I would assume, that the game clears the memory it was using, when it stops working, is that actually correct?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Nikdunaev

By the way, I would assume, that the game clears the memory it was using, when it stops working, is that actually correct?

more or less, yes.
Win10 caches files but you cannot affect that.
let's put it this way, if you run JSGME between patrols so that one or more mods have been changed, your new mods will run when you launch SH4.

do you understand or did i go too deeply?