New patch via Steam has rendered the game UNUSABLE

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 08:19 AM

I have been playing OOTP '22 perfectly for quite a while now. This morning, Steam showed the button to Update to the latest patch, so I did. But now, the game hangs about one minute after loading my league. It's completely unusable. Hope the dev team can help quick, I am dead in the water. My advice to the community is to NOT install this patch.

UPDATE: it seems like this crash might be related to the Online Services, things are operating normally again, no crashing, I didn't do any restores, just restarted again (the tenth time was a charm).

Lukas Berger · 05-27-2021, 08:41 AM

It's very unlikely this has anything to do with the patch specifically.

What can happen is that sometimes a new update will trigger an anti-virus to scan your OOTP data files and that will corrupt your saved game files if the anti-virus returns a false positive.

For anti-virus, anti-malware, disk cleaner programs etc. it's a good idea to add OOTP to their whitelist and exclude OOTP and its data folders from any disk cleaners or similar programs. This is a pretty important step, as it's probably where 95% of the issues with league corruption come from. Basically, any programs that can change or delete files on their own, without asking you about it, you'll want to have them steer clear of any OOTP files and folders.

You may be able to restore from the autosave function. Instructions on doing that follow:

To restore from the automatic backup, do the following:

1) Open the game and on the start screen, click on Settings

2) Now click on the tab "Troubleshooting".

3) Click "Open folder containing saved games".

4) Now open up the league folder you're wanting to restore.

5) Then select all of the .dat files in the folder and back them up (just in case) by copying them to a temporary folder or creating a zipped file with them

6) Open the folder called "auto-save".

7) In there, select all of the ".dat" files and copy them to the league folder (the parent of the current folder) overwriting all of the ".dat" files in the league folder.

8) Now start the game and load your league.

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 08:42 AM

I am on a Linux desktop, not Windows, no anti-virus software running.

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 08:47 AM

It's so slow now, the load doesn't finish, it crashes during the load.

Lukas Berger · 05-27-2021, 08:50 AM

Yeah, it looks like likely a corrupt league file from the trace, it's hanging on loading the faces.

If you restore from the autosave as per above, that should hopefully fix things.

EDIT: As far as where the issue originally came from, there are a few things that can cause corruption. This potentially includes unexpected system shutdowns or crashes especially while a league is saving, bad sectors on the hard drive the game is saved to, memory glitches on your computer (especially possible if the league is left open for very long periods of time without the game being shut down or restarted) or occasionally interference from other programs.

Some of what you might do to prevent that from coming up again would be to regularly defrag your hard drive as well as check it for errors, make sure to occasionally shut your computer off or at least restart it and also run as few other programs in the background at the same time as OOTP as possible.

For programs that need to be running at the same time, like an anti-virus or firewall, it's a good idea to add OOTP to their whitelist and exclude OOTP and its data folders from any disk cleaners or similar programs. This is a pretty important step, as it's probably where 95% of the issues with league corruption come from.

Even if you don't have anti-virus since you're on Linux, basically, any programs that can in any way change or delete files on their own, without asking you about it, you'll want to have them steer clear of any OOTP files and folders.

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 08:58 AM

It seems like it's might be something time sensitive. Even if I don't navigate to any other area, just stay on the General Manager screen, and just hover over the guys on the trading block, within about a minute, it's hung.

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 09:00 AM

Without the trace on, the league loads just fine, and doesn't hang until about a minute afterwards

Lukas Berger · 05-27-2021, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by erickatz

It seems like it's might be something time sensitive. Even if I don't navigate to any other area, just stay on the General Manager screen, and just hover over the guys on the trading block, within about a minute, it's hung.

Hmm, that's odd. So it's actually loading, but then hanging once the game is loaded? Could still be a corrupt save, but might be something else in that case as well. It may even be that the patch did not correctly install.

Can you go to the Steam client, then right click on OOTP22, then go to properties > local files > verify integrity of game files.

then let Steam check the integrity of the game and redownload any files if needed and then try again.

Lukas Berger · 05-27-2021, 09:03 AM

Did you try loading from the autosave as well? Does the league still hang in that case?

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 09:12 AM

Tried another experiment. I went to the initial splash screen, and stayed there, did NOT load my league. Saw an error on screen saying "Trying to connect to online services...". Eventually OOTP hung and crashed and went away.

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 09:14 AM

Validate integrity of game files succeeded

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 09:32 AM

Restarted again, noticed that the login fields were now visible instead of the "Trying to connect..." message. Game appears to be operating normally, no hangs. So perhaps it's unrelated to the patch, more so related to the Online Services?

Lukas Berger · 05-27-2021, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by erickatz

Restarted again, noticed that the login fields were now visible instead of the "Trying to connect..." message. Game appears to be operating normally, no hangs. So perhaps it's unrelated to the patch, more so related to the Online Services?

Hmmm. Some of the servers were down for around half an hour, so that's for sure why you were seeing the 'trying to connect...' error, but that should not freeze or crash the game under normal circumstances

At least if it seems to be working now, I guess that was the problem, so good it's resolved

erickatz · 05-27-2021, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Hmmm. Some of the servers were down for around half an hour, so that's for sure why you were seeing the 'trying to connect...' error, but that should not freeze or crash the game under normal circumstances

At least if it seems to be working now, I guess that was the problem, so good it's resolved

Still working. So clearly it was related to the server outage, but may be something you want to investigate.

