Shut down crash and Cryptic error reporting message.

woodyvalley · February 2016

Since last Friday's patch I have been getting a shut down crashes and Cryptic error reporting window on a daily basis. Some days twice. Mostly when I do omega particle scans, with the odd crash when I do Tour the Galaxy.

#48890933
-This time I was the Fleet mine, about to mine a Dilithium shard, 5pm 1st Feb PDT
-Same place, 4:50pm 2nd Feb PDT
-Outside Granada Station, 10:50pm 2nd Feb PDT
-Traveling through Alpha Quad to Fleet Mine. 6:05pm 3rd Feb PDT
#51141592
-Loading into DS9 space 4:20pm 5th Feb PDT

Intel Core i5 2500. 3Ghz
8gb RAM
Nvidia GeForce GT640 2GB
Win7 64 bit
Directx 9

fadmbambam · February 2016

I get them about once an hour. It's happening on both of my computers (two completely different architectures.) It started happening with Anniversary event (at least for me.) I've lost hundreds of Omega traces & slivers & drops.

[Deleted User] · February 2016

I had random crashes to desktop about 6 times in the span of 1.5 hrs. Hadn't had crashing since the summer fixes, but since the event hotfixes, the game's been rather unstable and tempermental. Getting a lot of memory leaks everywhere, too.

spiritwalker1969 · February 2016

It is helpful if you include some system information when posting this type of bug - graphics card & driver version, OS version, ethernet card type, RAM installed and how you run STO (ARC, steam or direct fromlauncher) etc. This allows anyone responding to quickly see if a known conflict is present and provide a response which can help rather than generalised info. Simply saying that you crash can point to many things especially when we have situations such as the recent DDoS attacks on the server.

Starting point for any crash scenario though is to open the launcher and uncheck allow on-demand patching, also check force verify - this does two things the first ensures that you have all files available locally & rules out that a required file is getting lost in transit if you are patching on the fly when loading maps, the second verifies that you do not have any corrupted files on your system. Files can become corrupted during download or if your hard drive develops a bad sector - the latter can happen even with brand new hard drives and is simply one of those things that happen.

Next, check that your drivers and windows are up to date - this ensures that any expired codecs are up to date and functioning correctly.

Also check some of the other threads in this forum, the chances are someone else has encountered similar but has posted under a slightly different title - the solution may already be on the forum.

fadmbambam · February 2016

I know I've shared all that before.... Two completely different machines - one high end AMD gaming machine and one cheap Intel-based laptop - with completely different architectures. The only thing common is that they are both Windows 10. I've tried all the things you've suggested as well as the "-d3d11Enable 0" option. Same results.

As already stated, for me, it started with the anniversary event. While the crashes are only happening (for me) in zones that have the Omega Molecule Stabilization minigame, that could be coincidence due to the fact that that's about all I'm doing right now - grinding for Omegas.

[Deleted User] · February 2016

fadmbambam wrote: »

I know I've shared all that before.... Two completely different machines - one high end AMD gaming machine and one cheap Intel-based laptop - with completely different architectures. The only thing common is that they are both Windows 10. I've tried all the things you've suggested as well as the "-d3d11Enable 0" option. Same results.

As already stated, for me, it started with the anniversary event. While the crashes are only happening (for me) in zones that have the Omega Molecule Stabilization minigame, that could be coincidence due to the fact that that's about all I'm doing right now - grinding for Omegas.

Exactly. It's not the system, it's the game. This only started when they put in their "hot fixes". Granted, I'm running the game in DX9 mode cuz it runs a lot smoother than in DX11.

Also, I don't run the game via ARC, as there's no reason to even run ARC. It's just a pointless memory waste.

aeternusdoleo · February 2016

Same deal for me, since the Jan 27 update the game has a severe memory leak for me which causes it to balloon to 3GB of memory used (private bytes, working set). It crashes at that point. Takes usually less then an hour to get there. It doesn't really hamper my system as I've got 8GB of RAM, but it tends to make the game hard to play...

