Possible lock-up solution - Alpha Centauri Forums

  Alpha Centauri Forums
  Support and Troubleshooting
  Possible lock-up solution

profile | register | prefs | faq | search

Author Topic:   Possible lock-up solution

Tamia posted 03-09-99 10:29 AM ET
I had the same lock-up problem as everyone else here. After moving my missle skimship the game locked up. Downloading new drivers did not help. Then I went to preferences and went under video, I think, and checked the square to make the whole unit flash (as opposed to just the little shield). Since I did that the game has not locked up. I would be interested to see if this helps anyone else or not. I'd like to know if this really solves it or if I just got lucky some how.
RuneMage posted 03-10-99 06:40 PM ET
I get the lockup problem every time after about 200 turns. Tried your suggestion on a game I had saved a couple of turns before the point it consistently locked up on, and found it didn't make the slightest difference.
However, it does seem to consistently be the PeaceKeepers units it freezes on, so on my next game I am going to take the advice of one of the other posters and play that faction, since doing this seems to bypass the problem.
Tamia posted 03-12-99 10:34 AM ET
Thanks for letting me know. I was curious to see if that helped anyone else. My game still has not locked up since I did that. I wonder why that seemed to help me, maybe just pure coincidence. I hope they are working on a patch.
Robo posted 03-13-99 11:37 PM ET
Nope, locks up with Morgan in one of my games. I have two lockups now. About time to return this game.
Parabole posted 03-14-99 04:50 PM ET
I have also experienced lock-ups during the computer's turn, around my game's 200th turn. Since they were always very reproducible, I often had to "go back in time" to change history so that it wouldn't crash.
I tried everything that has been suggested in this forum for the last two weeks, but it looks like a flaw in the game, rather than in my system.
All this to say, the solution of temporarily taking over the Peacekeepers WORKS!!! I don't like using the cheat mode to get my game moving but it works.
However, my game crashes again in the next turns for the same reason, since those Peacekeepers are still plaguing my Alpha Centauri! It is quite probable that, whatever is making the PKs lock-up, could also happen to another faction.
Definitely a bug in the game...
foxr posted 03-14-99 05:16 PM ET
Yes. At first I thought it was the movement of an enemy former that caused my crash, but I was wrong. After some experimentation, I have found that in my current game, at the year 2348, the game crashes EVERY TIME. It happens during an opponents turn, and it dosen't matter exactly what they are doing.
Boy, I guess it was a waste of time getting that far now that I can't continue at all. I've got to admit, I'm getting kind of disapointed about AC. At first I was ecstatic, but this darn bug is really starting to turn me off.
-Rob Fox
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS posted 03-14-99 07:27 PM ET
If it crashes (GPF's or fatals), send me the save. I'll get you past it.
jkm
firaxis games
NoControl posted 03-14-99 10:36 PM ET
I have lockups also. The game doesn't GPF, it just locks up hard. This is always on a computer turn. If I kill the process, Wintop still shows Terran.exe as running. It also seems that this is occurring
when the system resources are
down to around 60%. I am running
very few TSR's and my system
resources are at 90% before I start playing the game. This is
really strange, and annoying since I have lost hours of gameplay to this problem.
Shining1 posted 03-14-99 11:03 PM ET
I don't mean to suggest anything, but how long did you leave the computer running after the 'lock up' on the computer's turn.
I have had some A.I turns run for 2+ MINUTES at times. If people are quitting out after 30 seconds of seeing no action by the A.I, then... well, there might not be a problem.
Not that I think this is likely, but it's possibly worth asking. Especially if running on low memory systems?
comrade posted 03-15-99 12:15 AM ET
A friend and I just purchased 2 copies of Alpha Centauri and I tell you, even after the upgrade patch, we have been getting hang after hang in multiplayer...seems like the same lockup everyone else is having. What a joke. $120.00 + between the 2 of us spent on this game and we can't even get past about 40 - 60 turns without lockup. Come on guys, please DO SOMETHING. Fix the damn thing and release a WORKING patch, or start offering refunds to unhappy customers.
Parabole posted 03-15-99 12:13 PM ET
To clarify things a bit:
When the game locks-up during the computer's turn, in my experience, it was not for just a couple minutes... I have often let it go on for over 10 minutes, and I even let it run overnight just to be sure.
The lock-ups I experience are not "crashes" like GPFs or page faults or whatever. The game just hangs, as if the AI was stuck in an infinite loop.
It's really isn't relevant for me to send Jeff saved games, since I do the dirty work of getting past it myself by taking control of the problematic faction. That just isn't part of the gaming experience I was aiming for...
What's making me angry is that I haven't seen any acknowledment of this problem from Firaxis. I have the bad feeling that this lock-up bug will still be in v3.0...
Gord McLeod posted 03-15-99 02:52 PM ET

