100% reproducable TOTAL game lockup

[ChrisH]

Part of me really wonders why I bother reporting functional deficiences in the program as they never seem to get fixed (the execption was the 100% CPU usage that took me months to get it resolved), but here goes.

It's been a bug for about as long as the game has been released! (all the way back to OOTP4).

The steps to produce it, I run with with sound and direct 3D ENABLED.
1) Start the game, open any old league and leave it displaying the league standings.
2) Open another program, lets say windows explorer as everyone has that, resize windows explorer to be full screen MANUALLY not by maximizing.
3) Leave windows explorer in focus and disappear for an hour.
4) Now try and bring OOTP to the foreground so you can use it, and OH that's right you can't the whole game has completely hung.

The only way out is to kill the OOTP process via the task manager resulting in a most brutal shutdown and possible corruption of files.

Essentially the program can't cope with being put into a background state for a prolonged period of time.

[ChrisH]

Sorry for the double post, the forum hung and took around 30 minutes and still hadn't responded it had actaully posted a message.

Please lock / delete one of these threads.

[Steve Kuffrey]

This is also 100% SYSTEM specific.

I've run OOTP for YEARS with MANY other programs maximized and running and not had an issue.

How much RAM do you have? Free HD space? Other system processes running? All of these issues can influence this one way or the other.

[jnshmoo]

Originally Posted by ChrisH

Part of me really wonders why I bother reporting functional deficiences in the program as they never seem to get fixed (the execption was the 100% CPU usage that took me months to get it resolved), but here goes.

It's been a bug for about as long as the game has been released! (all the way back to OOTP4).

The steps to produce it, I run with with sound and direct 3D ENABLED.
1) Start the game, open any old league and leave it displaying the league standings.
2) Open another program, lets say windows explorer as everyone has that, resize windows explorer to be full screen MANUALLY not by maximizing.
3) Leave windows explorer in focus and disappear for an hour.
4) Now try and bring OOTP to the foreground so you can use it, and OH that's right you can't the whole game has completely hung.

The only way out is to kill the OOTP process via the task manager resulting in a most brutal shutdown and possible corruption of files.

Essentially the program can't cope with being put into a background state for a prolonged period of time.

I don't see how this is a bug. There is a lot of pointless activity going on in those steps that you mention. I'd suggest that if you are done playing OOTP (or any other game for that matter) and need to use windows explorer (especially if you plan to manually make it full screen for some unknown reason) and then disappear for an hour, maybe close the game first.

There is a lot of software out there that doesn't particularly like random things like this. Your issue may be 100% reproducable for you, but it's also 100% preventable as well.

[ChrisH]

It's not system specific happens on a couple of mine, however for reference on the current system 2Gb RAM, and well over 40Gb free hardrive space.

It's irrelavent for whatever reason I want another program open over OOTP, why the hell shouldn't I? I do multiple things at once, I run the game enter a few details then I need to do something else but I wish to come back to the game again. I can't be bothered to keep closing a program and re-opening it when I've easily got the resources to run multiple heavy going applications at once and I quite often do. OOTP is the only program that almost insists it's run on it's own.

The 'windows explorer' was an example so people can actually easily reproduce it. The above steps are extactly what you have to do and on any system I've done it on OOTP dies. The reason for maximising is so the graphical system is no longer showing any of the OOTP program and the other one has the foreground, this is the problem, OOTP doesn't seem to cache it's status correctly over a prolonded period of time. Again the hour is a good period that will cause the problem it's quite possible a shorter time will cause it but you have to follwo my steps properly if not then you'll likely not see the problem.

[jnshmoo]

You might not have run across the problem with other programs, but it is out there. I do understand that you want to do other things periodically, but I still think that if you are going to go away for an extended period, it's still best to close out of the game.

[spleen1015]

I'd like to report another annoying bug I have found.

When I open OOTP, it wants me to play a game of baseball. Why can't I play a game of hockey instead?

If you're going to leave the game idle for an hour, close it first. Sheesh.

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

When I open OOTP, it wants me to play a game of baseball. Why can't I play a game of hockey instead?

That brings up another point though that is always ignored, the game can't actually perform as advertised for a game of baseball.
I really do not care about how acurate in creating the enviroment of baseball the game is. I do know a lot of people want it to be accurate and that is unfortunately where 99% of all effort goes in the writing and testing for the deviation of 0.046% of a stat that isn't quite accurate enough.

What should be addressed is the fundamental aspect of the game engine that just plain DO NOT WORK at all. There are many aspects that are busted, really badly implemented or slow and in some cases all three.
These are ignored time and time again, and as can be seen by the replies in this post as there is a fundamental flaw in the program you want people to work around it instead of getting the issue fixed.

It's sad the majority of people all view this game with rose glasses. There are many many major flaws with it. It's been getting worse on each and every release.

I brought this issue up, you've got detailed information on exactly what to do to recreate it and therefore possbily get it resolved, as to if it's fixed or not, I highly doubt it will be as it's not a stat based fault.

[Pike]

I think his complaint is totally valid. Even if I go make a sandwich, and leave the computer alone for a minute--when I come back, if my screensaver activated, OOTP refuses to come back up, or freezes. I've also just run into a situation where, after 5 seasons, the game locks up when I try to sim or play a game on my schedule. I can't imagine why that would happen after 5, bugless seasons. There's no reason to post smarta$$ comments Spleen. If you can't offer something constructive, then just don't post. Talk about sheesh!

