Game Crash.

[Alfredo18 3]

Welcome to the club.

CTD's usually are caused by a dereferenced zero pointer, which means nothing if you are not a programmer. However, we can find out a lot if, in your next reply, you will also post the first twenty (only) lines of your latest exception report (there is an Exception Reports folder).

can you tell me what this means?

Exception time: 06/23/2011, at 00:49:59.

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.

Current thread ID: 13244 (0x000033bc).

Version information:

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

Application/module version name: SimCity 4

Application/module version: 1.1.638.0

System version: Windows NT 6.1

System memory: 3836 Megabytes total, 1860 Megabytes free.

Exception module: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll.

Exception address: 0x77df3dec. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x00023dec.

Registers

EAX: 0000006e

EBX: 00000001

ECX: 000033bc

EDX: 0292bc00

ESI: 00000066

EDI: 030a7318

CS:EIP: 0023:77df3dec

SS:ESP: 002b:0018fd30 EBP:0018fd64

DS:002b ES:002b FS:0053 GS:002b

Flags: 00010246

Edit: Split topic to avoid confusion. -CaptCity

  Edited June 24, 2011 by CaptCity  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Welcome to the club.

CTD's usually are caused by a dereferenced zero pointer, which means nothing if you are not a programmer. However, we can find out a lot if, in your next reply, you will also post the first twenty (only) lines of your latest exception report (there is an Exception Reports folder).

can you tell me what this means?

Exception time: 06/23/2011, at 00:49:59.

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION. Tried to use a zero pointer (illegal)

Current thread ID: 13244 (0x000033bc).

Version information:

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

Application/module version name: SimCity 4

Application/module version: 1.1.638.0 Valid version without the BAT nightlights update.

System version: Windows NT 6.1 Windown 7

System memory: 3836 Megabytes total, 1860 Megabytes free. 4GB - ample memory

Exception module: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll. This module was probably trying to return from being called but the address was zero.

Exception address: 0x77df3dec. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x00023dec.

Registers

EAX: 0000006e

EBX: 00000001

ECX: 000033bc

EDX: 0292bc00

ESI: 00000066

EDI: 030a7318

CS:EIP: 0023:77df3dec

SS:ESP: 002b:0018fd30 EBP:0018fd64

DS:002b ES:002b FS:0053 GS:002b

Flags: 00010246

Since we don't have the load map nor the source, the rest is garbage. However, this is a pretty standard occurrence with this old legacy program that is full of known bugs.

What were you doing at the time it crashed? There are several problems and you have invoked one of them, but you need to let us know what you were doing when it happened.

Our general recommendation when running is to use the in-game save CTRL+s frequently. This is especially important when using puzzle pieces.

I suggest you update to level 640 by adding the BATupdate to allow BAT lots to display night lights.

Since this thread is about someone else's problem, in future please start your own topic to save confusion.

[Alfredo18 3]

Ok I'm having an issue with the bat nightime fix thing and i remember now why i didn't get it installed previously. it says "missing or invalid registry/INI entry", have you heard of this error before?

I'm pretty sure when the crash occurred it was a zoom error, which i know is common.

However, I've also gotten crashes when I'm placing trees, clicking on a park icon, and sometimes just plain randomly. next time that happens ill post the code for the exception.

It seems weird to me that I didn't have a single crash on my old windows XP with 1 GB RAM, but I get crashes fairly frequently on this machine.

  Edited June 24, 2011 by Alfredo18  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Have you been editing or cleaning up your registry? Sounds like it might have been clobbered.

To express an opinion on your machine difficulties, we need a full description of your machine. We know about your game, but we don't know about your box of tricks. Please mention your CPU(s), GPU(s), RAM, Virtual Space (swap file size) and estimate the size of your plugin load.

[Alfredo18 3]

haha i dont even know what the registry is to mess with it. A while back i downloaded the updated 1.638 version then tried to download the BAT nightlights and it didnt work then as it doesnt work now.

my machine:

HP Pavilion Dv7 Laptop

Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit

4 GB RAM

AMD Phenom II N830 Tri-core, 2.1 GHz processor

ATI Radeon 1 GB graphics card

and i dont know what swap file is?

as far as plugins i have a decently hefty amount: many random BATs (mostly commercial things), The NAM, SAM, NWM, RHW, SPAM, RTMT, I got all CAM packages (but havent downloaded dependencies yet because i'm lazy and I know they'll slow down a lot), i have several random texture things and a few texture packs and only 2 major prop packs, a terrain and coastal mod, a transportation map fix, a tree mod, irregular beaches and a tree mod.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Your hardware sounds fine as long as you are not crashing on a temperature alarm. SC4 tends to drive a processor at 100% which may cause overheats on a small enclosure like a lap top.

Your swap file is somewhere in the windows residency with an extension of .swp, but this is not the issue. With a dual core processor you should probably set it fixed at 4GB (2GB per cpu) as insurance. To do this, right click on My Computer and follow the Advanced tabs until you find it. Then set the minimum and maximum size to 4095, and uncheck the box that lets windows manage it. Close all tabs and boot.