Is this lock-up bug limited to multiplayer games only? I've played game after game of single-player without any trouble whatsoever... but my multiplayer experience is much more limited.
comrade posted 03-16-99 04:04 AM ET
hrm.....yes that sounds much like the multiplayer freezes I have been experiencing.
Dire posted 03-16-99 05:27 AM ET
Parabole:
"...I do the dirty work of getting past it myself by taking control of the problematic faction."
Thanks for the idea! I've had this bug on a number of times...now I may actually be able to finish my most recent game!!! I can't be bothered loading an autosave of 5 turns ago and "changing history".
Just to re-iterate your point - I'm sure Firaxis knows about this "infinite loop" bug and is working hard to fix it (or hopefully and most probably already have). The bugs associated with your own moving units (as was the original poster's bug) and those where the game exits with GPF's and Terran.exe are apparently quite different (based on general observation)!!
A message to others who claim that it works after waiting two minutes or more - during this period, when you ctrl-alt-del, does windows report that SMAC is "not responding"? If not, then your game hasn't been struck by the bug. If so, then it has (or I am wrong!!!).
Personally I have had absolutely NO other problems with the game other than the one time I customized my world map size setting as 1,1 - it crashed the game with a terran.exe fault Perhaps Firaxis could fix up this slight logic error
Provost Hanse posted 03-16-99 11:33 AM ET
What I have seen is an unsynch occuring with supply crawlers (in multiplayer). The crawler moves, it synchs, and the crawler is in the previous space before it moved. The crawler moves again, it synchs, etc...
Conundrum posted 03-16-99 11:55 AM ET
Parabole, how do you take control of the problematic faction? Hopefully it's not done
by using the Scenario Maker 'cause I don't want that "Cheat" word next to my score.
Parabole posted 03-16-99 01:09 PM ET
Gord McLead:
No, I experienced this lock-up bug in single player games. It is possible that the circumstance causing it does not occur in every game, depending on what the computer players are doing.

Dire:
I do sincerely hope Firaxis fixed this, but I haven't seen any acknowledgement if this is the case. We'll know soon enough with v3.0. Like you, I've had no other problems with the game, and enjoyed it up to the point where the lock-up illness crept in...

