Crashes Or Freezing? Please read this...

[Findest2001]

I've been working with tech support for WEEKS trying to resolve my grame crashing. I paid for a game and put money into PT and all I get is an email every few days? CALL ME and work on it with me so I can use the product I've paid for.

I get an email "try this". I try it minutes after the email is sent and it doesn't work. I within 20 min of trying send an email back saying it didn't work, then MAYBE I get an email saying they'll look into it. I get an email following up a day or two later, and rinse repeat.

Work on it in real time. THIS SHOULD NOT TAKE WEEKS TO RESOLVE. Call me and fix it over the phone. It would've been fixed a week ago. Instead I'm getting more and more angry it isn't resolved yet.

PS We have tried all the force reinstallation, windowed mode, I've even done error-check/virus scan/defrag/malware scans on my pc as well as update drivers and windows OS. It's the game, not my computer. I've sent several trace files and gotten no response about them. I've deleted and re-installed the game twice so far. All my other PC functions work fine.

[Findest2001]

-PC
-Windows 10 Home
-Standalone
-Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-3612 QM CPU @ 2.10GHz, 2101 MHz, 4 cores, 8 logical processors, VIDEO CARD > Intel (R) HD Graphics 4000, MEMORY > 8GB (7.86 usable),
-Game crashes in all saves, all modes. Anywhere. PT, Franchise games, opening player profiles, saving games, flipping windows to post on forums, taking screenshots, opening free agent and waiver wire screens, etc...
-Happens Seemingly Randomly, but happens ALL THE TIME
-No particular error message per se...Usually it just says (not responding), but once in a while it just flashes a black screen then disappears as if the window was never open.
Happens in All game modes and saves. Happens in PT AND offline.
I have sent several trace files to tech support with no results.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

Hi there!

I have been playing the last four editions of OOTP without any kind of trouble on my laptop. However, since I bought OOTP19 a month ago, I have nothing but trouble with the game:

The playing experience is fine as always. But when I save and exit the game my laptop freezes. The only solution is to shut it down and restart the laptop. And now comes the problem: when I try to continue the game this error messages pops up:



When I press OK this message pops up:



Exactly the same messages pop up when I try to load the game instead of continue.

When I follow the instructions and try to import the game from OOTP18 (which does not make any sense, because I played and saved OOTP19) this message pops up:



So I start a new game and after I save and exit the same thing happens again. I have followed the instructions, I have disabled and enabled 3D, I have played in all kind of modes (GM and Manager, Manager only, GM only, etc), the bottom line is that my laptop freezes any time I save and exit. I even deinstalled and reinstalled the drivers for my video card....

I am sorry to bother people here, but I have really tried a lot to get this game working. And it is so sad, because OOTP used to be a great playing experience in the last five years.

Here is the data about my laptop:

Lenovo 80RJ
Windows 7 Professional x64
Intel Core i5-6200U CPU, 2,30 Ghz
Intel HD Graphics 520

I play OOTP on Steam

I have run a system check several times, no problems have been indicated

Originally Posted by schwejk

very disappointed about how this is handled. I even wrote a private message to Lukas - no reply as well. It looks like this was the last OOTP version I bought

I got the private message, but had a lot to get to, and the weekend also interfered so was a little late responding. Sorry about that!

The quickest way to get a reply from us is always to fill out a support ticket, especially as that ensures multiple folks will see the issues and can respond, not just me.

I do need a little more info to try to figure out what's going on though. When you mention the game freezing, on save and exit, is this when you try to exit the 3d gameplay itself, or is it when you try to save your saved game and exit, like from the manager screen?

If the latter, along with the messages you're getting that indicate the save is corrupt, I would say the problem here is likely with a program you have on your system not allowing OOTP to write the save to the hard drive.

Are you using any anti-virus, disk cleaner/anti-malware programs? The first thing to try is to shut everything like that off (along with making sure OOTP is whitelisted in each program). Then try to save and exit and then reload the game again. Does the same thing happen? If not, then it's one of those programs causing the problem, and we can go from there. If not, it may be a disk issue or something else, but we can do some more troubleshooting to try to figure things out.

[schwejk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

I got the private message, but had a lot to get to, and the weekend also interfered so was a little late responding. Sorry about that!

The quickest way to get a reply from us is always to fill out a support ticket, especially as that ensures multiple folks will see the issues and can respond, not just me.

I do need a little more info to try to figure out what's going on though. When you mention the game freezing, on save and exit, is this when you try to exit the 3d gameplay itself, or is it when you try to save your saved game and exit, like from the manager screen?

If the latter, along with the messages you're getting that indicate the save is corrupt, I would say the problem here is likely with a program you have on your system not allowing OOTP to write the save to the hard drive.

Are you using any anti-virus, disk cleaner/anti-malware programs? The first thing to try is to shut everything like that off (along with making sure OOTP is whitelisted in each program). Then try to save and exit and then reload the game again. Does the same thing happen? If not, then it's one of those programs causing the problem, and we can go from there. If not, it may be a disk issue or something else, but we can do some more troubleshooting to try to figure things out.

Thank you for replying, Lukas!


It happens when I save and exit and existing game. It has never occurred before game 40 of the season, but after that it is almost sure that it will happen. I have never made it to draft day so far. I also happens with 2D, not only with 3D.



Freezing means that the whole computer is frozen. All I can do is shut it off (with all the negative side effects) and then when I try to load the game or continue the error messages that I described come up.


I do have Norton Antivir running, OOTP is on the white list, and this bugs have also happened when I had Norton turned off.


