Crash on Save. Is there any actual solution?

[hgrabowy 0]

Hi there.

I have read through this forum looking for a solution/cause and had no luck. I have read about so many people that have this problem. When I save my city (regardless if its a regular save or a save to region), Simcity 4 will freeze. It doesn't happen everytime but when it does happen, the process Simcity 4.exe takes up 100% of the CPU and nothing happens. I eventually have to kill the process and my city was never saved.

 

EA tech support has been zero help. They just suggest killing every process on my PC, except Simcity 4. LOL. Since this has been happening to people since 2003, I am guessing there will never be a patch to fix this. So...........

 

Is there any solution/workaround to this?

 

Older posts blamed not enough memory, video cards, etc. Based on the number of posts I have read, I don't see any consistent hardware or software issue being the cause. At one point I thought it might be anti-virus softare locking files (scanning for virus) and not allowing a save, but I have since shutdown Norton and still have the same problem.

 

Any help would be great!

 

As Requested, my hardware/software specs

 

Windows Pro SP 2

AMD Athlon 64 3000BP 939 Pin

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe

Gigabyte N66T128D (6600GT nvidia)

Kingston 1G PC-3200 Dual Channel Kit X2

Seagate 250 GB Barracuda SATA

using onboard audio

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

[jonno 0]

This happened to me last night for the first time in an absolute age. Unfortunately i hadn't saved for over an hour
Just one thing it happened as i saved at maximum zoom!!! Coincidence????

[Hordijk 18]

Hi,

Unless you don't think it are technical problems with your hardware could we have a list of your system's specifications

 

-Thanks

 

BTW your pretty lucky with the saving it could aslo be that when you quit the game while saving the whole city get's deleted so your lucky.

[SamFlash 0]

Welcome to Simtropolis!  Hordijk is right, we will need to know more about your hardware and software setup before we can begin to help you.  Keep in mind that random freezes and crashes seem to be the norm for this game.  Even high end systems set up perfectly for this game have occasional problems.  Some people claim that they've never had a problem but I'm skeptical of that.  I'm a microsoft certified system engineer and I've had problems as well as all my friends who play SC4.  It may not happen very often to them but it happens to everyone eventually.  My point is - save, save, save.  Get in the habit of saving every 10-15 minutes and if/when you have a problem the loss won't be so bad.  Ther is nothing more frustrating than spending a couple of hours creating a great part of your city and then losing it all.

[hgrabowy 0]

Hi there.

You mentioned in your post you are a MS system engineer. Do you think EA solution of removing apps running in the background might decrease the crashes?

 

Oh.

P.S.  I added my specs to my original post.

[Hordijk 18]

Well I certaintly would give it a try just make sure you don't close the Local Service or SYSTEM apps.

BTW: there is nothing wrong with your system spec's it should be working properly on it.

[tungston 19]

Let's say you are a spend thrift, and you run out of money, you have bad credit, what do you do, you file bankruptcy.  Sound familiar?

With SC4 and Windows it is called buffer overrun.  SC4 is allowed a set amount of stacks, and when those are spent, Windows cuts off the credit.  So what happens, Windows repossess the computer, in the old days it would not be to the desktop, but to the blue screen of death.

 

The moral of this story has been repeated over and over again.   Keyword Save ,and before you go bankrupt.

[SamFlash 0]

Date: 10/6/2005 12:50:23 PM Author: hgrabowy

Hi there.

You mentioned in your post you are a MS system engineer. Do you think EA solution of removing apps running in the background might decrease the crashes?

Oh.

P.S.  I added my specs to my original post.

There is a big difference between applications and services.  If your not connected to a network or the internet you can shut down every application running on your computer.  This includes anti-virus and anti-spyware programs.  Use caution about shutting down services however.  There are a number of websites that list the services running on most computers and which are safe to stop and which are not.  Do a google search for them. Since your using WinXP Pro, when your ready to shut down services click start>run and type services.msc without the quotes.  This will bring up the complete list of services running on your computer and is a much better way of shutting them down than using msconfig.  Hope that helps.

[tungston 19]

There is an easier way to get to the services.  Right click on My computer then on Manage, and that will bring up the whole works.

 

And I disagree that trying to stop services is a better way than msconfig.exe, it is much safer to use msconfig.  you can safely stop all startup apps, and all services except Windows services ( there is a button to hide all MS services ) .

 

EDIT:  @samflashjr,  if you are refering to Black Viper's web site, I have tried the settings posted there, and they can defeat some of the benefits of XP.

[ixnayonthetimmay 16]

Hello all...

First time poster, long time visitor (and contributor...sort of)

I have played SC4 ever since it came out, and though I have had all sorts of random crash problems like the rest, usually I could attribute them to insufficient hardware or too many resident applications running in the background. (a favorite saying of mine in response to the EA Games: Challenge Everything splash screen was to say Yeah, including my hardware...)

I have never had this problem until very recently. I am not exactly sure why, and at first I thought it was because of too little memory (I usually had Winamp running in the background). Then, I thought it might have been a conflictof some type on my sound card, but after removing the sound card and retrying it, it still happened.

Case in point: I can't offer any help except for my sympathy, and I am sure that EA gives less than two rat's asses about all the random buggy problems associated with this game or they'd have put out more patches since the end of 2003...

[Marathon 2]

Hi!

Before i found out bout this site i was having very little problems with my game it never crashed. But since i found this site and began downloading cool Lots and BATS the crashes and freezes seem to happening every second city!!! I was wondering if the downloading of plugins seems to be resulting in the crashes.

 

Also there probably wont be a patch to fix this. SimCity has very much so gone to the back of EA's cupboard and it doesn't look like coming out soon. EA & Maxis are to involved in Sims 2 series and dont really care much bout Sim City anymore so it looks like we're on our own from now on....

[Constantina 5]

I think some users forget this; but sometimes lots come with dependancies which you will need to download for the lot to function correctly.

Some readme files then go on to say, download that dependancy or the game would crash, something like that... but whatever you download, please make sure you read the description and the readme file itself carefully and download the appropriate dependancies if required to ensure trouble-free gaming.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Date: 12/28/2005 9:59:03 AM
Author: Mattyboy226

Hi!

Before i found out bout this site i was having very little problems with my game it never crashed. But since i found this site and began downloading cool Lots and BATS the crashes and freezes seem to happening every second city!!! I was wondering if the downloading of plugins seems to be resulting in the crashes.

quote>

It very likely is the downloads, especially if you did not follow all the instructions and/or download the dependencies.

If you are going to use any lot exchange, but particularly this one, we expect you to read the instructions that are on the lot's advertising page as well as any read me file that comes with it.

You should also avoid loading more than one lot or mod into your game at a time. If you want to pick up several items from the STEX, load them into a separate downloads folder outside the SC4 area, then unzip them there, and have a look at any documentation. Only then, move them into your plugins structure, one at a time. You should test each one using a sandbox (test) region before you bput them in your working cities.

If you discover that some lot is causing tyouble, you must delete all instances of it from your cities before you drop the plugin or you may have to scrap the cities involved.