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Macintosh Client is crashing

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  • groselicaingroselicain Member Posts: 30 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I don't worry about my other applications crashing... I don't run anything else that was only developed halfway.

    Ooof... shots fired.
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    Hello, desktop, my old friend..
    Seems I've found you, once again...
    I just want to launch the new missions...
    And advance in reputations...
    But, this game won't stay open long enough... yeah, it's rough...
    Responding with the sound... of silence...
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  • stormf0stormf0 Member Posts: 39 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Anyone heard any update on progress towards the Mac crash fix?

    Composer7777
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    stormf0 wrote: »
    Anyone heard any update on progress towards the Mac crash fix?

    Composer7777

    No. :( Tweeted STO's account, Smirk, and Trendy... no reply, and I think Smirk is on vacation or something? Judging by a comment on Twitter?
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  • josef615josef615 Member Posts: 24 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    There's always a chance that the scheduled maintenance will contain a surprise fix (though honestly, I prefer to be like Garak and expect the worst)
  • groselicaingroselicain Member Posts: 30 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I just posted this in the other long thread, and thought it might be of use here.
    As they say, Your Mileage May Vary.

    Downloaded and installed Wineskin today. Yes, on my primitive connection the nearly four gig patch took some time to download, but sure enough I was soon playing with stability.

    Well, for about 45 minutes, that is. I've crashed four times since but to be honest, four crashes in four hours is a heck of a lot better than it was. That said, I'm running at higher graphics settings than I ever did in the official Cider wrapper because it just seems to run more smoothly. So in a sense my experiment's findings aren't completely valid as I'm not using a true control scenario, but I think it still says something when running in an unofficial wrapper like Wineskin cures many of my issues this quickly.

    Here's hoping Cryptic will get on this issue with some speed and have an official fix soon.
  • therealdoh123therealdoh123 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I just posted this in the other long thread, and thought it might be of use here.
    As they say, Your Mileage May Vary.

    Downloaded and installed Wineskin today. Yes, on my primitive connection the nearly four gig patch took some time to download, but sure enough I was soon playing with stability.

    Well, for about 45 minutes, that is. I've crashed four times since but to be honest, four crashes in four hours is a heck of a lot better than it was. That said, I'm running at higher graphics settings than I ever did in the official Cider wrapper because it just seems to run more smoothly. So in a sense my experiment's findings aren't completely valid as I'm not using a true control scenario, but I think it still says something when running in an unofficial wrapper like Wineskin cures many of my issues this quickly.

    Here's hoping Cryptic will get on this issue with some speed and have an official fix soon.
    There is a memory leak I believe is graphics related. The longer you play, the more likely it is you'll finally get performance issues, or crashes. The higher your graphics settings, the sooner this happens. I think this is a general Wine issue, as it happens for me in several games, not just STO.

    I play with rather medium to low settings, and I can usually go 2 to 4 hours before I restart because it starts getting choppy. If I let it go too long it will crash. This is better than the current official Mac version though, that crashes fro me about ever 1 to 5 minutes no matter what.
  • grossernagus002grossernagus002 Member Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Sorry to stress this, but as mentioned by other users this isn't a Mac-only problem. It rather seems to be related to DirectX.

    I'm using an old WindowsXP system, running the latest DX9 version, with a lowend ATI/AMD 6450 card. The crash behaviour described in post #158 is correct.

    For me the game was:
    - 'guaranteed' to crash after about 5 hours of gametime pre DR-update (=in Season 9.5) without any warning (had no performance issues).
    - after DR-update the time before crashing was reduced AND new 'hard' crashes occured (C++ error windows after crash and WindowsXP propably unstable, which is an achievement on it's own). The 'hard' crashes seem to be fixed by last weeks maintenance (my guess the so-called UI crash-fixes in release notes).
    - the remaining crash issues seems to be the same for both Mac and (old) Windows users, although my crash experience varies between 'crashes after 5 minutes' to 'was able to play for an hour', but I noticed I have a very good chance to crash when playing pve matches, e.g. I had no match of the new 'Borg Disconnected' queue where I did NOT crash. This hints at code problems within the new graphics content.

    Bottom line / my conclusion is:

    Cryptic developers are using the newest dev-environment (Win7 or 8.1 along with latest DirectX 11 SDK) and make some mistakes in setting or assuring backwards compatibility when compiling their binaries. E.g. they may be using DX11 functions which are not correctly handled under DX9 environments. The debug note everyone can see in the bottom of the character selection screen can be regarded as a good indictor the above description is true (shader compile problem).
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    Sorry to stress this, but as mentioned by other users this isn't a Mac-only problem. It rather seems to be related to DirectX.

    I'm using an old WindowsXP system, running the latest DX9 version, with a lowend ATI/AMD 6450 card. The crash behaviour described in post #158 is correct.