There is a technique for making your swap space one single extent file, but that needs more familiarity with the O/S than I currently have since the last time I ran windows was on XP.

I hope you do disk maintenance regularly. You should run Disk Cleanup and the Defragmentation program at least weekly to keep your disk space healthy. If you've never done it, schedule each of these for an overnight run. You can find them by clicking on the disk drive icon in the My Computer display. Don't expect to sit and watch these. It is like watching paint dry.

Apparently Windows 8 will have some automatic features for this.

Meanwhile, if you have not implemented the CAM, be sure you run the Cleanitol list for it when you are ready. It will remove conflicts. Do not load the CAM traffic controller as it conflicts with the NAM. Good luck and save often.

  Edited June 27, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Alfredo18 3]

Exception time: 08/14/2011, at 12:12:38.

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.

Current thread ID: 22392 (0x00005778).

Version information:

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

Application/module version name: SimCity 4

Application/module version: 1.1.638.0

System version: Windows NT 6.1

System memory: 3836 Megabytes total, 1148 Megabytes free.

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

Exception address: 0x0096d918. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x00566918.

I got this game crash and exception report just from clicking on the scenery button on the UI, can you tell me what it means? I have been getting a ton of click crashes lately.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

That is a pretty standard crash report caused by dereferencing a zero pointer which is a known bug in the game. If often occurs when the game has been running for a while and there is a burst of commands caused by rapid scrolling, panning, or too many mouse clicks.

To get a better handle on this, we need a description of your machine. The easiest way to get this is to run the DirectX diagnostic and to post a snapshot of the first page.

Open your run box and type in dxdiag then press enter. Snapshot and post this page, please.

Also, was anything else running when this happened?

[Alfredo18 3]

I dont know what was open at the time, i usually exit out of skype, steam, and chrome while im playing to maximize performance.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I dont know what was open at the time, i usually exit out of skype, steam, and chrome while im playing to maximize performance.

OK, well that shows a generally healthy system. windows 7 runs this game without problems but does get crashes of this type randomly. I suspect it is due to the fact that all system now use virtual memory paging which wasn't the case when the game was released. The only band-aid that I am aware of is to save often (CTRL+s). I get crashes on my system, and I am not running windows.

[jacksunny 741]

You could also try entering one or both of the following lines of code at the end of your SC4 shortcut target:

-CPUCount:1

-EH:off

[Alfredo18 3]

You could also try entering one or both of the following lines of code at the end of your SC4 shortcut target:

-CPUCount:1

-EH:off

What will those do? just increase stability?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You could also try entering one or both of the following lines of code at the end of your SC4 shortcut target:

-CPUCount:1

-EH:off

What will those do? just increase stability?

In a multiple processor situation, the first confines the game to one processor core only.

The second one turns off internal exception handling, and may or may not help. Exceptions will be handled by the operating system instead of having them handed back to the program.

Some people on some versions of windows have found this useful. I am on Linux with wine, and it doesn't do anything for me.

[TomHood 0]

Can you tell me what this means?

Exception time: 10/01/2011, at 16:30:19.

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.

Current thread ID: 3848 (0x00000f08).

Version information:

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

Application/module version name: SimCity 4

Application/module version: 1.1.641.0

System version: Windows NT 6.1

System memory: 2048 Megabytes total, 1820 Megabytes free.

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

Exception address: 0x006b126c. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x002aa26c.

Registers

EAX: 00002023

EBX: 00000000

ECX: 4b4000e9

EDX: 000000db

ESI: 3add74ec

EDI: 3b48d814

CS:EIP: 001b:006b126c

SS:ESP: 0023:0012fbec EBP:11dac5a4

DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003b GS:0000

Flags: 00210246

The game crashes only in some cities and always when i try to build on a slope. this happens in god mode building mountains and in mayor mode, for example laying roads.

It occurs (so far) only in already established cities (3 out of dozens). I figured it had something to do with my plugins (terrain or slope-related), but removing, replacing and altering them hasn't resulted in the game not crashing when I lay a road on a slope in the 'corrupted' city. The game does not crash in the specific city when the road (or anything else for that matter) is on the same level, the slightest heightdifference however is enough to make it crash, like the game just doesn't 'understand' how to build on a slope anymore.. but that is just my interpretation.

I have been playing this region for a long time now and really hope someone can help me continue.

thanks in advance

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Can you tell me what this means?

Exception time: 10/01/2011, at 16:30:19.

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION. Usually dereferencing a zero pointer.

Current thread ID: 3848 (0x00000f08).

Version information:

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

Application/module version name: SimCity 4

Application/module version: 1.1.641.0 A downloaded version (not steam, I think)

System version: Windows NT 6.1 Windows 7

System memory: 2048 Megabytes total, 1820 Megabytes free. 228 MB used by the game and O/S is very small.

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

Exception address: 0x006b126c. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x002aa26c.

Registers

EAX: 00002023

EBX: 00000000 Yep, a zero pointer. This is illegal in a paging system.

