Yet another crash problem

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by grufflehead, Jun 29, 2006.

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  1. grufflehead

    grufflehead Member

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    Hey all

    A bit late to the party but I just got ToEE ( I needed something to make my Amazon order up enough for free delivery...). Before I found this forum I installed and managed to play the game for a few hours. During that time, the game minimised itself to the taskbar several times. Eventually it just crashed out on me. I tried to restart and I got to the point on the loading screen where the progress bar is nearly complete (initialising something) and then it just crashed out. On one occasion it also really screwed up the PC temporarily - couldn't even shut down as I 'didn't have permission' to do it.

    I've read through the various messages of similar crashes and have re-installed according to the instructions - .net 2.0, game, patch 1, patch 2, toffee, toffee patch. Same thing happening, only this time it was when I saved a game. Try to restart and it just gets to the same point and crashes.

    I notice when it crashes a file called crash.log (plus the date and time) is generated but it's empty (0kb). Otherwise, at a loss. My PC isn't exacty new (a Dell Optiplex GX240) but still meets the specs. I'm running Win2000 Pro, graphics from a 32MB ATI Rage 128 Ultra, refresh rate is @75Hz. During install it said my Direct X was OK.

    One thing I did do was copy back in a saved game and some characters I'd made - could they be causing a problem?

    I really like the game but having to do a complete uninstall/reinstall every time I want to play is just a tad annoying, so any suggestions before I think about throwing it in the cupboard?
     
  2. Cerulean the Blue

    Cerulean the Blue Blue Meanie Veteran

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    Are you running any Symantec products, specifically Norton Antivirus? Norton's and ToEE do not get along and there is a long history of posts detailing exactly those sort of problems from people using Norton's.
     
  3. krunch

    krunch moving on in life

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    It sounds like you done some research on troubleshooting issues when installing and running the ToEE game. Good job, dude. [rewards w/ a cookie]

    I don't believe Norton would cause that issue [or any antivirus for that matter] because he said the game minimized to the taskbar several times before the game, finally, crashed. That indicates something is literally fighting against the game running or the game is trying to run and cannot win in either case.

    Let's get started. Print this out on paper and follow the instructions. Plan on a few hours to several hours for a slow, older computer to clean it up and make sure it is squared up.

    Close every program that is open and close any open windows, too, before proceeding.

    First, make sure the account you use to logon to the computer with is in the local administrator group for the computer and other things like...goodness, there's a lot to check, see below.

    - check the amount of available free disk space...should be at least 20 percent free space

    - Set the pagefile to be the amount of memory to be MIN: RAM+12 to MAX: 1.5*RAM for your older Windows PC running 2000 Pro.

    - check the desktop shortcut icon proerties and the actual game icon properties
    (1) "run in own memory space" is checkmarked [is selected, maybe is greyed out but that is okay];
    (2) "run as different user" checkbox is not checkmarked and the account logged on with is the account the game will use and is a local administrator on the computer;
    (3) the game is set to run in a maximized window; [not a minimized window]

    - delete the temp files and do a standard windows cleanup.
    (1) from run box, type %userprofile%\local settings\temp and press enter or click ok ... delete every file and folder that is possible to delete in the new window that opens [don't ask why, just do it];
    (2) from run box, type %userprofile%\local settings\temporary internet files and press enter or click ok ... delete every file you can delete in the new window that opens;
    (3) from run box, type %userprofile%\local settings\temporary internet files\content.ie5 and press enter or click ok ... delete every FOLDER and ALL of the files in all those subfolders ... it wont let you delete index.dat so delete all the files you can if there are files in that window after you delete all of the folders and their files [don't ask why, just do it];
    (4) from run box, type %userprofile%\UserData and press enter or click ok ... delete every subfolder and its files that is possible to delete in the new window that opens [don't ask why, just do it];
    (5) from run box, type c:\windows\temp and press enter or click ok ... delete every file and folder that is possible to delete in the new window that opens [don't ask why, just do it];
    * Your older computer could have 100s of MB or 1+ or more GBs of temp files and following the above will kill all of them.

