Four turns after getting the missing graphs and mini-view bug I got the "missing planet list" bug.

My game randomly crashes into the desktop after the new stand-alone patch. Everytime I press CTRL + N to generate a new galaxy, it crashes into the desktop as well. I have to save my game every 5 minutes in order to be able to go back in case it crashes, and it's really annoying me. Please help!

On the diplomacy screen the I league has no report, it just says "String not found".

Lucky, definitely sounds like an overflow problem somewhere and not the game code per se. Both of us experienced the same thing and both with really hugely developed gigantic map civs. I played 1.02.049 for about 25 hours without that problem, and I've played it today for about 5 hours with no problem, so it's almost certainly some data overflow corrupting other game data. Our systems are pretty different too (P4-2.4, WinXP, GeForce Ti-4200), the Geforce is about the only thing in common and I just don't think a hardware bug is going to wait 25 hours to show up on a screen display that is seen literally thousands of times during a long game session.

Somewhere in there is probably an array that either isn't expanding when it needs to or isn't set to expand, and whenever the data that array handles passes a certain point the data leaks over into whatever code/data is place after that array in memory. Result: bizarre crashes and weird display glitches.

Vorlin,

You sound like a programmer (I am a retired one). Cari and I discussed these possibilities, so I know she was looking for them, but I think it was hard to figure out just what table or array might have been the problem. Since reloading seems to resolve the problem (at least for a few turns) the thought that a table or array is involved certainly has merit, since tables tend to get rebuilt from scratch on a reload, sometimes with some optimization to boot. I now know of a third person that has seen at least one of these two problems, so we may be getting closer to a failure that will point right at it. In a way, I hope it happens soon.

Vorlin,

I just reread one of your earlier posts, so I checked my current population and it is 2,185.6 Billion.

Also, I was just chatting with Midnight Louie and he says he has seen one of these two problems once now, on WinXP, so I no longer have any suspicions along OS lines. (Of course, there is always DirectX, but I saw this failing on versions 8.0, 8.1, and 9.0.)

"Mike mentioned that the +50% hitpoint bonus wasn't working right when they restarted their game (ships restarted with normal hps, then on next turn the bonus kicked in resulting in damaged ships effectively), I did a save-then-load with that bonus and it worked fine (ships came back at full health with bonus hps counted), but I didn't try exitting GalCiv entirely and restarting it. Or perhaps some other factor was involved in the problem? Mike, how long had the game in question run when you noticed it? Had you ever lost control of the Senate in that game and then regained it? Some people seem to feel that process has some flakiness about it."

I was maybe about 7 hours into a game on a medium sized map. And had just started the game back up after being completely exited from the game. I had lost the senate a couple of times during that game, but when the bug happened my War Party had been in control long enough that the ships were all fully repaired with their HP bonus when I had previously saved.

It ended up happening twice around the same point in that game, but later in that same game I was able to load it up with out it happening. So, maybe it was just an obscure bug that popped up. :notsure:

I replicated the InfoWar problem (two posts above) in another game - it seems to happen consistently.

I attacked with 3.99B marines against 25.44B people, with 10-4 estimated odds. I used the info war option and ended up with 8.44B vs. 20.99B at 14-4 odds; I won with 2.44B people left over. However, on leaving the invasion screen, the system reported 4294965.29B people; there were two inhabited worlds, each showing 214748 people. (On a separate try with a one planet system the system showed a similar number while the planet showed -805 people.) Again, on the next turn the error checking "corrected" each planet to 100000B people.


~SDC~

Lucky, I think then that it must be number of colonized planets that is doing it. I had far more people than you so if it was population alone I would have seen the problem probably 100-200 turns or more before I did. It's not fleet size because when I pushed the envelope I did so by having all my settled systems colonize any world in the system that was between 10 and 14 in PQ, but elsewhere my empire was quiet (the giant constructor fleets were long gone, and I had only 1 ship per system on defense). So I'm thinking at this point it is something to do with the sheer number of colonized worlds overloading something. (Yeah, I used to program, a long time ago on the Amiga, which I guess makes me retired too *grin*).

Feargus, someone submitted a post on the main forum who had almost exactly the same problem you described (massive population left after an infowar invasion).

Mike, nothing like a bug that's nasty yet not repeatable, huh? *comfort* There is a difference between reloading and fully restarting GalCiv, I know that because when I reload a game the Tech research list is still sorted by turns it takes to finish researching (which is where I keep it when I play), but if I exit and reload the same game it will be back to the default sort listing by name.

This could be by design and not a bug, per se. Formerly, one of my strategies would be to build up my warships and head over to my enemy (before he realized he was my enemy) and trade for all of his transports. Since the 1.02.49 update, I can offer planets for transports and no one will trade them away (unless I offer 2 or 3 planets). Is this on purpose?

~SDC~

I hope so. I read quite a few reports of people trading for transports and then declaring war with the transports *right there* set to invade.

~SDC~

Okay here's a bug (I'm pretty sure in version 1.02+) I'm updated to the latest via stardock.

