Client crashes when I attempt to log on to certain characters

frtoaster · May 2015

Submitted on Holodeck as ticket #3,477,127
Customer support ticket #150526-001062

Six of my characters are now bugged. The client crashes whenever I try to log on to those characters. When the client crashes, I receive the following error code:

Error Ticket ID: 43704593

The first two characters to receive the bug are Redshirt@frtoaster and Sarine@frtoaster. Below I describe what I was doing on these two characters when the client crashed for the first time on each.

Redshirt@frtoaster: I tried to beam up from Starfleet Academy to Earth Spacedock.

Sarine@frtoaster: I was doing "Tour the Galaxy" and attempted to transwarp from the Beta Quadrant to the Defera System.

The above crashes occurred on May 26, 2015, between 10:30 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

The bug has spread to other characters on the same account. The following characters are now bugged as well:

Aoede@frtoaster
Hero Avatar@frtoaster
Moira Tyche@frtoaster
Mao Wong@frtoaster

I was not actively playing when the client crashed on each of the above characters. The client crashed at the loading screen after I clicked the "Play" button. Aoede should be at Klingon Academy; the others should be at Starfleet Academy. Somehow, I am able to log on to Shironeko@frtoaster to submit this bug report. I have no idea how long I will continue to have access to this character. I did not test any other characters on the account for fear of bugging them as well.

Steps to reproduce

1. Log on to Holodeck using the account @frtoaster.
2. Select one of the following characters:

Redshirt
Sarine
Aoede
Hero Avatar
Moira Tyche
Mao Wong

3. Click "Play".
4. Verify that the client crashes.

frtoaster · May 2015

After having some time to think about it, I now suspect that the bug may be caused by a change I made to my UI files. The bug did not manifest itself right away; it only appeared after I changed maps or logged off and logged back on. I have attached two files to the customer support ticket (#150526-001062):

ui_aoede_old.txt
ui_aoede_new.txt

Please compare the files using a program such as diff. One of the keybinds that I changed or added is probably causing the client to crash. The following are likely candidates:

KeyBind
{
Key Scroll
Command camToggleSTOTargetLock
}

KeyBind
{
Key ,
Command "Team Heal $target"
}

KeyBind
{
Key .
Command "Team Attack $target"
}

I also have another account with the same problem. For that account, see

Holodeck ticket #3,477,176
Customer support ticket #150527-000016

frtoaster · May 2015

After some testing on Tribble, I have determined that these are the offending lines:

KeyBind
{
Key ,
Command "Team Heal $target"
}

havam · May 2015

I use the same key bind, and experience similar issues. Great job of finding a likely cause, i will report back after removed the key-bind in question.

frtoaster · May 2015

havam wrote: »

I use the same key bind, and experience similar issues. Great job of finding a likely cause, i will report back after removed the key-bind in question.

How are you able to remove the keybind? I can't even log on to the affected characters.

havam · May 2015

from the file system, just removing the heal call from the bind file.

frtoaster · May 2015

havam wrote: »

from the file system, just removing the heal call from the bind file.

Your problem is probably different from mine then. I'm pretty sure the problem is not this line

Command "Team Heal $target"

but this line

Key ,

The comma is likely being treated as some kind of punctuation mark and causing a parse error. Even if I remove the offending lines from the UI files, there is no way I can load the files in-game, because the client crashes whenever I try to log on to the affected characters.

gameshogun · June 2015

Just delete all your keybind files. I highly doubt there's anything they can do about it as the keybind files are only available locally.

Try this for example:
Setup your keybind
Load it in one character
Login to another computer without the keybinds you made
You won't be able to use your keybind file at all

frtoaster · June 2015

I have fixed the problem and can now log in to all characters on both accounts. Please see the following bug report for a detailed description of the bug that caused the problem:

Holodeck #3,484,942: Syntax error in UI file causes client to crash upon login

gameshogun wrote: »

Just delete all your keybind files. I highly doubt there's anything they can do about it as the keybind files are only available locally.

Both you and the customer support representative that I talk to are wrong about this.

1. Keybinds are stored on the server. They are not stored on the user's computer.

2. Editing the UI file on the user's computer will not affect the character unless the user logs in to the character and reloads the file. Similarly, deleting the UI file on the user's computer will not affect the character.

3. Keybinds are character-specific. They are not global to the whole account. You cannot use one character to change the keybinds on another character.

gameshogun wrote: »

Try this for example:
Setup your keybind
Load it in one character
Login to another computer without the keybinds you made
You won't be able to use your keybind file at all

You won't be able to load the file on a character if the file isn't present on your computer, but the old keybinds will still exist on your old characters even if you log in using another computer.

gameshogun · June 2015

Ooh, interesting then if that is the case. Weird that it isn't local, it falls under as a custom mod. If it is indeed uploaded to the servers as you say, isn't it dangerous?

Anyway, great report in the other thread. It's rare to see that kind of report.

frtoaster · June 2015

gameshogun wrote: »

Ooh, interesting then if that is the case. Weird that it isn't local, it falls under as a custom mod. If it is indeed uploaded to the servers as you say, isn't it dangerous?

As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of settings in this game. The first kind is stored in files named gameprefs.pref on your computer. There are actually multiple gameprefs.pref files: there is one per shard (Holodeck, Tribble, Redshirt) and another that's the same for all shards. Even if you log in to different characters or different accounts, the client will use the same gameprefs.pref settings. The second kind of setting is specific to each character and is stored on the servers. You can modify the settings on a particular character using the commands /bind_load, /bind_load_file, /ui_load, and /ui_load_file. But these commands only communicate the settings to the server; they don't permanently associate your character with the files. That's why you can edit or delete the files without changing the character. There are probably other settings that are specific to the account, but I don't know of any commands to directly modify them.

When you load a file, the client reads the file and communicates the changes to the server. It wouldn't be dangerous if the syntax checking and error handling were more rigorous at the time you load the file. Unfortunately, that was not the case, though I think crypticbatsoup will be adding more rigorous error checking, based on his comment in the other thread.

gameshogun wrote: »

Anyway, great report in the other thread. It's rare to see that kind of report.

Well, since I couldn't log in to most of my characters, I spent a great deal of time investigating the issue. Fortunately, I was able to pin down the exact cause.

Client crashes when I attempt to log on to certain characters

Comments