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Zone Transition Crash - Character Loading Bug
belisariusd
Member Posts: 25 Arc User
Okay, I thought I made a thread on this a few months back, but maybe not.
Since I began playing STO six months back, I've had a persistent problem with crashes during a zone transition. (I know, I'm not the only one). Following such a crash, my character becomes unable to enter the game: I receive a timed out message on the loading screen. This inability to load is usually temporary, lasting between 2-15 minutes; occasionally, though, it's effectively permanent and lasts until I receive assistance from a GM who moves the crashed character to a new zone or the server undergoes weekly maintenance (both of which usually, but do not universally, solve the problem). The longest the problem has lasted without being resolved is somewhere around 3-4 days.
The problem does not seem to be related to the character him or herself; rather it seems to be associated with a particular instance of a zone. So: it's not the Sol System, it's Sol System #3. If any of my other characters attempt to enter a zone where one has previously crashed, they too tend to crash. If they do not, they continue to play perfectly fine. Zones that have proven problematic in this way tend to remain problematic for some time. Some zones have proven to present the problem more frequently than others: low level Fed missions seem to present the problem more than any other, and the problem seems to affect my Fed characters more than my non-Fed characters (though this may be confirmation bias at work; I also play my Fed characters the most).
The problem also seems to happen in bursts. So, if it's happened once, it's likely to recur several times over the course of the next few days; on the other hand, I can go upwards of a month without having the problem occur once. I think it's related to high server load, but I have no hard evidence of that.
In terms of solutions, I've been told to try and have tried virtually everything. Force verify, a full reinstallation, starting the game in safe mode, and playing with minimal graphics settings all fail to resolve or prevent this problem. So far the only nearly-surefire fix is to beg a GM to move the character to a new zone and then do my best to avoid the zone that caused the crash for a few days.
Since I began playing STO six months back, I've had a persistent problem with crashes during a zone transition. (I know, I'm not the only one). Following such a crash, my character becomes unable to enter the game: I receive a timed out message on the loading screen. This inability to load is usually temporary, lasting between 2-15 minutes; occasionally, though, it's effectively permanent and lasts until I receive assistance from a GM who moves the crashed character to a new zone or the server undergoes weekly maintenance (both of which usually, but do not universally, solve the problem). The longest the problem has lasted without being resolved is somewhere around 3-4 days.
The problem does not seem to be related to the character him or herself; rather it seems to be associated with a particular instance of a zone. So: it's not the Sol System, it's Sol System #3. If any of my other characters attempt to enter a zone where one has previously crashed, they too tend to crash. If they do not, they continue to play perfectly fine. Zones that have proven problematic in this way tend to remain problematic for some time. Some zones have proven to present the problem more frequently than others: low level Fed missions seem to present the problem more than any other, and the problem seems to affect my Fed characters more than my non-Fed characters (though this may be confirmation bias at work; I also play my Fed characters the most).
The problem also seems to happen in bursts. So, if it's happened once, it's likely to recur several times over the course of the next few days; on the other hand, I can go upwards of a month without having the problem occur once. I think it's related to high server load, but I have no hard evidence of that.
In terms of solutions, I've been told to try and have tried virtually everything. Force verify, a full reinstallation, starting the game in safe mode, and playing with minimal graphics settings all fail to resolve or prevent this problem. So far the only nearly-surefire fix is to beg a GM to move the character to a new zone and then do my best to avoid the zone that caused the crash for a few days.
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Have you tried changing instances from the main map? If GM can move you then I would imagine you should be able to hop instances which in theory should reload the zone.
Yes, I did that months ago; it was one of the first things the GMs suggested. It doesn't seem to make a difference, but I imagine the problem could be worse or occur more frequently if on-demand patching was not disabled.
I'm not sure what you mean. After a character crashes out, the whole problem is the character can't load into the game at all. I can't change the character's zone from the character selection or loading screens.
Ok, the first suggestion was simply to ensure that you did have all the correct files available locally (especially with recent external events affecting server connectivity etc).
The second suggestion was to see if you could change from one instance of the same map to another without any intervention. I am simply trying to see what you are able to do whilst in any particular map. Also you mentioned server load as a possible factor and I wanted to see if a less populated instance of the map would trigger the issue.
If you don't have an issue with doing so can you post some system specs for me - I'm specifically interested in Graphics (whether on-board or card, what type and graphic memory size), cpu type and speed, what type of network card is installed (you can find this by going into control panel --> device manager --> network controller). Also what operating system and version you are running. Do you use ARC or Steam or neither? Are you installed to your C drive or to a seperate partition/drive?
