Random crashes

[nicolasville 2]

Hi,

I'm having some very annoying crashing problems on SimCity 4. These crashes happen at random times, but only when I attempt to terraform or build something at a certain location repeatedly. For example, I would open a city and try to terraform a mountain, but the game would crash right when I would start to form the mountain. Another time, each time my city would load, the reconcile edges box would pop up; I would choose to reconcile, and the game would crash. I did this a couple times and the same thing would happen each time. Also, after an hour or so on a certain city, the game would inexplicably crash without warning. I noticed later that a folder had been created in the SimCity folder in documents called "Exemption reports" and they all were made at specific times when the game crashed. Could it be the plugins I have? I have installed many plugins, like NAM, Columbus terrain mod, a water mod, and countless BAT's. I run a Windows 7 with 4GB of DDR2 RAM and a dual core 2.7GHZ processor, and the game runs flawlessly until it crashes.

Thanks in advance

[Mikeaut1 261]

I still deal with the game crashing every so often. Its a real pain too because I try to save the game every few minutes and in the unlikely event that I do forget to save, the game does end up crashing and I lose a ton of work.

I think what it comes down to is all the different plugins. I've noticed that when I'm working on a city or region and I have a lot of plugins installed, some .dat files tend to conflict and lead to the game crashing. Because of all the custom content we are able to get in the community, I think there is no way around the issue. This is a really interesting topic that I'm trying to get answers too as well, hopefully someone has a definitive answer for repeated crashes. According to your post and the amount of plugins you have installed as well, it could be one of the roots to the problem.

Some recent releases especially on SC4D have a Cleanitol file that helps to remove duplicate plugins in your Plugins folder. Maybe try downloading Cleanitol and running some test scans to see if you have duplicate plugins.

[nicolasville 2]

Yeah, I've downloaded cleanitol, and it hasn't really helped the crashes. I guess it is the plugins making the game unstable.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

All very interesting but please let us have some facts about your environment.

Please describe your machine:

What CPU do you have?

How much RAM?

How much swap space?

What GPU?

What operating system and patch level?

What version of your game do you have, and what is its build (patch) level?

We might find something here that will unlock your problem, but we can't guess at it.

[nicolasville 2]

All very interesting but please let us have some facts about your environment.

Please describe your machine:

What CPU do you have?

How much RAM?

How much swap space?

What GPU?

What operating system and patch level?

What version of your game do you have, and what is its build (patch) level?

We might find something here that will unlock your problem, but we can't guess at it.

Well, I have an

• Intel Pentium E5400 Dual-Core 2.7 GHZ CPU
• 4 GB DDR2 RAM
• I believe I have 3839 MB of virtual memory
• NVIDIA GeForce 7050 with 256 MB of dedicated memory and 1919 MB of total available memory
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (not sure about patch level)
• SimCity 4 Deluxe, and I patched everything recommended including the EP1 update and the SC4 BAT update.

[nicolasville 2]

Exception time: 04/06/2011, at 11:27:46.

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.

Current thread ID: 2284 (0x000008ec).

Version information:

Application/module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe

Application/module version name: SimCity 4

Application/module version: 1.1.640.0

System version: Windows NT 6.1

System memory: 3840 Megabytes total, 2528 Megabytes free.

Exception module: C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe.

Exception address: 0x006b10bc. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x002aa0bc.

By the way, here's a copy of an "exception report" from a crash. Sorry about the length.

  Edited April 8, 2011 by CaptCity  
Removed portion of Exception Report

[CaptCity 4,695]

I'm having some very annoying crashing problems on SimCity 4. These crashes happen at random times, but only when I attempt to terraform or build something at a certain location repeatedly. For example, I would open a city and try to terraform a mountain, but the game would crash right when I would start to form the mountain. Another time, each time my city would load, the reconcile edges box would pop up; I would choose to reconcile, and the game would crash. I did this a couple times and the same thing would happen each time.