    For me the game was:
    - 'guaranteed' to crash after about 5 hours of gametime pre DR-update (=in Season 9.5) without any warning (had no performance issues).
    - after DR-update the time before crashing was reduced AND new 'hard' crashes occured (C++ error windows after crash and WindowsXP propably unstable, which is an achievement on it's own). The 'hard' crashes seem to be fixed by last weeks maintenance (my guess the so-called UI crash-fixes in release notes).
    - the remaining crash issues seems to be the same for both Mac and (old) Windows users, although my crash experience varies between 'crashes after 5 minutes' to 'was able to play for an hour', but I noticed I have a very good chance to crash when playing pve matches, e.g. I had no match of the new 'Borg Disconnected' queue where I did NOT crash. This hints at code problems within the new graphics content.

    Bottom line / my conclusion is:

    Cryptic developers are using the newest dev-environment (Win7 or 8.1 along with latest DirectX 11 SDK) and make some mistakes in setting or assuring backwards compatibility when compiling their binaries. E.g. they may be using DX11 functions which are not correctly handled under DX9 environments. The debug note everyone can see in the bottom of the character selection screen can be regarded as a good indictor the above description is true (shader compile problem).

    This is all well and good. I know that I, for one, am perfectly willing to wait to get this fixed. Programming is not easy, and bug-squashing is not fun... and if this is more than just a Mac problem, then all the better (in the sense that the problem is very likely being worked on).

    The problem with this is that it's just speculation... it may be educated speculation, but it's just speculation... user speculation, at that.

    The angst of the Mac user base rests in the fact that we have had ZERO feedback from developers on this issue. We've had some response from CaptainSmirk on this issue, but he is not a developer. He's the community moderator. NO developer from Cryptic, whether it be from the QA team or the Mac team itself, has even acknowledged our frustration... let alone offered a time-table for possible fix. Is it related to similar problems on Windows? Fine, tell us that.

    This isn't an entitlement demand, it's simple fact. A simple acknowledgement that Cryptic is aware of the problem and is working on a fix (like they do for SO MANY other smaller issues in this sub-forum) would go a long way in relieving some pressure on us Mac users (and would, very likely, end us spamming this thread for a while).

    I'm willing to work with the dev team, give them time & patience, and be polite & civil about it... just throw us Mac users the smallest of bones, please. We often feel like we are forgotten in the gaming community... issues like this, and the responses by some (not you, grossernagus002) on this forum, aren't doing anything to change that.
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  • shoujokakumeishoujokakumei Member Posts: 37 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    mhall85 wrote: »
    The angst of the Mac user base rests in the fact that we have had ZERO feedback from developers on this issue. We've had some response from CaptainSmirk on this issue, but he is not a developer. He's the community moderator. NO developer from Cryptic, whether it be from the QA team or the Mac team itself, has even acknowledged our frustration... let alone offered a time-table for possible fix. Is it related to similar problems on Windows? Fine, tell us that.

    This isn't an entitlement demand, it's simple fact. A simple acknowledgement that Cryptic is aware of the problem and is working on a fix (like they do for SO MANY other smaller issues in this sub-forum) would go a long way in relieving some pressure on us Mac users (and would, very likely, end us spamming this thread for a while).

    Exactly this. The fact that they've said nothing, responded to nothing, made no comment whatsoever except an off-hand tweet reply by someone who doesn't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things is the reason people are angry. And frankly, it's the reason we will continue to get angrier until we're acknowledged. Stuff like text not matching voiceovers makes 'known issues' lists and they can't mention this? That's infuriating.

    I personally am not willing to be all that patient when they're telling us absolutely nothing. I bought a LTS with the expectation that the game client would continue to have a bare minimum of support. I'm sorry, but I do feel as though having spent that amount of money gives me a certain amount of entitlement to the product I paid for, or at least a response from the people who were willing to take said money.

    I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I don't really care if I do. I couldn't care less if this is a Mac only problem or not. It needs to be acknowledged, addressed, and fixed - in that order, with acknowledgement coming sooner rather than later.
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    Exactly this. The fact that they've said nothing, responded to nothing, made no comment whatsoever except an off-hand tweet reply by someone who doesn't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things is the reason people are angry. And frankly, it's the reason we will continue to get angrier until we're acknowledged. Stuff like text not matching voiceovers makes 'known issues' lists and they can't mention this? That's infuriating.

    I personally am not willing to be all that patient when they're telling us absolutely nothing. I bought a LTS with the expectation that the game client would continue to have a bare minimum of support. I'm sorry, but I do feel as though having spent that amount of money gives me a certain amount of entitlement to the product I paid for, or at least a response from the people who were willing to take said money.

    I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I don't really care if I do. I couldn't care less if this is a Mac only problem or not. It needs to be acknowledged, addressed, and fixed - in that order, with acknowledgement coming sooner rather than later.

    Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is above valid criticism.. I am quite frustrated about this, as an LTS and Delta Pack buyer.

    With that said, I have a small amount of experience in IT support. There's a way to express frustration, even strongly express said frustration... and, there's being an a-hole. Now, please don't misread... not calling YOU that, shoujokakumei, LOL... I really have no issue with what you posted. At all.

    There's just a way to do that, without biting the hand that is trying to help you.

    Tell them about the issue you have. Tell them you are upset, even angry. Tell them that you are a paying customer, and that as a subscriber/LTSer, you were TOLD that we'll have "unlimited customer support." (True story, check subscriber benefits.) And the lines of communication SHOULD be better, that's about as inexcusable as I can imagine.

    Just be careful not to cross the line of insulting the devs, themselves. I know from experience, all that will do is push you down the priority chain, if not off of it totally.

    Just my two cents. :) IT/support can be a crappy job, sometimes.
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  • shoujokakumeishoujokakumei Member Posts: 37 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    mhall85 wrote: »
    With that said, I have a small amount of experience in IT support. There's a way to express frustration, even strongly express said frustration... and, there's being an a-hole. Now, please don't misread... not calling YOU that, shoujokakumei, LOL... I really have no issue with what you posted. At all.

    Nah, I hear you. I've worked in IT and tech support myself, which is a primary reason I've refrained from name-calling, displays of overt rudeness towards specific individuals, etc. (The secondary reason being how, y'know, that stuff doesn't really accomplish much anyway.)

    But I've also worked in customer service long enough to know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so to speak. There's a balance to be had, and being somewhat of an a-hole when necessary is part of it.
  • iathoriathor Member Posts: 71 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    As far as I can tell, the crashing of the Mac client post-patch is about the same as before today's patch.

    I also saw my first crash while working in the R&D assignment window.

    Generally, the client crashed every few minutes, across multiple characters. Most of them were in sector space just outside New Romulus, and all I was doing was R&D and doff assignments.

    I turned the Lighting setting to Low yesterday, since that fixed some problems I had with crashing a while back in some of the Romulan content areas, but this didn't seem to make any difference in the number or kinds of crashes I saw.

    Amazingly, I did see the crash reporter succeed in sending off a crash report yesterday; the first time this has happened with the DR version of the client. (This was with the client prior to today's patch.)

    System info: late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro, running at 1440x900 resolution, Mac OS 10.9.5.
  • shoujokakumeishoujokakumei Member Posts: 37 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Tuesday will be 2 weeks since DR came out, if I remember correctly. At that point, if we don't have AT LEAST some kind of a real acknowledgement of these issues and even a vague ETA on a fix, I'm going to start proceedings with my credit card company to file for a refund of my LTS cost. I believe "failure to deliver promised terms" is the wording the advisor I talked to used.

    iathor, crashing in the R&D and doff windows is consistent with my experiences (and also while entering and exiting maps). I log on once a day to set those up and I usually have to start the client anywhere from three to six times before I can get them all in. All my graphics are set to potato and always have been.
  • khan5000khan5000 Member Posts: 3,008 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Check to see if you still crash... I played for an hour last night with no crashes
    Your pain runs deep.
    Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
  • grossernagus002grossernagus002 Member Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Crashing in queued pve is still the same as before. If you manage not to crash for some time I guess you are in game areas that are less populated than e.g. ESD, along with situations in which less graphical effects are invoked by users (as opposite to pves, where a lot of powers are invoked and thus the crash bug is more likely to be triggered).

    The sad thing is, I am 100% sure nobody at Cryptic ever tested the WindowsXP/DX9 (and probably Mac too) stability or even the ability to start the game at all as everyone can easily reproduce the crashing within 5 minutes or less. Plus ignoring the debug error message in the character selection screen and pushing the game out no matter what is really a joke (ie. highly unprofessional even if it is 'only' gaming software!).

    The only other possibility is they know it and don't care ("low priority") because WinXP is "dead", Mac users possibly are a small minority and all Vista/7/8.1 users have DX 11.x installed and dont seem to have these problems (or the crash is triggered only after a longer ingame-time).

    This release seems to be forced to bring it 'live'. I noticed their whole release-cycle sped up the last 1-2 years, bringing more and more stuff into the game without really testing it beforehand (remember the doff-system update for example). Honestly I don't like this and in fact I'm not able to even play all this new story-elements etc. so they are rather driving me away with all this instead of keeping me involved.
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    Crashed while firing off R&D missions...

    Wineskin is more stable for me, so I'm slowly using that more.
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  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    khan5000 wrote: »
    Check to see if you still crash... I played for an hour last night with no crashes

    On the native Mac client?? Really??
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  • unpocoloco89511unpocoloco89511 Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I have had exactly the same problem ever since the DR update. Run the game, crashes after a few minutes. Have tried all of the suggestions that Support techs have given me, no joy. Downloaded and reinstalled the game, no joy.