Conundrum:
Sorry, I take control of a problematic faction using the Scenario Editor, which means "Cheating". That's why I stated: "That just isn't part of the gaming experience I was aiming for."
davewill posted 03-18-99 04:01 PM ET
Chalk me up as another person seeing the lockup in single-player. And it definitely seems to be the PeaceKeepers somehow -- both lockups I've seen have involved them. First lockup the screen was re-centered to my border with the PKs, as if I was going to be shown a moving unit, then _freeze._ Second time, I got an announcement the PKs had begun a new Secret Project. When I clicked OK, _freeze._ The second one is interesting in that you can watch the turn status being written to the message area (your energy per turn, resaerch time, etc.): the text will be appearing while the message box for the secret project is up, but you hit OK and the text immediately stops in mid-word.
And a word for Jeffrey Morris of FIRAXIS -- I appreciate the offer to get past a lockup (seriously, I do; I've worked support issues myself and I appreciate the effort, many thanks), but it just isn't practical when the game is going to lockup again in a few turns.
(My lockups have occurred five turns apart; I bypassed with the scenario editor as others have described. Few turns later, stuck again.)
I definitely hope for some kind of fix to this problem, since I have been having a tremendous time so far with SMAC. Maybe I'll have to try the suggestion of playing as the PeaceKeepers; maybe I can get it a whole game that way.
Zoetrope posted 03-19-99 04:14 AM ET
Yes, in the particular game that I reported hanging, the PKs were the only faction that SMAC hung on, though I do stress the `particular game'.
What I experienced was not an entirely hard lockup, because the mouse can still be moved around the screen. What does this suggest? (I don't understand it.)
Windows (95a) is still reading the keyboard C-A-D. But SMAC goes very still and ceases to respond to either mouse or keyboard.
It seems to occur when the PKs begins, because I don't get to see their movements on the map (though I have launched a satellite and normally do see them move units).
Also, the problem occurs _every_ turn that I'm not controlling the PKs.
Several players have indicated that this bug is new with version 2.0.
Brian Reynolds has said that hangs and crashes that occur many turns into the game are very likely due to a bug that is fixed in version 3.0, which is due out soon.
So we live in hope.
However, in the course of experimenting with this problem, I've encountered other signs of instability and/or logic errors. SMAC sometimes gets fixed ideas about its options. When I control the PKs I'm playing hotseat, fine, but at a later stage it becomes difficult to get _out_ of hotseat mode!
Furthermore, now that I've played some more games at Librarian and Thinker level, SMAC has recently gone through a phase whereby Start Game failed to produce the Faction Screen (no, this was never the Quick start), so I was stuck playing as Zakharov whether I wanted to, or not, and there was no option to change his name. A pity, as I like to label my Zakharov games AZak, BZak, CZak, and so on, in order to distinguish turns in one game from those in another. (When I get lots of savegames, I create a new folder and stash the last game's saves in there.)
Now, if I owned SMAC's code, I'd get in there and scrutinise its logic with a finetooth comb, get rid of silly restrictions, like the prohibition on amphibious probe teams, which must clutter it. I'd reorganise it to ensure that messages agree with data, and that suggestions by the AI for units agree with what the unit window allows. And I'd do that by allowing every possible combination of chassis, weapon, armor, and special ability.
If I thought it a good idea to restrict any aspect of gameplay, I'd put it in a customisation file, so that every single player or multiplay host can decide what restrictions should apply. That way, my code would be clean, and my customers would be `free to choose' (to steal Milton and Rose Friedman's phrase).
To close this thread, click here (moderator or admin only).


Hop to:

Contact Us | Alpha Centauri Home

Powered by: Ultimate Bulletin Board, Version 5.18
© Madrona Park, Inc., 1998.

