aj1
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 14
Registered: 07-08-2016
IP: Logged

Hello,

I hope your summer is going well!

I'm writing this post to request assistance with DROD - TCB. I am currently playing version 3.3.0.96 which I purchased from the Caravel website (last year, I think).

While I'm playing it, regardless of what room/level I'm in, the game just crashes randomly. I've read the forums and it seems most crashes occur while a player is inputting specific keys at specific times, but for me it's totally random. I'll be playing, then the game freezes, my laptop freezes, and my laptop makes a constant beep tone. Nothing works, so I'm forced to hold down the power key to manually shut down the laptop. This seems to happen every 5-10 minutes of gameplay, and does not depend on the room I am in. Also, there does not seem to be any .err file created (at least I cannot find one).

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Please let me know if there is any other information you require from me. Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

Warm regards,

AJ

PS: I tried to write this as an email to "bugs@caravelgames.com" but it could not be sent. I guess that email address is not longer active?

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[Last edited by aj1 at 08-12-2017 12:00 AM]

superluminal
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 75
Registered: 05-26-2016
IP: Logged

I can't help you with that bug (I'm not one of the developers), but I can direct you to DROD 5 and to the downloads page where you can patch it to 5.1.0.6505 for free. After some CaravelNet shenanigans, you should be able to import the TCB hold file and all your player progress into the DROD 5 executable.

Patch 5.1 should be more stable than 3.3. But there may be some underlying issue we need to address. I've never heard of a game crashing that much. In the meantime, someone else should come along and be able to help you better.

____________________________
spacelike

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[Last edited by superluminal at 08-12-2017 01:11 AM]

DezzTech
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 327
Registered: 03-31-2009
IP: Logged

OK, I'm not one of the developers either, but the way you describe the bug, it actually sounds like some kind of hardware problem with your laptop. Does this only happen while playing DROD? If so, then I assume it just so happens that at some point the game manages to execute some random code that triggers whatever the underlying hardware problem is.

Similarly to what superluminal suggested, I would recommend downloading the TSS demo version and playing it for a while. If you don't want to spoil the story, you can download one of the free holds available on this site and play that instead and see if the bug persists.

If it does, then, as a random guess in the dark, I would suggest checking the memory with MemTest86 (get the free version), because this sounds pretty similar to a problem I had on my laptop when it had broken RAM. I haven't used that program in ages, but IIRC, you just need to install it on a USB drive and let it run for a few hours overnight. If it does happen to be a memory problem, then you can just buy a replacement RAM stick, I'm pretty sure those are replaceable on laptops. Alternatively, if you're running linux, there is a way to just blacklist bad RAM regions. By the way, it probably would be helpful to list your hardware specs and the operating system you're running.

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aj1
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 14
Registered: 07-08-2016
IP: Logged

File: drod.err (403 bytes)
Downloaded 39 times.
License: Public Domain

Hey all, thanks for your replies.

So I had already purchased DROD-TSS alongside TCB, so I've tried playing on that. The version is 5.1.0.6512. I've successfully transferred my TCB save files and have been playing on it for a few days, and the frequency of crashes has decreased dramatically, although it is still happening (again, seemingly random, but now only once every 30-45 minutes instead of every 5-10 minutes, approximately).

Just to answer some of your questions: yes, this problem only happens while playing DROD. I started playing TCB last summer at around this time, and the crashes were still happening. I think that was one of the reasons I stopped playing it for so long.

The most current error/crash occurred again earlier today (~5hrs ago). I was playing for ~20 minutes, and it crashed. I took your advice, DezzTech, and downloaded MemTest86, put it onto a USB drive, and let it commence. It ran for 3h:47m but did not detect any errors in memory (48/48 tests were passed).

Also, here are my computer specifications, as requested:

System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
System Model: X551CAP
System Type: x64-based PC
OS Name: Microsoft Windows 8
OS Version: 6.2.9200 Build 9200

Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU 2117U 1.80 GHz, 2 processor cores
RAM: 8.00 GB
Graphics: Intel(R) HD Graphics (2 processor cores)
Gaming graphics: 1792 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk: 83 GB Free (279 GB Total)

Graphics (extra info?)
Display adapter type Intel(R) HD Graphics
Total available graphics memory: 1792 MB
Dedicated graphics memory: 32 MB
Dedicated system memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 1760 MB
Display adapter driver version: 9.17.10.3114
Primary monitor resolution: 1366x768
DirectX version: DirectX 11 or better

Can you think of anything else that may be causing this issue? Please feel free to ask more questions if you have any. And thank you all again for taking the time to help me with this!

Warm regards,

AJ

EDIT: So right after writing this post, I decide to play, open the game, load the room, and it crashed within seconds! What is going on lol.

