Crash while loading any city tile (Suddenly)

[Madmartigan 66]

Been playing for ages now just fine. No new plugins, no new mods.

I'm playing on GoG and suspect that this is the issue:

"Cloud Sync Failed: Cloud sync is delayed due to a heavy load. It will restart next time when you launch the game."

I've tried launching the game again, changing my config, etc. I saw someone online had to exit GoG and then CTRL+ALT+DEL to close a background program that stays open, which was the case for me so I tried it.

Still not working.

Mainly I'm just wondering if anyone else is having this same issue while using GoG?

 

Anyone wondering my config is:

- Arguments: -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -d:directx -f -CPUcount:1

- My Label: SimCity 4 (Windowed Mode)

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

Are you using the online play thing from GoG or did you download the standalone installer?

Tbh, the error message you've received makes me think it's probably the first option. If you are running with the first then you are at the mercy of the Internet as to whether you can connect to their server to play your game. I've been off checking outages over at ThousandEyes. If you are based in the US it may be that one of the 400+ service outages currently listed might be the problem. It could also be on their end, I believe their servers are located in Poland. There ain't any info on Poland on TE's map, and Isitdownrightnow & downdetector both say the server is up.

Switching over to the standalone installer is covered in @Cyclone Boom's comment here.

[Madmartigan 66]

On 7/27/2021 at 11:48 PM, Whte_rbt said:

Are you using the online play thing from GoG or did you download the standalone installer?

Tbh, the error message you've received makes me think it's probably the first option. If you are running with the first then you are at the mercy of the Internet as to whether you can connect to their server to play your game. I've been off checking outages over at ThousandEyes. If you are based in the US it may be that one of the 400+ service outages currently listed might be the problem. It could also be on their end, I believe their servers are located in Poland. There ain't any info on Poland on TE's map, and Isitdownrightnow & downdetector both say the server is up.

Switching over to the standalone installer is covered in @Cyclone Boom's comment here.

Darn I really thought this was gonna work. I tried uninstalling completely from GoG as well and reinstalling on Steam as another solution, still the same issue.

Not sure what could have possibly changed, this is a total mystery. It's still crashing on loading a city (The messaging at the top even changes once or twice so it looks like it's working).

I even deleted that last 2 weeks worth of plugins. This is really mysterious...

 

Update:

Well leave it to me to comment and then immediately try something that works lol.

So I backed up my plugins folder and then completely deleted it and it works now. So there is a plugin that I guess has suddenly become incompatible with the game...

Thanks for the help!

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

At this point the only thing I can recommend is a binary plugin search. Basically, load half of your plugins back, if that works/loads then the problem is in the other half. Whichever piece has the problem will refuse to load, cut the problem section in half again and see if it loads. By working thru this method you can locate the problem plugin fairly quickly as opposed to a one-by-one approach.

[Madmartigan 66]

2 hours ago, Whte_rbt said:

At this point the only thing I can recommend is a binary plugin search. Basically, load half of your plugins back, if that works/loads then the problem is in the other half. Whichever piece has the problem will refuse to load, cut the problem section in half again and see if it loads. By working thru this method you can locate the problem plugin fairly quickly as opposed to a one-by-one approach.

Will do, thanks again for the help!

[rsc204 21,808]

9 hours ago, Circusmonkey10 said:

Not sure what could have possibly changed, this is a total mystery. It's still crashing on loading a city (The messaging at the top even changes once or twice so it looks like it's working).

This is typical of what you'd expect if you were using the NAM and had failed to patch the SimCity 4.exe with the 4GB Patch. It is possible some update through GoG recreated the .exe file without the patch, in such cases just run the 4GB Patcher in the NAM installer package once more and the problem should go away.

Note that it's an important difference if the loading screen switches briefly to showing the city, immediately before the crash. If that were happening, it suggests something placed in that city or save file may have been removed or changed in your Plugins folder, which because the game can't load it caused a CTD. Typically this is most common when trees are placed in God Mode, but your subsequently change the Tree Controller. Another potential cause for such CTDs would be if you were using HD Terrain/Water/Rock/Beach mods, but your game is running Software Rendering. Since this mode has a limit to display textures of a maximum of 256x256 pixels in size, attempting to load anything larger results in a CTD.