Author	Topic: Possible lock-up solution
Tamia	posted 03-09-99 10:29 AM ET I had the same lock-up problem as everyone else here. After moving my missle skimship the game locked up. Downloading new drivers did not help. Then I went to preferences and went under video, I think, and checked the square to make the whole unit flash (as opposed to just the little shield). Since I did that the game has not locked up. I would be interested to see if this helps anyone else or not. I'd like to know if this really solves it or if I just got lucky some how.
RuneMage	posted 03-10-99 06:40 PM ET I get the lockup problem every time after about 200 turns. Tried your suggestion on a game I had saved a couple of turns before the point it consistently locked up on, and found it didn't make the slightest difference. However, it does seem to consistently be the PeaceKeepers units it freezes on, so on my next game I am going to take the advice of one of the other posters and play that faction, since doing this seems to bypass the problem.
Tamia	posted 03-12-99 10:34 AM ET Thanks for letting me know. I was curious to see if that helped anyone else. My game still has not locked up since I did that. I wonder why that seemed to help me, maybe just pure coincidence. I hope they are working on a patch.
Robo	posted 03-13-99 11:37 PM ET Nope, locks up with Morgan in one of my games. I have two lockups now. About time to return this game.
Parabole	posted 03-14-99 04:50 PM ET I have also experienced lock-ups during the computer's turn, around my game's 200th turn. Since they were always very reproducible, I often had to "go back in time" to change history so that it wouldn't crash. I tried everything that has been suggested in this forum for the last two weeks, but it looks like a flaw in the game, rather than in my system. All this to say, the solution of temporarily taking over the Peacekeepers WORKS!!! I don't like using the cheat mode to get my game moving but it works. However, my game crashes again in the next turns for the same reason, since those Peacekeepers are still plaguing my Alpha Centauri! It is quite probable that, whatever is making the PKs lock-up, could also happen to another faction. Definitely a bug in the game...
foxr	posted 03-14-99 05:16 PM ET Yes. At first I thought it was the movement of an enemy former that caused my crash, but I was wrong. After some experimentation, I have found that in my current game, at the year 2348, the game crashes EVERY TIME. It happens during an opponents turn, and it dosen't matter exactly what they are doing. Boy, I guess it was a waste of time getting that far now that I can't continue at all. I've got to admit, I'm getting kind of disapointed about AC. At first I was ecstatic, but this darn bug is really starting to turn me off. -Rob Fox
Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS	posted 03-14-99 07:27 PM ET If it crashes (GPF's or fatals), send me the save. I'll get you past it. jkm firaxis games
NoControl	posted 03-14-99 10:36 PM ET I have lockups also. The game doesn't GPF, it just locks up hard. This is always on a computer turn. If I kill the process, Wintop still shows Terran.exe as running. It also seems that this is occurring when the system resources are down to around 60%. I am running very few TSR's and my system resources are at 90% before I start playing the game. This is really strange, and annoying since I have lost hours of gameplay to this problem.
Shining1	posted 03-14-99 11:03 PM ET I don't mean to suggest anything, but how long did you leave the computer running after the 'lock up' on the computer's turn. I have had some A.I turns run for 2+ MINUTES at times. If people are quitting out after 30 seconds of seeing no action by the A.I, then... well, there might not be a problem. Not that I think this is likely, but it's possibly worth asking. Especially if running on low memory systems?
comrade	posted 03-15-99 12:15 AM ET A friend and I just purchased 2 copies of Alpha Centauri and I tell you, even after the upgrade patch, we have been getting hang after hang in multiplayer...seems like the same lockup everyone else is having. What a joke. $120.00 + between the 2 of us spent on this game and we can't even get past about 40 - 60 turns without lockup. Come on guys, please DO SOMETHING. Fix the damn thing and release a WORKING patch, or start offering refunds to unhappy customers.
Parabole	posted 03-15-99 12:13 PM ET To clarify things a bit: When the game locks-up during the computer's turn, in my experience, it was not for just a couple minutes... I have often let it go on for over 10 minutes, and I even let it run overnight just to be sure. The lock-ups I experience are not "crashes" like GPFs or page faults or whatever. The game just hangs, as if the AI was stuck in an infinite loop. It's really isn't relevant for me to send Jeff saved games, since I do the dirty work of getting past it myself by taking control of the problematic faction. That just isn't part of the gaming experience I was aiming for... What's making me angry is that I haven't seen any acknowledment of this problem from Firaxis. I have the bad feeling that this lock-up bug will still be in v3.0...
Gord McLeod	posted 03-15-99 02:52 PM ET Is this lock-up bug limited to multiplayer games only? I've played game after game of single-player without any trouble whatsoever... but my multiplayer experience is much more limited.
comrade	posted 03-16-99 04:04 AM ET hrm.....yes that sounds much like the multiplayer freezes I have been experiencing.