EDIT#2: I was able to locate a .err file - my apologies for not finding it sooner. I've attached it to my post. It is rather old though, from Aug 24,2016, and it was in the "drod-3.0" folder. There is also a "drod-5.0" folder but there are no .err files present. Hopefully this will shed some light into these crashes.

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[Last edited by aj1 at 08-15-2017 04:51 AM]

DezzTech
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 327
Registered: 03-31-2009
IP: Logged

Okay, first of all, the error in your drod.err is completely harmless and is probably unrelated to the freezes you're getting. It just means that for some reason the game had failed to initialize sound. I had that happen to me quite often. Usually just restarting the game fixed it for me.

Also, I forgot to ask, did the crashes start the first time you started playing DROD: TCB, or were you able to play it without crashing before? If you've played any previous games in the series, did they crash too?

Let's start with the simplest to check guess: if you've played any previous DROD games and they didn't crash, it's possible that there's been some change to TCB that is causing the crashes. The obvious suspect would be the dynamic lightning. In DROD 5 you can turn it off by disabling Alpha Blending in the Settings, and while you're at it, turn the Environmental Effects slider all the way down for good measure, and see if this helps at all.

If it's still crashing, my second guess would be that your CPU is overheating. I don't remember what I had used on Windows for monitoring temperature, but Open Hardware Monitor looks good and I've seen some recommendations for HWMonitor (although the "Hall of Fame" part of that page horrifies me).
Just open it alongside DROD, and position the windows so that you can see both the CPU temperature and the game at the same time and start playing. Note the temperature your CPU reaches when the game crashes. If it's above 95C, then yea, that's probably the reason.

Another thing that might be worth doing is running Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool, I mean, it's made by Intel, for their own processors, and it even has yours in the supported list. I've never actually used this myself, since I don't even have an Intel processor, so you're on your own in figuring this thing out :P . The description on the site says that is has a stress test, that is probably what you want to do.

EDIT: Okay, I don't know how I managed to forget this, but it might be worth updating your GPU drivers, since Intel GPUs are infamous for being kinda bad. Sorry, I don't have time to find a link for this, but they should be somewhere on Intel's official site.

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[Last edited by DezzTech at 08-16-2017 06:31 PM]

aj1
Level: Roachling
Rank Points: 14
Registered: 07-08-2016
IP: Logged

Hello,

Thanks for your response. It has been so long since I played KDD or JtRH (and I have not yet played TSS) that I can't recall if these crashes were happening. But, just to see what would happen, I just played KDD for around 30 minutes trying to see if I could cause the crash to happen - I was just playing random rooms that looked interesting in the 'Restore' screen - and yes the game did crash finally on level 14-1E. I had just killed the tar mother and was destroying the tar to hit the orb, then it crashed. I checked and could not find any new .err files though.

Anyways, I tried disabling Alpha Blending and turned the Environmental Effects to a minimum, and it did seem to help. The crashes are still occurring though, just not as frequently as before.

But before I did this, I left all the settings the same and monitored the CPU temperature. I found that, regardless of whether the settings were left as usual or minimized, the temperature was at a constant ~65 degC (to compare, when I first turn my laptop on, the temperature is at ~58 degC). But it definitely did not go up to 95 degC.

I also tried the Intel Processor Tool, and it came up negative as well; every test had passed. I also looked into any GPU updates, and I think my laptop is all up to date with respect to that (I wasn't able to find any updates, that's why I believe it should be up to date).

Do you think it has to do with any other programs I have installed on my laptop? Are there other programs that would interfere with DROD's code execution? Also, I have never once done any of the Windows updates (who does those anyways lol) - maybe one of them would stop the crashes? The reason I don't do Windows updates is because something always stops working on my laptop (ex. keyboard shortcuts don't work, swipe feature on track pad stops working, etc), so I just stopped installing them. Or could it be my anti-virus program? I have Kaspersky Total Security but it has been expired for a while (active from Jan 1, 2016 - Jan 1, 2017). So even though it was active last summer, the crashes were still happening.

This is just so frustrating as I have to spend 5-10 minutes playing a room, then exit the whole program so it saves my progress, then open the program again to play, and continue in this fashion. If I play for too long and it crashes, then I just lose everything I've done and have to restart from when I exited the program last.

So yea, please let me know if you have ANY other ideas/theories - I'll definitely try them out. Thank you for your continued help!

Regards,

AJ

PS: On a more positive note, I've finished the storyline for TCB! I'm just trying to finish the hidden rooms now and they're going well. There aren't as many hidden rooms as in the previous two games.

EDIT: I thought I'd go back to KDD and try to re-create the crash I mentioned. I played the same level about 8-10 times, trying to play the same as I did when it crashed but I was unable to create it.

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[Last edited by aj1 at 08-22-2017 04:29 AM : I had an edit.]