In a nutshell; warships (most specifically dreadnaughts) lose their build quality bonus after exiting the game and reloading the position. For example. A decent dreadnaught from sol (with lots of build quality upgrades ... spaceyard, quality control, etc etc) leaves the dock at attack 32 defense 20. or so. You can have lots of these elite build warships in service and active, but when you exit the game and reload they are reduced in stats to the quality level of default warships ... (perhaps attack 24, defense 14) for your race. All new built warships are correctly rated of course, its just a problem for ships in service.

I wonder if its somehow related to the earlier culture level bug ?

Regards

AndyC


~SDC~

After 4/15 update, I have 100% crash bug after I load a game saved before 4/15 and push the turn button but not for the game saved after update. In addition, if I try to load any saved game during playing, it crash. I re-installed the game but no luck.

P4 2.4G/512M SDRAM
Windows XP
64MB NVIDIA GeForce4

Some cheese when UP votes not to attach freighters as in http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GS&id=39563

by Citizen Cataleptic:

"Could be stopped by simply ignoring freighters in a stack when attacking. Ignore frieghters (and other zero-attack ships) when invading a planet."

Vorlin,

You are right. A reload is different from an exit and restart. And I generally exit and restart instead of reload. I will have to try a reload next time I see either of these bugs.

I'd like to confirm the bug when quiting and reloading causes existing dreds to loose planet bonuses

In reading this thread I have noticed several people have been crashing to desktop when the UP convenes for the first time. I had this problem as well, but found that it was the labor unrest mod I had downloaded that was causing the problem. When I deleted this file, the problem was solved. I know this isn't a bug report post, but enough people seem to have this problem that I thought this might help.

Bugged Scroll Bars - Diplomacy Screen:

In the diplomatic negotiations screen, only four items are displayed at a time. Let's suppose you have a list as follows:

Tech 1 (hidden)
Tech 2 (hidden)
Tech 3 (visible)
Tech 4 (visible)
Tech 5 (visible)
Tech 6 (visible)
Tech 7 (hidden)
Tech 8 (hidden)

Now suppose you select two of the visible techs, #3 & #4 for trade, so we arrive at:

Tech 1 (hidden)
Tech 2 (hidden)
Tech 5 (visible)
Tech 6 (visible)
Tech 7 (visible)
Tech 8 (visible)

Since the last tech on the list has been brought into view, the game mistakenly believes all techs are shown and removes the scroll bar, therefore barring access to tech #1 and #2, making it very difficult to swap items and bargain. I believe this bug may apply to trade goods, star systems, and ships as well.

Bugged Scroll Bars - Governor Build List:

The scroll bar that automatically appears when a governor's build queue gets too long has some serious problems. The game has trouble matching the items you think you are selecting and what is actually being selected when the build queue. While you may think you have selected a Harmony Generator for example, if you actually click on the Priority Up/Down buttons, you may discover that it is the Stock Market which is being moved.

Correction: The game has trouble matching the items you think you are selecting and what is actually being selected when the build queue "is in its scrolled state".

I finally got that huge game of mine to work without crashing. What I did was greatly lower my tax and expense levels, and instead of 100% social I split the values between social and military production. Somewhere in those changes the fix happened, because I then proceeded to play the game through with no problems whatsoever (60-80 more turns at least). So it's not the number of planets settled (217 or so) that was causing it.

The Metaverse still wouldn't take the game even though this one was uncorrupted and have correct game info when sent (i.e. game at Normal with all AI civs at Normal). Is this a result of 'error' checking by the Metaverse code to determine if a game is legit? If so, it is set too low, as my game was legit. 6900 billion people, 217 planets colonize, those are the two variables that stand out as large enough that the Metaverse might think something was fishy. If it was clipped by 'error' checking please fix this, noone should have one of the best games rejected because of bad error checking.

I am suddenly getting crashes - is ther a way to submit the game at the point the crash occurs?

My game crashes consistently at a certain point when I get the new election screen - as soon as I press the "vote" button (or whatever it is to cause the election to take place, the game immediatelt crashes and I'm back at the desktop.

Windows XP, 1.9 Mhz Athlon processor, 256 MB RAM, umpteen GB disk

I've found a game-killing bug (unfortunately).

In my current game (latest patch) I have apparently encountered a bug that causes my planets to lose their ability to build military projects.

I have 2 colonized planets in the Sol system (Earth being 1). One of the colonies finished a corvette, and I was automatically taken to the project screen to choose the new project, as usual. But there was no corvette or anything else already in the build que as there is supposed to be. It was empty. I could click on ships listed, but they would not appear in the space below that shows what is being built. No matter what I click on, it remains emptly.

I can still build social projects just fine.

I've tried saving and reloading and the problem remains. I kept on playing for a while hoping it would go away, but the problem spread to Earth! Now Earth cannot build military projects either.

There's really no way I can win the game now (I only have 4 planets). I'll send in the save game if need be. I hope this gets fixed in the next patch.

I had one bug where an economic resource turned into a science resource after save/open. The starbase was nerfed down too.