Thanks for the quick responses Lukas.

05-27-2021, 08:19 AM	#1
erickatz Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 29	New patch via Steam has rendered the game UNUSABLE I have been playing OOTP '22 perfectly for quite a while now. This morning, Steam showed the button to Update to the latest patch, so I did. But now, the game hangs about one minute after loading my league. It's completely unusable. Hope the dev team can help quick, I am dead in the water. My advice to the community is to NOT install this patch. UPDATE: it seems like this crash might be related to the Online Services, things are operating normally again, no crashing, I didn't do any restores, just restarted again (the tenth time was a charm). Last edited by erickatz; 05-27-2021 at 09:34 AM.

05-27-2021, 08:41 AM	#2
Lukas Berger OOTP Developments Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Nice, Côte d'Azur, France Posts: 21,249	It's very unlikely this has anything to do with the patch specifically. What can happen is that sometimes a new update will trigger an anti-virus to scan your OOTP data files and that will corrupt your saved game files if the anti-virus returns a false positive. For anti-virus, anti-malware, disk cleaner programs etc. it's a good idea to add OOTP to their whitelist and exclude OOTP and its data folders from any disk cleaners or similar programs. This is a pretty important step, as it's probably where 95% of the issues with league corruption come from. Basically, any programs that can change or delete files on their own, without asking you about it, you'll want to have them steer clear of any OOTP files and folders. You may be able to restore from the autosave function. Instructions on doing that follow: To restore from the automatic backup, do the following: 1) Open the game and on the start screen, click on Settings 2) Now click on the tab "Troubleshooting". 3) Click "Open folder containing saved games". 4) Now open up the league folder you're wanting to restore. 5) Then select all of the .dat files in the folder and back them up (just in case) by copying them to a temporary folder or creating a zipped file with them 6) Open the folder called "auto-save". 7) In there, select all of the ".dat" files and copy them to the league folder (the parent of the current folder) overwriting all of the ".dat" files in the league folder. 8) Now start the game and load your league. __________________ lukas@ootpdevelopments.com PreOrder Out of the Park Baseball 26! Need to upload files for us to check out? Instructions can be found here

05-27-2021, 08:50 AM	#5
Lukas Berger OOTP Developments Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Nice, Côte d'Azur, France Posts: 21,249	Yeah, it looks like likely a corrupt league file from the trace, it's hanging on loading the faces. If you restore from the autosave as per above, that should hopefully fix things. EDIT: As far as where the issue originally came from, there are a few things that can cause corruption. This potentially includes unexpected system shutdowns or crashes especially while a league is saving, bad sectors on the hard drive the game is saved to, memory glitches on your computer (especially possible if the league is left open for very long periods of time without the game being shut down or restarted) or occasionally interference from other programs. Some of what you might do to prevent that from coming up again would be to regularly defrag your hard drive as well as check it for errors, make sure to occasionally shut your computer off or at least restart it and also run as few other programs in the background at the same time as OOTP as possible. For programs that need to be running at the same time, like an anti-virus or firewall, it's a good idea to add OOTP to their whitelist and exclude OOTP and its data folders from any disk cleaners or similar programs. This is a pretty important step, as it's probably where 95% of the issues with league corruption come from. Even if you don't have anti-virus since you're on Linux, basically, any programs that can in any way change or delete files on their own, without asking you about it, you'll want to have them steer clear of any OOTP files and folders. __________________ lukas@ootpdevelopments.com PreOrder Out of the Park Baseball 26! Need to upload files for us to check out? Instructions can be found here Last edited by Lukas Berger; 05-27-2021 at 08:55 AM.

05-27-2021, 09:03 AM	#9
Lukas Berger OOTP Developments Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Nice, Côte d'Azur, France Posts: 21,249	Did you try loading from the autosave as well? Does the league still hang in that case? __________________ lukas@ootpdevelopments.com PreOrder Out of the Park Baseball 26! Need to upload files for us to check out? Instructions can be found here

05-27-2021, 08:42 AM	#3
erickatz Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 29	I am on a Linux desktop, not Windows, no anti-virus software running.

05-27-2021, 08:58 AM	#6
erickatz Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 29	It seems like it's might be something time sensitive. Even if I don't navigate to any other area, just stay on the General Manager screen, and just hover over the guys on the trading block, within about a minute, it's hung.

05-27-2021, 09:00 AM	#7
erickatz Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 29	Without the trace on, the league loads just fine, and doesn't hang until about a minute afterwards

05-27-2021, 09:12 AM	#10
erickatz Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 29	Tried another experiment. I went to the initial splash screen, and stayed there, did NOT load my league. Saw an error on screen saying "Trying to connect to online services...". Eventually OOTP hung and crashed and went away.

05-27-2021, 09:14 AM	#11
erickatz Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 29	Validate integrity of game files succeeded

05-27-2021, 09:32 AM	#12
erickatz Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Dec 2020 Posts: 29	Restarted again, noticed that the login fields were now visible instead of the "Trying to connect..." message. Game appears to be operating normally, no hangs. So perhaps it's unrelated to the patch, more so related to the Online Services?