ECX: 4b4000e9

EDX: 000000db

ESI: 3add74ec

EDI: 3b48d814

CS:EIP: 001b:006b126c

SS:ESP: 0023:0012fbec EBP:11dac5a4

DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003b GS:0000

Flags: 00210246

The game crashes only in some cities and always when i try to build on a slope. this happens in god mode building mountains and in mayor mode, for example laying roads.

It occurs (so far) only in already established cities (3 out of dozens). I figured it had something to do with my plugins (terrain or slope-related), but removing, replacing and altering them hasn't resulted in the game not crashing when I lay a road on a slope in the 'corrupted' city. The game does not crash in the specific city when the road (or anything else for that matter) is on the same level, the slightest heightdifference however is enough to make it crash, like the game just doesn't 'understand' how to build on a slope anymore.. but that is just my interpretation.

I have been playing this region for a long time now and really hope someone can help me continue.

thanks in advance

This is a pretty standard dump, and the cause is a bug in the .exe which we cannot fix, that being part of our agreement with EA that we keep our paws out of the code.

You can see if this is a plugin problem by simply renaming your plugins folder to something else, and starting the game when it will make an empty plugins folder. Then try to cause the problem. If you cannot now cause it, it is a plugin, and you'll have to do a binary search on your plugin suite to find the offending plugin.

You have only 2GB of memory total, but that doesn't seem to be a drag. How big is your page file (*.swp)? Do you have a total for your plugins load?

When my game is in memory it has: 520MB with a 2.8GB backing store for a city with with a population of 106,000 on a large tile. My system has 4GB of real memory and 16GB of backing store. The problem may be that your system needs more memory, either real or virtual.

[TomHood 0]

Thank you for your quick response,

After some more testing I am sure it is not pluginrelated, but considering it only happens in some developed cities that was unlikely anyway, because it should have crashed earlier, I suppose.

Anyway, the memory issue , I am not completely sure I understand what you mean, my computerknowledge is not that great, but I've never had any problems with gameperformance, not with SC4 nor with newer games with higher standards. But then again I am no computerwhiz. I do not know what you mean with page file or *.swp file, could not find it anyway. And the total load of my plugins, do you mean the size of the map, if so, its close to 2GB.

But I increased my virtual memory, with no succes, the game keeps crashing. But only in two of my active cities and only on the slopes. A few weeks ago I had the same problem and then decided to rebuild the city -after destroying it and importing a new one-, this time too much work has gone into this city (big city tile, just 30.000 population, but filled with farms) to make me want to consider rebuilding. So what I am trying to say, is there a way for me to fix this or will my cities somehow keep getting corrupt after a while?

edit: disregard the above, I found a way to fix my problem. It wás pluginrelated after all, it seems I removed some older treemods from my pluginfolder (a long time ago)but the city that crashed still had those trees in it, resulting in a crash when I tried to build on the slopes those trees (invisible untill I reinstalled the second treemod) were planted.

Never realised this could cause issues, and ofcourse I should have thought of this earlier.

Anyway, thanks for your help, it made me feel a little less depressed about the possible downfall of my big region project.

  Edited October 2, 2011 by TomHood  

[Karrakurt 0]

Hi, can somebody help me?

What does that crash mean:

Exception time: 02/09/2012, at 15:03:09.

Exception code: 0xC0000005 (-1073741819) ACCESS_VIOLATION.

Current thread ID: 17660 (0x000044fc).

Version information:

Application/module path: D:\Gamez\SC4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe

Application/module version name: SimCity 4

Application/module version: 1.1.610.0

System version: Windows NT 5.1

System memory: 2048 Megabytes total, 1344 Megabytes free.

Exception module: D:\Gamez\SC4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe.

Exception address: 0x005fee58. Section:Offset: 0x01:0x001f7e58.

Registers

EAX: ffffffff

EBX: aa1dd396

ECX: 0012f920

EDX: 00000000

ESI: 09914804

EDI: 00000000

CS:EIP: 001b:005fee58

SS:ESP: 0023:0012f914 EBP:278128a0

DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003b GS:0000

Flags: 00010286

I thing it's caused by plugin, but how to know which one? I have about 1Gb plugin folder size. It's possible to get some program for viewing *.mdmp files?

PS: sorry for my english, am from Russia.

[jacksunny 741]

^^ It means your game isn't updated. Download the patch from here.

[Karrakurt 0]

Strange, i already download and apply this patch, but it seems not installed properly... I'll try to reinstall the game, thx for post.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Strange, i already download and apply this patch, but it seems not installed properly... I'll try to reinstall the game, thx for post.

There are two patches for Deluxe:

EP1: http://www.ea.com/simcity-4-deluxe

Update to level 640: https://www.sc4devotion.com/maxis/SC4Update4BAT.zip to use this link you must accept the Maxis agreement.

[Karrakurt 0]

A Nonny Moose, thx, i reinstall my game and patched it with right patches. First time i've download it for US version of game. =) My bad...

Now it seems to be ok, but testing is in progress.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A Nonny Moose, thx, i reinstall my game and patched it with right patches. First time i've download it for US version of game. =) My bad...

Now it seems to be ok, but testing is in progress.

Good luck, my friend. Take your time, think it through. Remember there is no way to win only lose. If you live on the steppes or have been there, that is a good rural model that will run well.