[RoadMovie]

I've had this problem for years as well.
The answer should not be: well turn the the thing off. None of my other programs have this problem. I've had this problem with this program on every machine since my AMD k6-2 300 of many years ago right up to my current PC.

I often work on my line-ups while making dinner or tweaking my servers or wiating for clients to return emails or IM me. Sometimes it gets left in the background for a while. When I return...dead.

[canadiancreed]

intresting.

Myself I've ran this on a plethora of machines, and am always multiasking. The instance of this arriving is probably maybe 5%....10% at the VERY most. Hell of a lot mroe stable than most software that I have to use (Internet Explorer anyone?)

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

[ChrisH]

As I mentioned above it seesm to be caused when OOTP looses focus of the graphics engine.
Like my problem with another application in foreground over it so no graphics are showing alaso highlighted by pike in that the screen saver will take over the whole graphics engine and run, after the rest of the system returns when you exit the screen saver OOTP will not, it's a dead duck.
This is the ONLY program I've ever used that simply a screen saver kicking in kills the application. I did not detail a screen saver before a a cuase as some people don't use them and everyone has different ones chosen. If you use a default windows one (one of the 3D ones) then the problem is seen after a couple of minues.

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by ChrisH

This is the ONLY program I've ever used that simply a screen saver kicking in kills the application. I did not detail a screen saver before a a cuase as some people don't use them and everyone has different ones chosen. If you use a default windows one (one of the 3D ones) then the problem is seen after a couple of minues.

Actually, you don't even need to run a screen saver. Just try locking your PC via CTRL-ALT-DEL. Same thing happens.

But there is a simple workaround: Close OOTP if you're going to do something else. It's not really that hard.

[Pike]

I see no reason why a game can't sit unattended for 10 minutes. Why is this acceptable? Many of us can't dedicate a non-stop amount of time to this game. Like the gentleman above posted, at times I have to step away for a minute. I shouldn't have to close the game out. Anyway, I don't mean to be critical, but why, if the problem doesn't bother you, and you have no idea of a fix---why are you here reading this, or posting for that matter? Isn't there a dynasty thread you could be reading or something?

[spleen1015]

The game can sit unattended for 10 minutes. Just turn your screensaver off or don't lock the computer.

I would say there is a pretty good chance that OOTPBM2K6 won't have this issue. It is being totally rewritten with a totally new coding architecture.

BTW, I can be a smartass all I want, just as much as you guys can be upset by a simple little issue that can be avoided with little effort.

[RoadMovie7]

The idea of having to turn off the game to go make a sandwich and turn it back on to avoid the problem of having use the task manager to shut it off is unacceptable. I will admit, that I have hope that the new version of ootp will fix the problem, since it is a complete rewrite...

However...The fact that several people keep saying, "well shut it off when you go make a sandwich," or "Disable your screensaver whenever you use OOTP" is just plain ridiculous. I run an IT department, and I discipline people when they give ridiculous workarounds as long term solutions just to avoid doing some real work. Take for example some recent problems with Windows XP. It starts talking across the network before it activates the NIC half the time. I could have told our staff to manually restart the programs that failed due to the timing error. I could have been fired for that. Instead, I worked with some folks and ended up with a program to delay the start 5 seconds to account for the error.

That said, I would accept that kind of instruction if it came along with, "and we'll work on fixing it so that this doesn't continue to happen". We've had and reported this problem for YEARS.

How many versions of OOTP did we go through before the 100% CPU usage bug got fixed. A lot of the focus has gone to appeasing the number crunchers and stat freaks, and too little to the people who just want the game to run like every other for pay program.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by RoadMovie7

How many versions of OOTP did we go through before the 100% CPU usage bug got fixed. A lot of the focus has gone to appeasing the number crunchers and stat freaks, and too little to the people who just want the game to run like every other for pay program.

I'd say they were making good busniess decisions by giving the baseball related issues higher priority. When a problem can be easily avoided and it is not a game stopping bug, then it is not going to get a high priority.

Maybe this problem couldn't get fixed?

[RoadMovie7]

Would you care as little if instead of OOTP, it were Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop or your email client that you had to alter your entire computing habits for? I pay money for both programs. Why can I not have the same expectations?

[Steve Kuffrey]

Let's see, just a very basic issue is OOTP has a handful of staff, Microsoft has who knows how many 1,000's......that may play into it a little bit. The screensaver issue has been an issue for years never tried to hide it. As far as not being able to leave the game, then come back to it - I have left the game on for DAYS, minimized and while doing mulitple other things on my PC and NOT had this problem. Also, there are numerous programs that I KNOW I have to vary my computing habits for I've just accepted it as part of the real world.

[eriqjaffe]

Originally Posted by Pike

Anyway, I don't mean to be critical, but why, if the problem doesn't bother you, and you have no idea of a fix---why are you here reading this, or posting for that matter? Isn't there a dynasty thread you could be reading or something?

Because you're over-reacting at too late a stage.

1) As Steve said, the screensaver / lock PC issue has been around for years now. Plenty of time for you to find another game that works to your satisfaction.

2) The current codebase of OOTP is within 4-5 months of the end of it's life cycle anyways, so why wait until now to make your first posts about it?