Crashing

[Mathew Steel 151]

Throughout all of Stronghold, my games have crashed at somepoint. This has happened to me in every game so many time and it's super frustrating especially after not saving. Does anyone know of a fix cause it really annoys me -.-

[Lord_Chris 248]

I don't know about fixing the crashes (as I don't know what is responsible for it) but you can set SHC2 to auto save, just like SH3. Head to the:

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Stronghold Crusader 2\assets

 

folder and open the file "config.xml" in a text editor (i.e. Notepad).

 

Find:

 

 

and replace the numbers next to the equal sign with what you need. Interval is how often (in seconds) the game will auto save and max_files is how many saves the game will allow. The following example will save the game automatically every five minutes, and allow a total of 6 saves at any one time before it over writes:

 

 

You can also set some debugging information for when the game does crash in this file as well, which will give you a bit more info on what isn't working or going wrong.

 

To do this, find:

 

 

and replace with:

 

 

This may also help. Find:

 

 

replace with:

 

 

The dump file created when the game crashes is located in the following directory:

 

C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_Crusader2.exe

 

Thanks to @Nigel for finding the directory!

Edited November 24, 2014 by Lord_Chris

[Nigel 71]

Whow, Chris. For not having the game, you know a lot about it. :impressed:

 

 

I too have crashes with SHC2 sometimes - very annoying in MP.

My hope it that patches will improve the situation.

[Mathew Steel 151]

Thank you Chris, I changed the minidump option so hopefully next crash we'll get some more information :)

[Lord_Chris 248]

Actually my game arrived yesterday :D

 

I haven't really looked into the files yet but that was one of the first ones I came across earlier.

 

hopefully next crash we'll get some more information

 

Do bear in mind it's likely to not be readable information (i.e. as in "Failed loading game".) It will likely be something like:

 

Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately.

 

Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created.

 

************** Exception Text **************

System.InvalidOperationException: Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created.

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.MarshaledInvoke(Control caller, Delegate method, Object[] args, Boolean synchronous)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method, Object[] args)

at MapEditor.LoadingDialogRunner.AppendTextToLog(String pText, Boolean bAddNewLine)

at MapEditor.MainForm.InitPanels()

at MapEditor.MainForm.OnMainFormLoading(Object sender, EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Edited October 17, 2014 by Lord_Chris

[Mathew Steel 151]

I understand that, I can usually pick out some key information and sort of figure out what it means either way.

[Mathew Steel 151]

Okay so it's been crashing recently and I cant seem to find the minidumps. Any idea where they are?

 

Also am I the only one experiencing this? It happens on SHC2, SH2 and SH3. The only thing in common with these games are the fact that they are 3D. My graphics card is one of the best middle priced cards for 3D games and it has no problem with other games. It cant be my computer as it happened on my old laptops too.

 

The game doesn't lag out as I run it at 80-100 FPS all the time. It just randomly freezes and crashes. Is this something on Firefly's half or can I do something about it? Thank you!

[Lord_Chris 248]

Since the crashing issue does not occur on my machine, I do not know where the dump will be stored. My best guess will be in your my documents/Stronghold Crusader 2/XXX folder.

[Nigel 71]

Ok, I seem to have a situation where I can reproduce a crash of the Crusader.exe, which I guess is the good part of the bad news.

 

I changed the config.xml as you suggested above, Chris, but I too cannot find the dump. Any idea what the name of the file would be?

 

I did get an error dialog, though. Here is a screenshot of it:

 

Edited October 29, 2014 by Nigel

[Lord_Chris 248]

It may only have done something for @Mathew Steel if he enabled the final thing, I'm not sure whether he did do that in the end. But those errors are pretty self-explanatory, I was expecting something much more obscure than that.

 

Any idea what the name of the file would be?

 

The actual error dumps will likely have the date in, in some kind of format, most likely as in dd-mm-yy (or another way with dashes). If they're not somewhere in the my documents folder, I'd try looking in your program files steam folder.

[Charles of Tours 69]

Here's an easy way to fix files on Steam games:

 

Go to your Steam games library. Right click on the title, then click "Properties" on the pop-up panel. A new window with several tabs should appear. Click "Local Files" then "Verify integrity of game cache." This should scan, repair, and (if needed) replace all files associated with the game. I hope this helps.

[Nigel 71]

Indeed, when I performed the integrety check that way, it reported one file missing (or damaged, I dont remember the exact text).

It also started to download 1 file for Crusader 2.

 

Hopefully that will have fixed it :cool:

[Mathew Steel 151]

I have tried this but it has not proved any useful. Thank you anyway!

 

I don't see what it could be, it happens on nearly all the Stronghold Games even on 2 different laptops.

[Lord_Chris 248]

I don't see what it could be, it happens on nearly all the Stronghold Games even on 2 different laptops.

 

It's likely hardware compatibility issues. Are all your drivers up to date?

[Mathew Steel 151]

All my drivers are updated to the recommended version, yes.

[Achilleslastand 3]

I just CTD out of a 2v2 that lasted about 90 mins. The SHC2 has stopped working error/CTD is very disappointing especially when you have time and effort invested in a game. This isn't the first time this has happened and seems to happen with more frequency since the patch before last. I have a system that exceeds their requirements with the latest drivers installed. I turned down the texture detail from ultra to high and this still happens. I already have bloom and DOF disabled as well as SSAO.

 

Im very disappointed with FF at this point as this issue should be #1 on their list on things to fix not adding 8 new lords to the game with for people who play multiplayer will offer nothing. I know why you cannot play more then a 2v2 now an I am guessing 4v4s ran pretty bad which is why they disabled them.

 

Here are my specs btw...