    When the DR load screen occurs on launch, there are two shader compile errors that appear on the bottom of the screen.

    All I have been able to have time to do in game since DR is Duty Officer Assignments and dilithium mining, but even those minor tasks are prone to being interrupted by crashes.

    I have found that, once I reinstalled the game, the crash intervals tend to remain longer because I repatch every single time it crashes, whereas before I would say "to hell with it" and not repatch out of frustration.

    Version 20 still exhibits the same issues.

    Support personnel, the ticket documenting everything is 141014-001396, which includes screenshots of the shader compile errors.

    I'm getting pissed. There is no freaking excuse for this kind of sloppiness in a product!

    :mad::mad::mad::mad
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    From the latest Tribble patch notes:
    *Resolved a number of issues that occasionally would cause a costume change related crash.
    *Resolved a crash that would occasionally occur when pressing accept when completing a Skill Respec through the Skill Respec trainer contacts.
    *Resolved a graphics related crash that would occur on video cards with Shader Model 2.
    *Resolved a crash that could occur on startup with Direct X9 settings.

    No mention of Mac client, specifically, but... could it be?!?!
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  • nimrod5nimrod5 Member Posts: 41 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    mhall85 wrote: »
    From the latest Tribble patch notes:



    No mention of Mac client, specifically, but... could it be?!?!

    I'm still learning about the whole game and how everything works, I know Tribble is the testing bit but how long before the patch there is put into the main game on average?
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    nimrod5 wrote: »
    I'm still learning about the whole game and how everything works, I know Tribble is the testing bit but how long before the patch there is put into the main game on average?

    Unless something goes horribly wrong, this is the next patch that will hit when servers go down.

    So, by Thursday, unless they do some emergency maintenance or something.
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  • khan5000khan5000 Member Posts: 3,008 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    mhall85 wrote: »
    From the latest Tribble patch notes:



    No mention of Mac client, specifically, but... could it be?!?!

    many have theorized that the mac crash is tied into the direct x9 thingie.
    Your pain runs deep.
    Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    khan5000 wrote: »
    many have theorized that the mac crash is tied into the direct x9 thingie.

    Yep, that will be a big test for us!
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  • khan5000khan5000 Member Posts: 3,008 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    mhall85 wrote: »
    Yep, that will be a big test for us!

    fingers crossed...as I don't think i will play much on the wineskin...I played for an hour yesterday and then noticed my charger was hot to touch...like too hot to touch. It doesn't get like that when i play the mac client
    Your pain runs deep.
    Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
  • mhall85mhall85 Member Posts: 2,852 Arc User1
    edited October 2014
    khan5000 wrote: »
    fingers crossed...as I don't think i will play much on the wineskin...I played for an hour yesterday and then noticed my charger was hot to touch...like too hot to touch. It doesn't get like that when i play the mac client

    Yeah, don't set yourself or your home on fire. :)

    Not sure if he'll pop in and mention it himself, but I also got a PM from CrypticFrost (thanks, CrypticFrost!). He told me the team is aware of the issue, and is working on a fix.

    So, double fingers crossed!!! :D
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  • therealdoh123therealdoh123 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    khan5000 wrote: »
    many have theorized that the mac crash is tied into the direct x9 thingie.

    I seriously doubt it...

    I crash every few minutes in the Official version... I play the same exact DX9 version with Wineskin and have played 4 or 5 hours straight with no issues.

    khan5000 wrote: »
    fingers crossed...as I don't think i will play much on the wineskin...I played for an hour yesterday and then noticed my charger was hot to touch...like too hot to touch. It doesn't get like that when i play the mac client
    It will take advantage of everything your machine has... put in the extra wait state for graphics (slows down your graphics) in the STO options, and everything will run much cooler.

    That said, a hot charger like that is pretty normal when pushing the machine hard and shouldn't cause problems.
  • jaymclaughlinjaymclaughlin Member Posts: 630 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    I tried the latest patch on Tribble... makes everything on my MacPro freeze and need a hard reboot
    animated.gif
  • unpocoloco89511unpocoloco89511 Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Has anyone thought of bring up this — for lack of a better term — discrimination-by-ignoring against MacOS users to MacWorld and/or other Mac-centric media outlets?
  • groselicaingroselicain Member Posts: 30 Arc User
    edited October 2014
    Ehh, I wouldn't cry discrimination necessarily. We're just not a priority. In a world where we're still told to "get a real computer" whenever we cry foul, it's pretty safe to say we're still thought of as second-tier, nay, third tier gamers behind Windows and Linux users... even when our money's still ready to be taken.
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