    - reboot the computer

    - no viruses and spyware: Check your computer for viruses and spyware. Make sure it is clean, free of viruses. You are running Windows 2000 Pro, so you can run any new 2006 version of antivirus, update it and run a FULL scan to check every file that is possible.
    * If you do not have a 2006 version of antivirus and cannot afford to buy a 2006 version, download a trial 2006 version of antivirus, install+update+FULL scan. You can always uninstall it and delete the remaining program folder afterwards.

    - reboot the computer

    - run disk defragmenter Start|Programs|Accessories|System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

    - reboot the computer

    - Check the service pack level of your computer. If it is not Service Pack 4, guess what? Download from microsoft.com its install package, do not use windowsupdate ... apply SP4 for Windows 2000 Professional. I would suggest the FULL Network version download, but that is like 128 MBs. If you do not have a cable modem or DSL, you can download and install the express version, instead.

    - reboot the computer

    Your computer will adore you for cleaning it up and will run better in general. However, after following every step [no cutting corners] let me know if that helped the ToEE game situation.
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2006
  4. Cerulean the Blue

    Cerulean the Blue Blue Meanie Veteran

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    And yet, these are the exact symptoms I was experiencing, which were remedied by removing Norton's.
     
  5. Allyx

    Allyx Master Crafter Global Moderator Supporter

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    I have Norton antivirus and firewall 2005 patched upto date, and have never had any major problems with ToEE with it, I had problems trying to get Norton to update a few months ago but that's a whole different story.
     
  6. krunch

    krunch moving on in life

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    I run Norton Antivirus 2006 on Windows 2000 Pro and have no problems with Norton. I also run about 5 other security type programs loaded in RAM memory and the systray, too.

    I believe Cerulean the Blue is referring to an older Norton Antivirus like the 2002 version running on Windows 98 or 98 SE. I cannot state what happens with running ToEE and Norton Antivirus 2003 and older versions of Norton.

    I would also suggest that Norton SystemWorks is or can be bad hoodoo, especially considering older versions, and should be avoided like the plague.
     
  7. grufflehead

    grufflehead Member

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    Hey folks

    Thanks for the kind words and suggestions, especially krunch - must have taken a while to type that out so I'm doing my best to follow it through, although I'm afraid I'm not the world's most computer literate individual so I hope I haven't made any glaring errors! And luckily for me, the only reason I got the game at all (making up that Amazon order) was because I have just been reconnected to the big bad WWW at home after about 18 months of only getting access at the office and had picked up some anti-virus software. At least now I have a way to access help as games sites are banned at work and ToEE would DEFINITELY have been consigned to the drawer by now......

    So, here I am sat with krunch's instruction list going through it. I kinda got ahead of myself and ran defrag first but hopefully that's not going to be a problem. I inherited the PC from the office so it was checked over by the IT guys before I got it. I don't have the OS discs so anything as drastic as a complete re-install isn't really an option.In case it's of any use to anyone in future, a quick bit of info to answer some of the things in the to do list:

    - it's got 512MB of memory, with the pagefile set to 768MB initial and 1536 max

    - I'm pretty sure I've got SP4 as there's an option to uninstall Update Roolup 1 for Win 2000 SP4 in the Add/Remove Programs list

    - the HD is 80GB, partitioned into 2 x 40GB. The partition I'd be installing on is now defragged and has about 25GB free

    - I have installed Bullguard ver 5.0 anti-virus/firewall, Ad-aware SE and SpyBot S&D. Spybot has found and fixed 16 things and I'm going to update Ad-aware and run it. Bullguard updates every time I connect but will take a while to scan through the machine. I'm fairly certain I'm clear of viruses given that I've only been online for a few days and been pretty careful but will run it anyway.

    One thing that did strike me was that Spybot seemed to be behaving a bit oddly so I uninstalled and re-installed a clean version. The interface is slightly different to what I recall and the first time I opted to go for the install that monitored registry changes. I wonder if something was corrupt in the install and caused a conflict as the screen graphics didn't look right and I'm fairly sure it was misbehaving on the occasion I mentioned when I couldn't shut down properly.