My system, specs:
Intel Core I7, 8GB RAM
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H mainboard (Intel chipset)
NVidia GTX 760 video card
Using the internal network card (Realtek 8167 Gigabit). Broadband internet connection
Using the internal soundcard (Also Realtek HD audio)
Running Windows 7 Pro, x64 version
3 hard drives, the game is installed on the SSD. ARC's installed on the system drive (RAID mirror)

Never had a problem before Jan 27. What I've tried thus far:
- Setting video quality to lowest. No effect.
- Setting the renderer from DX11 to DX9. No effect
- Fullscreen/Windowed and back again. No effect
- Killed Arc and launched the client directly to eliminate the overlay as a cause. No effect
- Verified the client. No effect
- Deleted the entire gamefolder and forced ARC to re-download the entire thing. No effect
- Tried putting the app in compatibility mode (Win 7, then WinXP SP2). No effect. Run as administrator also no effect.
- Reverted the NVidia video driver to a previous version (it also got an update at Jan 27). No effect
- Reinstalled DirectX seeing as this game uses that API for both sound and video. No effect

I'm trying to find an app that'll allow me to analyse the game's memory usage and figure out where all that excess memory is being wasted from. Most crashes got intercepted by the game's own crash debugger, but 2 of them crashed straight to the operating system debug window. Both those times I was able to analyze the process with a lil' app called WhatIsHang, which showed that there were some DirectX modules in the active stack.
2 friends of mine who also play this game do not seem to have issues. I do not have information on their hardware however (but it's likely not as powerful as my rig).

Feel free to contact me if someone wants me to do some debugging. I'm a IT guy (helpdesk tech) and can follow technical instructions. I -really- want to try and get this solved. Intuition tells me this is an issue with an x64 system on NVidia hardware that somehow happened with something that changed in the last update.

donburrito · February 2016

Ticket ID: 49320526

So yeah this has happened multiple times over the last 3 days. Just a completely random crash to desktop. Several times I've just been sitting around checking the exchange, and several times its crashed while switching toons or beaming up or down from somewhere. There is no clear pattern except that it started after Friday's patch.

My specs:
Intel i7-4770k
Asus ROG Maximus Hero VI Motherboard
16GB G-Skill RAM
Nvidia Gigabyte GTX 960-4GB Video Card
Windows 10 Home
Game is installed on Samsung 840 SSD

dragonhef01 · February 2016

How many have tested locking down the DX version? Under the launcher command line(bottom of options) enter "-d3d11enable 0 -d3d9ex" for DirectX 9EX. If you're low on memory(mine's an '11 i3 2gb laptop), end Arc before launching. Also it seems since the server upgrade, I no longer have to use the Win8 compatibility(but keep Admin checked). Another thing, enabling the RAM loading/less streaming setting in the advanced graphics settings(top one) seems to be doing its job better...Good Luck, Brad

spiritwalker1969 · February 2016

Thanks for posting your specs guys, couple of things from when I have been looking around other posts, forums and advice from my Son.

(1) Some Realtek ethernet cards benefit from having Interrupt Moderation disabled (this may also work for manufacturer on-board LAN cards, as some will be based on Realtek) Open control panel ---> Device Manager ---> Network Adaptors ---> [select your card & right click] ---> properties. On the properties pop-up select the advanced tab, in the scrollable list of functions look for Interrupt Moderation and highlight, there will be a dropdown menu on the right which should show enable, change to disabled.

(2) Nvidia graphics - apparent issue regarding optimization. Workaround suggested by another player is to open Nvidia Control Panel and set to desired settings, open task manager and disable Nvidia Control Panel at start-up, reboot.
AFAIK - the player has not reported any crashes since identifying this as a possible cause.

(3) For low memory issues or concerns, manually set the virtual memory rather than allowing windows to control it. The route to do this is Control Panel -->System --->choose Advanced System Settings from the menu on Left Hand Side ---> this should open a settings pop-up on advanced tab --->performance settings ---> Advanced tab --->virtual memory ---> set new virtual memory size. When setting virtual memory you may have to check a set manually (or similar option), I would recommend setting vm to 10 Gb (10240Mb). Changing this will give you a greater "buffer" capacity which allows the game to ship required data to/from RAM without continually reprocessing it thus cutting down CPU usage etc. This will also be of benefit where enabling RAM loading/less streaming as suggested by dragonhef01 above.