Either way your first step here is to remove all Plugins temporarily and to attempt to load a new unused city, just to verify the game itself is working. If you can't do that, then you need to look at potential problems with the configuration of your game before messing around with anything else.

On 27/07/2021 at 11:56 PM, Circusmonkey10 said:

Anyone wondering my config is:

- Arguments: -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -d:directx -f -CPUcount:1

- My Label: SimCity 4 (Windowed Mode)

-f invokes Full Screen mode, it may not be anything but you've mentioned Windowed Mode, which should not be the case for your setup.

[Madmartigan 66]

4 hours ago, rsc204 said:

This is typical of what you'd expect if you were using the NAM and had failed to patch the SimCity 4.exe with the 4GB Patch. It is possible some update through GoG recreated the .exe file without the patch, in such cases just run the 4GB Patcher in the NAM installer package once more and the problem should go away.

Note that it's an important difference if the loading screen switches briefly to showing the city, immediately before the crash. If that were happening, it suggests something placed in that city or save file may have been removed or changed in your Plugins folder, which because the game can't load it caused a CTD. Typically this is most common when trees are placed in God Mode, but your subsequently change the Tree Controller. Another potential cause for such CTDs would be if you were using HD Terrain/Water/Rock/Beach mods, but your game is running Software Rendering. Since this mode has a limit to display textures of a maximum of 256x256 pixels in size, attempting to load anything larger results in a CTD.

Either way your first step here is to remove all Plugins temporarily and to attempt to load a new unused city, just to verify the game itself is working. If you can't do that, then you need to look at potential problems with the configuration of your game before messing around with anything else.

-f invokes Full Screen mode, it may not be anything but you've mentioned Windowed Mode, which should not be the case for your setup.

So I tried what you and whte_rbt recommended. I backed up my plugins and then deleted them all. After sorting through 50% by 50% I eventually found the culprit - NAM (As you suggested it might be). I tried finding the 4gb patch but it wasn't quite working. So I uninstalled and re-installed NAM and now everything is running smooth!

Thanks for all the help guys!

[Sniffeh 121]

Recently the external drive I had all my games on crashed and became unreadable, so I had to buy a new external drive and reinstall SimCity 4. Lucky for me, I backed up all my files on a flashdrive. But now when I start the game and try to load a city tile, it freezes on the load screen and then crashes. I thought maybe I had done what OP had done with NAM, but I reinstalled and it's still crashing. 

[Kel9509 1,363]

1 hour ago, Sniffeh said:

Recently the external drive I had all my games on crashed and became unreadable, so I had to buy a new external drive and reinstall SimCity 4. Lucky for me, I backed up all my files on a flashdrive. But now when I start the game and try to load a city tile, it freezes on the load screen and then crashes. I thought maybe I had done what OP had done with NAM, but I reinstalled and it's still crashing. 

Does the game work with the plugins folder empty?  Can you load a new empty city in a new region?

[Sniffeh 121]

1 hour ago, Kel9509 said:

Does the game work with the plugins folder empty?  Can you load a new empty city in a new region?

No. It takes forever to copy my plugin folder to the game because I have so much in it.

[rsc204 21,808]

All you have to do is rename the Plugins folder to literally anything else, the next time you start SC4, it will create a new Plugins folder. After testing you just rename the old folder Plugins once more and you can do this without having to copy files about.

However, If you've had to reinstall SC4 at some point, most likely the new .exe no longer has the 4GB patch applied, which would explain the CTDs you are getting. I'd recommend using the patch application because the full NAM controller needs the extra memory to load without the game falling over.

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:14 PM, Sniffeh said:

Recently the external drive I had all my games on crashed and became unreadable, so I had to buy a new external drive and reinstall SimCity 4. Lucky for me, I backed up all my files on a flashdrive. But now when I start the game and try to load a city tile, it freezes on the load screen and then crashes. I thought maybe I had done what OP had done with NAM, but I reinstalled and it's still crashing. 

Follow this guide