    - I'm afraid my lack of savvy meant I couldn't quite get the bit about %userprofile% etc in the run box, so I went in and deleted the folders/files through Explorer. I logon as Administrator, and there are no other accounts on the machine so there were no UserData folders. Also it's c:\WINNT\temp I've got and it only had about 10 files, all of which I have deleted

    - I've also deleted ToEE and the Co8 mods for now, and will do a complete re-install as per instructions after I've scanned and rebooted. Once that's done I can check the properties to see what the running options are set to

    I guess I won't know if I'm successful until/unless the crash happens again after I've done all that so it might be a couple of days until I post again. If anything I've said above is setting alarm bells ringing, please let me know. As a more general issue, as I won't be online while I'm playing, if there is any chance that the virus checker is doing something, is there any harm in disabling it/Spybot S&D while I play?

    Cheers again
     
  8. krunch

    krunch moving on in life

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    That's okay, is not a problem.
    Windows 2000 and XP does that in a default install as oversimplistic settings for the pagefile to keep it simple, but it is not optimized. I recommend your computer be set to have these settings.
    use MIN: RAM+12 and MAX: RAM*2 [= 524 MB and 1024 MB] -=- try RAM*2 for MAX, instead
    Yah, to have UR1 installed, you must have SP4 installed prior...That's awesome, dude!..You are one of the few people I have known to own a PC computer at home with W2K Pro and have both SP4 and UR1 installed. That's great!
    Hmm - You can disable the spybot search & destroy registry monitoring piece before you do an install of any software you know is valid. When you install SpybotSD, do a basic install of SpybotSD.
    * Most people do [or in other words, the average computer user does] not need or are not able to properly set or change its advanced features [have too many questions and do not know what settings do what].

    !!! By all means, please, it would be advantageous to disable [right-click the systray icon and select exit] for antivirus + antispyware + registry monitoring tools before installing ToEE and before running the ToEE game.
    * Just remember to reboot before connecting to the Internet [is the easiest method] to re-enable those applications.
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2006
  9. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    :poke:

    I used Norton Antivirus 2004, and ToEE didn't start working in XP til I took it out. It still doesn't shut down properly, so I use the sturdier Win98.
     
  10. grufflehead

    grufflehead Member

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    Well, I'm always wary about tempting fate, but it appears I may have a working game - woohoo!

    After following krunch's instructions (I checked off the last few things on the list that I hadn't looked at before) I started up a new game last night about 11PM. I even managed to reload one of my previous saved games so I didn't have to go running around Hommlet again.

    Before I started, I disabled both Spybot and my virus checker, and I can report that by the time I thought it was probably a good time to stop (at 4AM having just levelled up to 3, somewhere in the lower levels of the moathouse) I hadn't had a single crash, not even a 'minimise to taskbar' moment. It may sound strange but I could almost sense something was better when I started the game, nothing tangible just little things that I had got used to during the crashing weren't happening so I was hopeful I might have been making progress.

    So, I feel duty bound to test it a bit further today :biggergri

    I'll keep a couple of chickens by rather than count them all now, but here's hoping I'm good to go. Could it have been as simple as disabling the anti-virus from the start? Regardless, I owe all the contributors to the thread a big vote of thanks, especially krunch :notworthy

    Now, has anyone got any suggestions on how not to get my ass kicked by the monsters ;)
     
  11. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    Hire Elmo.
     
  12. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    I've used NAV 2002 on my XP machine with ToEE from the get-go and have been completely error-free all along. So there! What's the score now, 2 to 2?

    It seems that despite any malice we may or may not have toward Norton, we simply cannot attribute ToEE related woes solely to it.
     
  13. Zebedee

    Zebedee Veteran Member Veteran

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    3:2 for those feel Norton can often be the root of the problem. ;)

    It really can effect on the game. But it isn't consistent. Sometimes you can run without any problems, other times you can tear your hair out trying to figure out why things are screwing up and then you switch off Norton...

    At least that has been my experience. :confused:
     
  14. grufflehead

    grufflehead Member

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    Done! ;)

    Now, where was that giant......
     
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