Dire	posted 03-16-99 05:27 AM ET Parabole: "...I do the dirty work of getting past it myself by taking control of the problematic faction." Thanks for the idea! I've had this bug on a number of times...now I may actually be able to finish my most recent game!!! I can't be bothered loading an autosave of 5 turns ago and "changing history". Just to re-iterate your point - I'm sure Firaxis knows about this "infinite loop" bug and is working hard to fix it (or hopefully and most probably already have). The bugs associated with your own moving units (as was the original poster's bug) and those where the game exits with GPF's and Terran.exe are apparently quite different (based on general observation)!! A message to others who claim that it works after waiting two minutes or more - during this period, when you ctrl-alt-del, does windows report that SMAC is "not responding"? If not, then your game hasn't been struck by the bug. If so, then it has (or I am wrong!!!). Personally I have had absolutely NO other problems with the game other than the one time I customized my world map size setting as 1,1 - it crashed the game with a terran.exe fault Perhaps Firaxis could fix up this slight logic error
Provost Hanse	posted 03-16-99 11:33 AM ET What I have seen is an unsynch occuring with supply crawlers (in multiplayer). The crawler moves, it synchs, and the crawler is in the previous space before it moved. The crawler moves again, it synchs, etc...
Conundrum	posted 03-16-99 11:55 AM ET Parabole, how do you take control of the problematic faction? Hopefully it's not done by using the Scenario Maker 'cause I don't want that "Cheat" word next to my score.
Parabole	posted 03-16-99 01:09 PM ET Gord McLead: No, I experienced this lock-up bug in single player games. It is possible that the circumstance causing it does not occur in every game, depending on what the computer players are doing. Dire: I do sincerely hope Firaxis fixed this, but I haven't seen any acknowledgement if this is the case. We'll know soon enough with v3.0. Like you, I've had no other problems with the game, and enjoyed it up to the point where the lock-up illness crept in... Conundrum: Sorry, I take control of a problematic faction using the Scenario Editor, which means "Cheating". That's why I stated: "That just isn't part of the gaming experience I was aiming for."
davewill	posted 03-18-99 04:01 PM ET Chalk me up as another person seeing the lockup in single-player. And it definitely seems to be the PeaceKeepers somehow -- both lockups I've seen have involved them. First lockup the screen was re-centered to my border with the PKs, as if I was going to be shown a moving unit, then _freeze._ Second time, I got an announcement the PKs had begun a new Secret Project. When I clicked OK, _freeze._ The second one is interesting in that you can watch the turn status being written to the message area (your energy per turn, resaerch time, etc.): the text will be appearing while the message box for the secret project is up, but you hit OK and the text immediately stops in mid-word. And a word for Jeffrey Morris of FIRAXIS -- I appreciate the offer to get past a lockup (seriously, I do; I've worked support issues myself and I appreciate the effort, many thanks), but it just isn't practical when the game is going to lockup again in a few turns. (My lockups have occurred five turns apart; I bypassed with the scenario editor as others have described. Few turns later, stuck again.) I definitely hope for some kind of fix to this problem, since I have been having a tremendous time so far with SMAC. Maybe I'll have to try the suggestion of playing as the PeaceKeepers; maybe I can get it a whole game that way.
Zoetrope	posted 03-19-99 04:14 AM ET Yes, in the particular game that I reported hanging, the PKs were the only faction that SMAC hung on, though I do stress the `particular game'. What I experienced was not an entirely hard lockup, because the mouse can still be moved around the screen. What does this suggest? (I don't understand it.) Windows (95a) is still reading the keyboard C-A-D. But SMAC goes very still and ceases to respond to either mouse or keyboard. It seems to occur when the PKs begins, because I don't get to see their movements on the map (though I have launched a satellite and normally do see them move units). Also, the problem occurs _every_ turn that I'm not controlling the PKs. Several players have indicated that this bug is new with version 2.0. Brian Reynolds has said that hangs and crashes that occur many turns into the game are very likely due to a bug that is fixed in version 3.0, which is due out soon. So we live in hope. However, in the course of experimenting with this problem, I've encountered other signs of instability and/or logic errors. SMAC sometimes gets fixed ideas about its options. When I control the PKs I'm playing hotseat, fine, but at a later stage it becomes difficult to get _out_ of hotseat mode! Furthermore, now that I've played some more games at Librarian and Thinker level, SMAC has recently gone through a phase whereby Start Game failed to produce the Faction Screen (no, this was never the Quick start), so I was stuck playing as Zakharov whether I wanted to, or not, and there was no option to change his name. A pity, as I like to label my Zakharov games AZak, BZak, CZak, and so on, in order to distinguish turns in one game from those in another. (When I get lots of savegames, I create a new folder and stash the last game's saves in there.) Now, if I owned SMAC's code, I'd get in there and scrutinise its logic with a finetooth comb, get rid of silly restrictions, like the prohibition on amphibious probe teams, which must clutter it. I'd reorganise it to ensure that messages agree with data, and that suggestions by the AI for units agree with what the unit window allows. And I'd do that by allowing every possible combination of chassis, weapon, armor, and special ability. If I thought it a good idea to restrict any aspect of gameplay, I'd put it in a customisation file, so that every single player or multiplay host can decide what restrictions should apply. That way, my code would be clean, and my customers would be `free to choose' (to steal Milton and Rose Friedman's phrase).