Is this a brand new city that has never been used before? These types of crashes are sometimes caused by having planted trees using custom tree mods then removing the mod from the plugins without demolishing the trees first.

Also, after an hour or so on a certain city, the game would inexplicably crash without warning... Could it be the plugins I have? I have installed many plugins, like NAM, Columbus terrain mod...

Incorrectly installing or uninstalling terrain mods can cause crashes (but usually right away, not after running the city a while). Has this particular city functioned okay in the past with the Columbus Terrain mod? If so, have you tried to use another terrain mod recently? Or maybe related to the first issue with the trees.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Oh, please, please, don't post those ever bedratted exception reports. We need at most the first 10 lines of such a report, and after that the rest is garbage because we don't have a load map of the program, nor an analyzer program for it.

From those first lines, I read the following:

The crash was caused by deferencing (trying to use) a pointer that was set to zero. This is common in the game. More frequent if you run at cheetah speed.

You are running a fully updated copy of Deluxe on Windows 7 (NT6.1), and you have about 6GB of available memory space of which about half is used.

The rest is silence.

Some common causes of CTDs are:

1. Touching a transit enabled lot with a cursor loaded with a puzzle piece.
2. Doing a save then switching focus away from the game (May also corrupt the city's snapshot on the region or corrupt the city)
3. Running too long without an intermediate save (CTRL+S) on a machine that wants to multi-process the program.
4. Issuing too many commands. For example, zooming with the mouse from all the way out to all the way in. This may cause a stack overload and a zero pointer. Running in cheetah mode for too long can sometimes provoke this, too.
5. Scrolling too quickly.

This list is not comprehensive. There may be problems with your GPU settings which should all be set to "program selected"

The best thing I have found to avoid this, is to do an in-game save after you have done something you would rather not want to do over. Saving seems to reset some of the conditions. Also, when working with puzzle pieces, work on the highest zoom so you can see clearly what you are doing, and save frequently.

  Edited April 7, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[nicolasville 2]

Capt City - I used to have a PEG pine tree mod that I uninstalled to be able to use the Columbus Terrain Mod, but the default god mode trees are converted in that mod, so there shouldn't have been any problem. When I removed the pine tree mod, the trees just converted back to the default god mode trees. The Columbus Terrain Mod has been running fine, so I don't think I messed up the installation on it; and i also used to have a snowcap mod, but, again, I removed it in order to install the Columbus Terrain mod. Thanks for the ideas though.

A Nonny Moose - Haha sorry about that, I won't do that again, that's for sure. About the CTD's, I do tend to be a fast player and I like to make lots of changes quickly, and I run on cheetah speed a lot; so I will take your advice and slow down my game a bit. I'll also try saving more frequently. Thanks for the kind help.

[CaptCity 4,695]

I used to have a PEG pine tree mod that I uninstalled to be able to use the Columbus Terrain Mod, but the default god mode trees are converted in that mod, so there shouldn't have been any problem. When I removed the pine tree mod, the trees just converted back to the default god mode trees.

Hmmm... I seem to remember another discussion a while back where another member made a change from PEG's Pine Tree mod to one of Cycledogg's mods without deleting the trees and was experiencing the same issue with the crashing tiles while altering terrain. I don't remember if that was the specific cause, but I know it was brought up. Just a thought...

[Mikeaut1 261]

The best thing I have found to avoid this, is to do an in-game save after you have done something you would rather not want to do over. Saving seems to reset some of the conditions. Also, when working with puzzle pieces, work on the highest zoom so you can see clearly what you are doing, and save frequently.

A Nonny Moose - Haha sorry about that, I won't do that again, that's for sure. About the CTD's, I do tend to be a fast player and I like to make lots of changes quickly, and I run on cheetah speed a lot; so I will take your advice and slow down my game a bit. I'll also try saving more frequently. Thanks for the kind help.

I've found that I play the game pretty fast paced as well... always on cheetah speed and always scrolling pretty fast. I'll take these words of advice for my game as well. Thank you!