AMD FX 8350

8 Gigs Ram @1600

Gigabyte HD 7870 2 GB

Windows 7/64

At resolution of 1920x1200

Latest drivers.....

Internet connection with good ping as well as dl speed.

 

I guess I could put the graphics on low but whats the point in that. I saw someone mentioned that the reason shadows were not able to be completely turned off is that was built in the engine which reminds me of the latest men of war assault squad which has the same thing.

[Lord_Chris 248]

Have you tried to verify your steam cache as @Charles of Tours mentioned? This may help with any corrupt or missing files, and if it's happening a lot I'd say this is likely the case somehow.

 

Apart from the fact you mention it happens a lot, can you tie it down to any specifics? I.E. Whenever you play a custom map, or whenever you build a church.etc

 

Legends used to (and still does) freeze crash the game when the guard button is pressed during multiplayer, maybe a similar bug lives inside SHC2 yet to be found. Looking at your specs I'd say I doubt it's a hardware compatibility issue.

[Achilleslastand 3]

Have you tried to verify your steam cache as @Charles of Tours mentioned? This may help with any corrupt or missing files, and if it's happening a lot I'd say this is likely the case somehow.

 

Apart from the fact you mention it happens a lot, can you tie it down to any specifics? I.E. Whenever you play a custom map, or whenever you build a church.etc

 

Legends used to (and still does) freeze crash the game when the guard button is pressed during multiplayer, maybe a similar bug lives inside SHC2 yet to be found. Looking at your specs I'd say I doubt it's a hardware compatibility issue.

 

 

Yes I verified the steam cache and all files were there.

It pretty much happens when there are a lot of units on screen at once no matter what map you are on. It dosnt happen all of the time mind you but it does happen enough to be annoying. I also notice when I have a full castle/economy up and running and I turn off all bldgs. to get a huge amount of troops quickly the game will stutter a bit.

I wonder how much RAM and video RAM are being used when you have the max number of buildings and a huge amount of troops going. I really think the issue is on their end and not any hardware issues on my end.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Achilleslastand

[Nigel 71]

Well, I too verfied the files as Charles of Tours suggested. That found and fixed some broken/missinng files, but unfortunately that was not the solution. I got another crash of the Crusader.exe some days later. :S

 

Also, I am not sure if it is related to graphics settings. I never had any problems with freezes or FPS drops. The game runs shust fine on my machine in that respect. It is just the CTDs that I am gettig occasionally - both in Singleplayer and Multiplayer.

 

 

Now it is not such a big problem for players like us, who are organized on a forum and all connected via Steam friends list. We could just set autosave to 5 minutes and if someone dropps we could just get all back in, reload the game have lost 5-10 minutes at worst.

 

But it must be a real problem for FireFly. I am guessing that more than 90% of their players are not organized on a forum. They just want to play a casual game against a random opponent and thus have no chance to get back in after a crash. That is really frustrating and FireFly are at danger of loosing a lot of players that way.

 

Lets keep trying to help figure out where the problem is coming from and hopefully FireFly will eventually be able to get on top of it.

[Lord_Chris 248]

Monitor resolutions (or screen resolutions for that matter) can often make a game crash, they've done it many a time with SH1 that I've seen on the firefly forum, maybe @Nigel could be on to something there.

 

I've had one crash, which was today - after the end of testing @Micha!'s map. So if crashes are re-occurring, it's because of one of three things:

 

1. hardware incompatibility
   
2. game instability
   
3. Something has been altered somewhere - just like the save-to-map trick corrupted files in Stronghold 2 which often caused a lot of crashes, something must be altered. I'm not sure whether steam modified the registry, if so it may be worthwhile taking a look only to see if anything has happened there.
   

 

We could test the hardware compatibility issue by changing things such as your monitor resolution. The other two aren't really in our control.

[Lord_Chris 248]

I've emailed PCDania and he says the following may help:

 

Try suggest telling the antivirus to ignore those games, sometimes that helps. Note that running older games on newer OS's they are not made for are bound to lead to problems for some people. What SHC2 goes, then the game is very new so there should come some patches.

 

As he points out, the anti-virus programs may be interfering with them. I have Windows 8, Windows Defender and Malware Bytes Pro installed. Does anyone have anything different to the default antivirus/malware programs installed?

[Achilleslastand 3]

I excluded the SHC2exe processes in Microsoft Sec Essentials a few days ago and figured it would help and I just crashed tonight in a 2v1 with a lot of bldgs./units onscreen at once. There wasn't one dervish at all but there were approx. 35 mantlets.

At this point im guessing any problems are on there end and I really really wish they would get this addressed with a patch asap. The multiplayer is dieing a slow death which is sad because when it works it is fun.

[Nigel 71]

Just to let you guys know, I have opened a ticket at the FireFly Technical Support and givem them what information I have gathered about my crashes (using the methods Chris provided on page 1).

 

They have allocated the ticket to the category of the highest priority.

I will continue to help them where I can and really hope that they will get to the bottom of it.

[Lord_Chris 248]

Well I'm glad you managed to get something out of what I provided on page 1 Nigel, I'm also guessing that problems are on their end, hopefully they will soon release a patch after seeing what has been submitted to them.

[Nigel 71]

Iou can also set some debugging information for when the game does crash in this file as well, which will give you a bit more info on what isn't working or going wrong.

 

To do this, find:

 

 

and replace with:

 

 

 

 

I have finally been able to locate the place where the minidump files are stored:

 

There is a file structure in this path:

C:\Users\...\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_Crusader2.exe

 

It seems that after each crash a new Report.wer file is generated.

I have not been able to open it yet (well, I did not really try it), but I suggest that players should open a ticket with the FireFly technical service and post these Report.wer files as attachments to the ticket thread to give FireFly some help to find the cause of the crashes.