Again part of the problem is the wide range of systems experiencing issues of this type. As I have suggested in the case of ethernet cards, I don't see any harm in adapting any of the manufacturer specific fixes to other manufacturers - if it doesn't work or causes other issues then simply reverse the changes.

At the risk of repetition - defragging, using ccleaner to clean hard drives and registry on a regular basis and checking hard drive integrity, again on a regular basis are advisable. Especially where, as is usually the case, applications are constantly rewriting dynamic data. Taken individually none of these will have much effect (unless the issues are at critical states) but add them all together then the chance of corrupt data, longer seek/read times and damaged sectors suddenly looks more likely.

With regard to server upgrades seeming to make things worse, one thing I have noticed is that many of these issues started around season 9. Season 9 and windows 8.1 had similar launch times - possible that there is a variable or call handling procedure in 8.1 which causes issues for other OS/OS versions and instead of being ignored triggers some other function which can kill the game is auto-recovery doesn't catch it. Unfortunately, the win 8.1 elements can't be removed as this could potentially exclude a reasonably large number of users - not everyone is elegible for free upgrade to windows 10 or wants to do so at present. So if something along this train of thought is the cause, it is probably something we have to live with for the time being.

aeternusdoleo · February 2016

Not that wide. From what I can tell it's all users with NVidia graphics cards, and all past the anniversary event. Something in the 27th/28th Jan updates causes the game to experience a memory leak if you have an NVidia card it seems - does suggest it is video subsystem related. Anyway, to your fixes:
1: I've turned off the interrupt moderation for the Realtek card. Doubt that will be it but worth a shot... Will retest, since the game bloats to 3GB of memory used within an hour or so, easy enough to check if that was the problem.
2: I use the bare driver, I do not have the NVidia Control Panel active, at all, so can't do this fix.
3: With 8GB of RAM, I've turned the page file off. Since STO is a 32 bit application it will never be able to address over 4GB of memory anyway, so racking up the page file to 10GB is pointless...

[Edit] Changing the interrupt moderation setting had no effect. Still crashy.

fadmbambam · February 2016

aeternusdoleo wrote: »

Not that wide. From what I can tell it's all users with NVidia graphics cards,

Not me. My game box uses a Radeon and my other is just the built-in Intel video.

[Deleted User] · February 2016

aeternusdoleo wrote: »

Not that wide. From what I can tell it's all users with NVidia graphics cards, and all past the anniversary event. Something in the 27th/28th Jan updates causes the game to experience a memory leak if you have an NVidia card it seems - does suggest it is video subsystem related.

I'd say that's quite possible. I'm using an NVidia GTX 750ti. Been crashy since the patch. Seems like certain areas (shipyard on ESD) are creating/causing memory leaks.

spiritwalker1969 wrote: »

(3) For low memory issues or concerns, manually set the virtual memory rather than allowing windows to control it. The route to do this is Control Panel -->System --->choose Advanced System Settings from the menu on Left Hand Side ---> this should open a settings pop-up on advanced tab --->performance settings ---> Advanced tab --->virtual memory ---> set new virtual memory size. When setting virtual memory you may have to check a set manually (or similar option), I would recommend setting vm to 10 Gb (10240Mb). Changing this will give you a greater "buffer" capacity which allows the game to ship required data to/from RAM without continually reprocessing it thus cutting down CPU usage etc. This will also be of benefit where enabling RAM loading/less streaming as suggested by dragonhef01 above.

I'm runnin a 4gb system. Tried this, as suggested. Will see if the game starts running a lil bit better. I run defrag and CCleaner often, so, that shouldn't be an issue. Still doesn't excuse Cryptic, though. All these problems started after their Friday "hotfix".

aeternusdoleo · February 2016

Correction to my previous statement. It is -not- limited to Nvidia based systems. I installed the game on my second computer and am getting the same memory leak and hourly crash there.
Specs of comp 2:
AMD Phenom II X4 955
8 GB Ram
AMD Radeon HD4890 video card.
Internal NIC (Gigabit Realtek)
Internal soundcard (Realtek HD)
Windows 10 Pro x64

And just to eliminate ANY software causes, I've fully reinstalled my game machine with Windows 10 (clean OS install, also wiped and redownloaded ARC and the game client). Still the same memory leak occurring, still crashing. With the same fault occurring between 2 seperate computer systems, I'm convinced the issue is in the game client, not in my own rigs. One thing I did find odd was that the second computer automagically picked up my keybinds from the previous system - if there's some kind of profile used, perhaps something in there causes the problem. I'll set up a second ARC account and try to play using the blank defaults to see if that fixes the issue.

