Party pool crash bug

Okay, everyone, I need some information here. Have you ever experienced crashes leaving the party pool after extensively removing and adding PCs?

I'm momentarily working on the crash when you access the party pool ingame with more than 5 PCs in the party. I managed to access the party pool without crash, but any removing lead to another CTD. Then I noticed that this problem is even the case at party generation at game start. So, to make a long story short, I managed to kill that one too, but I noticed a reproducable CTD when I repeatedly accessed the pool and removed/added PCs like crazy. And it seems to be a crash in some core draw stuff function (so it's a pain to trace and find).

To see if my changes brought about that crash, I set PC count back to 5 and tried it without my hack. And I ran into the same crash.
I'd really appreciate it if some of you could try the same. Start with PC counter 5, access party pool ingame and remove/add like a madman. Leave and enter the party pool while doing that. I don't really know what exactly causes it (number of changes,special PC combination or ...) so just keep trying for a while. And make sure you have enough PCs with party aligment, so you don't run out of exchange options.

Please, I'd love to have some feedback on this one.

 

hmmmmm they only time i ran into anything like this was when i used custom portraits that werent set properly. everytime id try to access a PC it would crash.

i started up a new party to try this. if i understand you correctly and its just a question of swaping PCs both at the creation area or in the game then i didnt encounter any problems i was able to swap PCs over and over with no crash sorry.

 

Well, I also never saw a crash at party creation. But then you cannot leave and enter party creation with the same party over and over again. For everyone else willing to try that out, only try it ingame.

It's a bit hard to explain how to get the crash: I just remove several PCs (preferably from the front, so the others have to "move up" in the slots. Then I add some again (not always to full party) and exit party pool. Then click on the book again, rinse and repeat. And after 20 or whatever times, I CTD on exiting party pool. And I just tried it again, it happens to me with the last published dll fix and PC counter set to default 5.

That brings me to another question lord_graywolfe: Do you have the latest dll installed?

 

@Spellslinger: Are you only using the default portraits during your efforts of swapping PC characters? If no, try adding and removing PC characters using the sign-in guest logs when you are using just the default portraits, only, and are not tinkering with having characters that use portraits from different portrait sets.

@Blue: Do you have any other advice for Spellslinger?

 

I don't even have the portrait packs installed. Did you test it and had no crash either? If enough people can do that without crashes, I'll just assume it's something on my end and release the fix to see if this works out ok, too.

 

I'll swap a bunch of PC characters tonight at home after work and let you know how it went.

btw - I only use the default portraits. I have never used the portraits pack, except to snag a copy of the latest ShiningTeds new voices from it.

[EDIT] Historically, with the PC Count set to 5 PC and 3 NPC characters as the size of a party where I removed the 5th PC character from a party and, then, added a new 5th PC character OR I had four or less PC characters in a party and added PC characters only up to a total of 5 PC characters and I did not exceed a total of 5 PC characters in a party, I have never experienced a CTD crash from removing or adding PC characters in a game session.

 

Doing this won't provoke a crash here either. Please read my test instructions above carefully.

 

yeah i have all the newest patches and upgrades

i went back and tried this again just in game. id go to the book take out 3 or 4 pcs replace them leave. go back to the book take out some more replace them leave and so on and so on. i was having no problems with it. i did finally get CTD when i finally removed the last original party pc from the group. as soon as i did that it went down. so seems like the game dosent want you doing complete replacements of the whole party.

just out of curiousity but why would you want to swap party memeber that much anyway?

 

It sounds to me like your new DLL hack has not fixed the issue.

 

That's good, at least I'm not all alone with that crash.
Ok, could you please provoke the crash again and post the error message you get for the crash?

As to why I would do such mad swapping? Because I have fixed the > 5 PCs crash on entering pool party and wanted to test it thoroughly. But as of now it seems that this crash is not caused by my fix, but was there all along. Just unnoticed because who in his right mind would swap so many PCs, right?

But even so, I'd like to have a few more test reports from other people, so get it on (Shiningted?!).

 

I'm not sure I understand you. The fix I'm working on right now enables you to actually access the party pool ingame when you have more than 5 PCs in your party (now it immediately crashes). And this it does, but I ran into a new problem (as described above) and now I have to find out if this crash is caused by my changes or was there all along. For now it seems that way, but only one additional report is not much to base that opinon on. I'm looking forward to your test when you get back home, krunch. Remember to do it ingame (that book in the inn) and swap a lot and chaotic.

 

It does not look favorable, that's all. (glass is half empty)

I'll test swapping PCs at both the Water Hostel in Nulb and also at the Welcome Wench Inn in Hommlet.

*grin* I'll rename my Temple.DLL as Temple_before.OLD.

 

I am not a programmer or developer. However, depending on what you are attempting to change for the number of PCs in an adventuring party when using a guest sign-in log and adding more PC characters to a total of more than the default number of PC characters, I was wondering if increasing the number of PC characters that can be in a party requires you also have to increase the total number of characters for a party, PCs + NPCs? In other words, is the limit of 8 total characters in a party something that needs to be increased, too, when the number of PCs for a party is increased via the guest sign-in log? Or, do you think there is a single number in the DLL relating to the number of PC characters in a party when using the guest sign-in log? What do you think?

 

The PC counter thing was done before my time, I didn't change anything there. The engine can overall handle different numbers of PCs without problems, the exception being party pool. For some reason the 5 slots there are hardcoded, but when filling/emptying those slots, the engine does not respect that limit of 5 but uses the actual PC count of the party (=> crash).

I'm a bit disappointed about the "crash test", but probably I'm just too impatient. Testing this really takes 10 minutes max. oke: Maybe the weekend brings in more results. oke:

 

Okay Spellslinger, I've tested it, and I too get the crash when I remove the last original member of the part, but only if I have never left the inn. I thought it might have something to do with that.

If you leave the inn and then return before you dismiss the last original member, it doesn't crash. I think the map change "embeds" the new PCs into the party, and that has to happen or you get the crash.