Print

Add to Reputation:  

What do you think of this post?

I agree I disagree  
Comment:

[liamcadhain]

Hey guys,
I'm relatively new to the forums but I've been playing GES since Beta 4. Since 4.1 came out I've noticed that the game keeps crashing to Windows for no apparent reason and on various different servers. The odd part is no error message shows up at all, almost as if the game quits itself (if that makes any sense at all). Whats even more strange is that recently I've been playing GES on my desktop and the crashes are becoming more frequent now than when I was playing on my laptop.

I'm absolutley stumped. I've updated all my drivers (graphics, sound, etc..) and its still crashing. Its funny but all the time I played Beta 4 the game never crashed once, no errors whatsoever.

I don't know if other people are experiencing the same problem or not, or if this is a known bug, but I'd still appreciate some help with it.

Cheers,
Liam.

[killermonkey]

Please check for .mdmp files. Zip them up and upload them to a storage site somewhere and post link here. If no mdmp files exist there is not much we can do for you, unfortunately. This is the first report of constant random crashes on the client that I have heard of.

mdmps => c:/[path_to_steam]/steamapps/[steam_name]/Source SDK Base 2007/

Basic Troubleshooting:

1. Have you updated windows version since playing Beta 4 -> v4.1?
2. Any hardware changes?
3. Does it crash on both laptop and desktop?
4. Do you have firewall, antivirus, or any other ridiculous program running in the background?
5. Have you tried reinstalling Source SDK Base 2007?

[liamcadhain]

Thanks for the response,
Here are the MDMP files:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/e10epb9i0zq34cb/MDMP%20Zip%20Files.zip

As for the troubleshooting:

1) I haven't updated Windows or have made any other changes since playing 4.1 (I'm running Windows 7 Professional 32 bit on the desktop and Windows 7 Professional 64 bit on the laptop)

2) Nope, no hardware changes

3) It crashes on both, however it seems to crash more frequently on the desktop. In fact it happens every single time I play GES for any longer than about half an hour sometimes even less

4) I have Anvira Antivirus switched on in the background and I have Firewall set to accept any incoming connections from GES and Steam. However these settings never bothered me in Beta 4 before so I'm not sure why they should now. I don't have any other programs running in the background though

5) I haven't actually, I'll try re installing it and see how it goes

I really appreciate your help killermonkey.

Cheers,
Liam.

[killermonkey]

All those crashes are from August 2010 and earlier (hence are not v4.1 crashes). Although, some of them point to a problem with kernell.dll which indicates memory issues or generally bad binaries.

I suggest doing a complete wipe of your Source SDK 2007 binaries, including the gcf's.

In particular (in [path_to_steam]/steamapps/):
 - source sdk base.gcf
 - source sdk base 2007.gcf
 - source engine.gcf

and delete the Source SDK Base 2007 directory in totality.

Restart steam and start a game, this will force you to redownload the files again.

[liamcadhain]

Hey again,
Many thanks for your suggestions killermonkey. I've deleted those source files you mentioned and I've re installed Souce SDK Base 2007. However the game crashed yet again for no reason after less than an hour. This is getting quite furstrating, it seems I'm unable to play GES properly anymore which is awful considering I love the mod and the effort you guys put into it

[Storm101]

Does it seem to crash on any particular map(s)? My game crashes on Facility and Casino every once in a while.

[liamcadhain]

Does it seem to crash on any particular map(s)? My game crashes on Facility and Casino every once in a while.

Nope, I've seen it crash on stack, casino, silo, facility, runway, cradle and temple. I'm fairly sure its got nothing to do with the maps 

[Entropy-Soldier]

drop your graphics and sound settings to lowest and see if it still crashes, it could be a shader or something that's acting up.

[liamcadhain]

drop your graphics and sound settings to lowest and see if it still crashes, it could be a shader or something that's acting up.

Thanks for your suggestion E-S. I've tried that and it actually seems to be working. I was able to play GES for more than an hour which is quite a record for me. Everything seems to be alright now for the moment anyway, if there's anything else I'll just post again. Thanks for your help E-S and killermonkey

[liamcadhain]

Hang on. It crashed again 

[Entropy-Soldier]

you made sure to set sound settings to lowest as well?


anyway, other than that, all i can recommend is reinstalling the mod and making sure all your video drivers are intact and working.  Another thing to try would be disabling almost everything in the advanced multiplayer options menu (such as explosion effects) and see if that has any influence on your game's stability.

[liamcadhain]

I installed some ATI Catalyst tools for my graphics card like killermonkey said and restarted the game. However it crashed again. I've noticed that it seems to be crashing when I mouse wheel down (as in for cycling weapons). So I tested it out myself and I caused it to crash repeatedly by mouse wheeling down. I went to the controls section and lo and behold the weapon cycle down key was actually unassigned. I only had mouse wheel up assigned to weapon cycle up 

Anyway, I reassigned both keys and everything seems to be ok again. I even used the mouse wheel down key several times whilst running (which always seemed to cause the crash).

Sorry about this, the problem seemed so confusing at first and turns out it was all over an unassigned key. Thanks anyway for your help killermonkey and E-S. Looks like I'm good to go again

[killermonkey]

Wow that's really weird. The game shouldn't crash because of an unassigned key!