[Edit] Either there's an issue in my profile or this game is having an issue with x64 systems. But if it's affecting all 64 bit computers there should be way more reports out there. It does not make sense.

taeboc · February 2016

Guess you can add me to the list.
The main difference for me it seems is that it ONLY crashes during the "Time and Tide" episode, and even then ONLY during the chapter "No Time Like The Future".
I haven't had issues anywhere else in the game.

Get about half way through "No Time Like The Future" (where you have to defend the temporal tower)
It crashes, I try to re-log a few times, each time it tries to load the New Khitomer map, fails, and crashes again.
Eventually I'll get a successful load where it puts me outside the Kyana System with all progress lost and I have to start over again.
Rise, repeat.

Running an ASUS Desktop PC CG8270 series on Windows 10
Intel i7-3770 CPU, 3.4 GHz processor
32 GB RAM
64 bit OS
NVidia GeForce GTX660
RealTek HD Audio.

Running it through Steam because reasons.

I'm absolutely positive the problem isn't on my end and am probably just typing this to make myself feel a little better.
I'd really just like to be able to finish the episode.

geezerpunk · February 2016

You can add me to the list of people that this happens to, I try to be descriptive in the crash boxes. But I get about eight or nine a day, when I had been getting only about one in a 24 hour period. Before I play now I boot to my Boot configuration manager and take out all the stuff that Adobe, MS, et al, adds in just to make sure it is not a memory leak or a reassigned interrupt problem.

OS: Windows 10 - 64bit (I am in the Beta test program so I am running about two revs above RTM. And yet to be released MS patches)
CPU: Intel I7 2500K
HDD: OS loaded on SSD (Intel 120) Configured Drive C
Software : WD Raptor Drive - 1 TB (all software that is not OS) Configured Drive D
Data Drv : All data stored on WD 2TB drive configured as drive E
BDRW1 : Drive F:
BDRW2 : Drive G:
Musicdrv: WD 2 TB drive (for music and music production) Configured as Drive M
Videodrv: WD 2 TB drive (Video production) Configured as Drive V

RAM 16 GB: G.skill
Video Nvidia GTX 560Ti

All drivers checked for updates weekly after backup procedure.
All backups stored on networked NAS Raid 5 plus 1 Hot swap drive backup for off site storage. Usually placed in fire safe.

DXDIAG available upon request.

aeternusdoleo · February 2016

The only thing incommon between my 2 systems are:
- OS: Win 10 64 bit (but had the problem on Win7 x64 too)
- Ram size: 8GB (but others have the same with less)
- Network card - Realtek 8110 series Gigabit adapter. I've downloaded the latest drivers, no difference. Still leaky.
- Audio card: Realtek HD audio. Also downloaded the latest drivers (2.79), no effect, still leaky.

I can only conclude the client itself is the cause. And despite best efforts, I can't diagnose a memory leak in a closed source application.

fadmbambam · February 2016

aeternusdoleo wrote: »

Correction to my previous statement. It is -not- limited to Nvidia based systems. I installed the game on my second computer and am getting the same memory leak and hourly crash there.
Specs of comp 2:
AMD Phenom II X4 955
8 GB Ram
AMD Radeon HD4890 video card.
Internal NIC (Gigabit Realtek)
Internal soundcard (Realtek HD)
Windows 10 Pro x64

And just to eliminate ANY software causes, I've fully reinstalled my game machine with Windows 10 (clean OS install, also wiped and redownloaded ARC and the game client). Still the same memory leak occurring, still crashing. With the same fault occurring between 2 seperate computer systems, I'm convinced the issue is in the game client, not in my own rigs. One thing I did find odd was that the second computer automagically picked up my keybinds from the previous system - if there's some kind of profile used, perhaps something in there causes the problem. I'll set up a second ARC account and try to play using the blank defaults to see if that fixes the issue.