It is almost as if the crash-handling cycle isn't working - when you crash and reconnect, the game usually tries to place you exactly where you were. For example if you were running in a PvE queued event such as infected space and your connection dropped. When you reconnect, you automatically rejoin your team in the STF (I was dissed during a DDoS attack last night and when I eventually reconnected I was placed back in the Gateway to Grethor event I had been in 15 minutes previously at the same point I left). If you disconnect either through a crash or manually in ESD you go back to ESD - again you go where the game has recorded you were. Normally for everything except STF's or PvE queues you should be placed in the first available instance, regardless of which instance you were in previously. (If this thinking is flawed perhaps @LaughingTrendy could ask a Dev to explain the process to us
With your problem, assuming my reasoning above is correct, it would appear that when you crash/freeze/whatever then on relaunch the game doesn't follow protocol and tries to force you to the exact instance you were in but (a) this instance might be full or (b) might not exist. For (b) normally you get the unable to determine location message with various options (start as normal, run in safe mode & cancel) - am I correct in thinking that when this happens choosing either normal or safe modes causes you to crash more often than not?
I can't guarantee a solution but the more info you can provide, then the more chance I might see something to give me a start-point. Although with this I am leaning towards it being a server-side issue but it is still possible that it may be settings derived client-side.
One last question that has just occured, when you reinstalled after uninstall did you remove any renmant files from your system or did you just overwrite them? The reason I am asking is there might be a corrupt config file which isn't downloaded but created locally - if the system detects it is there then it may not have been reset.
I have no problems playing the game normally. In normal play I can switch instances of a given map without any issue. I can't remember a time where switching an instance of a map caused a crash during the transition screen. Also, some of the maps that have historically given me the most trouble are low-populated maps. The Vulcan system was the first one I crashed on, and has presented recurring problems. Other maps I can recall crashing on leading to an inability to re-enter the game: Sol, Omega Battlegroup, Alpha Quadrant Sector Space, Sherman System... many others. It's not usually a ground or sector map bug.
I'm playing on a 2015 MacBook Pro using Boot Camp (Windows 8.1). I have used both Steam (months ago) and ARC (now), and suffered this particular bug using both of them. The game is installed on the C drive (the Boot Camp partition).
Statistics (I'm not particularly good with the specifics, so feel free to ask for additional information)
Graphics Card information: AMD Radeon Graphics Processor, 2048 MB Dedicated Video Memory (5888 MB Available)
Processor information: IntelCore, 2.80GHz
Network Card: Broadcom 801.11ac Network Adapter (?)
I have frequently crashed zoning into STFs. When this occurs, I am unable to enter the game for 5-10 minutes; I then am able to get into the game. It has never been the case where a crash zoning into a STF has caused a lengthy (meaning multiple hours or days) period of inability to re-enter the game. When I do get back into the game, I always find myself in a new instance of the STF (even if the instance of the STF I had been intended to join is ongoing, I never am placed back into that instance). When this happens, I find myself without a team and am promptly kicked from the instance (though the instance will be occupied with players attempting the STF). No AFK penalty is given.
I think the problem is actually the opposite - I am unable to get back into the game when the instance I crashed trying to enter does exist and is not full. So, for instance, when I crash transitioning into the Vulcan system, on the character selection screen it says my character is in the Vulcan system; I click to enter and it tells me there's a problem and gives me the safe load option. Regardless of which option I pick, I time out on the loading screen and get a could not connect message (it'll hit 84, have a timing out message for 10 seconds, then tell me I timed out when loading progress reaches 94).
Because Vulcan is sparsely populated and the problem instance is only rarely going to be full, I can't get back in until I receive GM assistance. By contrast, if I crash transitioning into Sol, because it's much more populated and instances tend to fill up more readily, I can get back in more frequently since when the instance I crashed entering is full it'll shift me to a new one.
Now, all this is just speculation from months of experience, since I can't actually see what instance I'm in when I'm crashed like this: no information is available on the character selection screen. But it fits the available facts. It also explains why I can have two characters unable to load because they crashed in the Sol system while three others are able to load the Sol system just fine: the two unable to load are attempting to load into a problem instance (or two different problem instances), the other three are successfully into instances that work just fine.
I suppose next time this happens I can try using a character who can load into Sol to try lots of different instances until I find the one that is the issue, to try to confirm parts of this speculation.
I'm not sure, but I also tried installing the game on a completely different computer. A character unable to load into the game as described above remains unable to load into the game even if I'm using a computer different from the one I was using when the character originally crashed, so I don't think it's a solely a computer issue.
Having looked at your system, I don't see anything that jumps out - bootcamp should perform exactly like windows since it is essentially a virtual machine, your graphics are probably similar to the radeon HD series cards, cpu etc should all handle the game with ease.
Based on your last comment, I would agree with you and would suspect that possibly the local data and serverside data for the character are mismatched or more likely the serverside character data is corrupted. It may be possible that an initial crash caused corruption of the data and depending on how the data is configured serverside might be difficult to track. (I'm not connected with Cryptic or PWE so don't have this info). It would be beneficial if a Dev or Coder could comment on this possibility and if it could be remedied.