[Edit] Either there's an issue in my profile or this game is having an issue with x64 systems. But if it's affecting all 64 bit computers there should be way more reports out there. It does not make sense.

This is an interesting observation. I've seen some mentions of this issue on the chat channels and some stated that some accounts work fine while other accounts crash - on the same computer. I wonder if there is a way to "refresh" an account - WITHOUT losing rank/inventory/etc?

fadmbambam · February 2016

Just a note here.... the problem still exists after today's patch.

aeternusdoleo · February 2016

Interesting. I've started a second Arc account for computer 2 and loaded up a new player. No memory leak. Same client version, my default Fed player: Still crashy.
The issue is specific either to the character, or the profile. Probably a corrupt model of some sort in that case, throwing DirectX out of whack. I'll have to investigate further but I've got a direction to go in now.

aeternusdoleo · February 2016

I tried a few things and so far I've not crashed again. It's either one of two things:
- I've gone in my keybindings and changed the "Left Click" to "Left Press", same for right and middle mouse. If DirectInput isn't working properly or not registering that event properly, could cause the leak.
- I had an old quest open for the Tholians, defeat Tholians on the ground, 29/100. I dropped that quest. Could be that the pathing/highlighting of Nukura is not working properly.

I'm out of time but will retest by re-taking the Nukura quest and then flying around a bit. If the memleak occurs, that'll be it. If not, then it'll be the keybindings.

fadmbambam · February 2016

Is PWE ever going to respond to this?

tieberione · February 2016

I have a ticket open thats going on a full page now, and linked this forum, hopefully we can find out what changed on the 28th to cause this to start happening.

jodarkrider · February 2016

I've been experiencing seemingly random crashes myself - must be something introduced in 6th anniversary patch, as I've had no problems prior that, in last 2 & half years. I've been trying to tackle if there's any pattern to those, but been unable to do so, so far.

[Deleted User] · February 2016

mugat0 wrote: »

fadmbambam wrote: »

Is PWE ever going to respond to this?

They do if your write a TICKET via the Perfect world launcher. I've done it many times and still get NO WHERE !

I get replies like, Its your machine. Its your problem.

Another words, I get no where. I've had this random issues for the last 1 1/2 years. I play one character and play for about 10 minutes then log off. Log back in to another toon to do mail etc. Seems to work.

If I change character to character, I get CTD.

I've increased RAM, from 4gb to 8gb
Changed video cards from Nvidia to Radeaon then back to Nvidia
Changed from Vista to Windows 8.1 and then to 10 and back to 8.1

I just take it in the rear. Whatever. I give up. Cryptic and PW win !

Never give up! Never surrender!

By Grabthar's hammer, you shall be avenged!

Oops, wrong franchise.

whythechange · February 2016

i7 920 can't remember all the other numbers right now
Geforce GTX 650 graphics card with accelerate, the 2 gig version
Just maxed my ram from 9 gig to 24 gig, can't go no higher, no need with this system!

So I shouldn't be having any memory problems as I have all kinds of memory, except that one guy with 32 gig, but he probably has a newer higher end system!

First, I was getting the verify files errors and I went through the motions with that a few times, just to make sure is on the up, okay right? Nope, now I can't seem to get on! What's going on here?

Maybe I'll try again in a few minutes..........

woodyvalley · February 2016

Well after a few day from last patch, I didn't have any shut down crashes.

So all good here, thanks all.

[Deleted User] · February 2016

woodyvalley wrote: »

Well after a few day from last patch, I didn't have any shut down crashes.

So all good here, thanks all.

Same here, seems to be stable. But, let's not jinx it. lol

jodarkrider · February 2016

No crash since last patch here either.
*fingers crossed*

fadmbambam · February 2016

jodarkrider wrote: »

No crash since last patch here either.
*fingers crossed*

I haven't been getting the memory dump crash since last patch, but the game still freezes A LOT on map changes.

Shut down crash and Cryptic error reporting message.

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