I have done every recommendation in this thread, 2D, 3D, I have installed the game twice, I deinstalled and reinstalled my graphic drivers.... everything else on my computer just runs fine...

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

Thank you for replying, Lukas!


It happens when I save and exit and existing game. It has never occurred before game 40 of the season, but after that it is almost sure that it will happen. I have never made it to draft day so far. I also happens with 2D, not only with 3D.



Freezing means that the whole computer is frozen. All I can do is shut it off (with all the negative side effects) and then when I try to load the game or continue the error messages that I described come up.


I do have Norton Antivir running, OOTP is on the white list, and this bugs have also happened when I had Norton turned off.


I have done every recommendation in this thread, 2D, 3D, I have installed the game twice, I deinstalled and reinstalled my graphic drivers.... everything else on my computer just runs fine...

Ok, this is really unusual and I fear is not going to be easy to figure out! We'll get there though, one way or another.

We do have one other similar problem we're dealing with in support right now though (which I think is actually the guy posting above), and Norton is the one biggest similarity between the two issues. That being said, if Norton was the problem, I would think we'd get more than two reports of this. IT may be that something just changed in one of their updates though, so we're starting to see this now for the first time.

What happens if you start a new saved game, and play using that. Do you get the same lockup issue or does it progress ok?

Basically, I'm just trying to narrow down if this is a game-wide (or system related) problem or a problem with the specific save (hopefully it's the latter, as that in theory should be easier to isolate and fix).

[schwejk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

What happens if you start a new saved game, and play using that. Do you get the same lockup issue or does it progress ok?

Basically, I'm just trying to narrow down if this is a game-wide (or system related) problem or a problem with the specific save (hopefully it's the latter, as that in theory should be easier to isolate and fix).

If I start a new game, save it and then load it, it is fine.
As I wrote: as far as I remember it has never happend before game 40 (+- 5 games). I have made it once to draft day, but I had not saved to get there.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

If I start a new game, save it and then load it, it is fine.
As I wrote: as far as I remember it has never happened before game 40 (+- 5 games). I have made it once to draft day, but I had not saved to get there.

Ok, so can you upload that specific saved game for us to take a look at then?

Instructions on that are in my sig or you can just put it on Dropbox and send me the link if that's easier for you. I'll try to take a look at it today if I get it in time, otherwise I'll have Alex take a look and reply here. He's been working with the poster above who has a similar problem (though not identical, as it seems his freezing is on all saves and even in PT, whereas yours is just the one save).

[Lukas Berger]

The other thing to try, even before you send the save, would be to completely disable Norton and then try running the save again and see if you get the same response.

We really need to try to narrow down if Norton itself is the root of the problem here or if it's just a coincidence that two folks with such similar issues both have Norton installed.

Either way, these sort of issues, random crashing or freezing, typically tend to come from outside programs interfering with OOTP's writing files to disk. So that's always the first place to look in similar situations.

[schwejk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Ok, so can you upload that specific saved game for us to take a look at then?

Instructions on that are in my sig or you can just put it on Dropbox and send me the link if that's easier for you. I'll try to take a look at it today if I get it in time, otherwise I'll have Alex take a look and reply here. He's been working with the poster above who has a similar problem (though not identical, as it seems his freezing is on all saves and even in PT, whereas yours is just the one save).

Wrong: It is not just one save. It happens every time I have started a new game and play beyond game 40! I have not completed a season, I only made it to draft day when I played in GM mode and did not save and exit before draft day.

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

Wrong: It is not just one save. It happens every time I have started a new game and play beyond game 40! I have not completed a season, I only made it to draft day when I played in GM mode and did not save and exit before draft day.

Ok, sorry to misunderstand.

How long are you playing for to get to that point, is it a matter of playing for a few hours straight, then you run into the problem without having saved the game or are you playing a few games, saving and reloading, then playing a few more, then eventually run into the game 40 problem?

[schwejk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

The other thing to try, even before you send the save, would be to completely disable Norton and then try running the save again and see if you get the same response.

We really need to try to narrow down if Norton itself is the root of the problem here or if it's just a coincidence that two folks with such similar issues both have Norton installed.

Either way, these sort of issues, random crashing or freezing, typically tend to come from outside programs interfering with OOTP's writing files to disk. So that's always the first place to look in similar situations.

I just deactivated Norton again and - surprise - I could not continue or load the game again.
This is not a random error, this is pretty systematic - every time I save a game after game 40 in the season.

I am trying to upload the last game for you - this was in 2D mode.

[schwejk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

Ok, sorry to misunderstand.

How long are you playing for to get to that point, is it a matter of playing for a few hours straight, then you run into the problem without having saved the game or are you playing a few games, saving and reloading, then playing a few more?

I have read that recommendation from the thread, too. And I have acted accordingly. In the past I played for long hours without saving and exiting. After having read your recommendation I have never played more than 5 games before saving and exiting - same result: when I save after game 40 in the season and exit, the computer freezes

[schwejk]

I just tried to upload the files according to your instructions. Not possible, error message occurred: I do not have access rights!

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

I just deactivated Norton again and - surprise - I could not continue or load the game again.
This is not a random error, this is pretty systematic - every time I save a game after game 40 in the season.

I am trying to upload the last game for you - this was in 2D mode.

But saving before game 40, it's not a problem?

That's really weird. There's absolutely nothing special about game 40 or any other point in the season that should cause that sort of thing to happen when it wasn't happening before. The only thing that would be changing is how much space the game is taking on disk, as the longer you go the larger it gets.

That being said, as I'm reading your initial post further, I also see that you're getting messages that indicate the save is being corrupted, as it won't load.

The two problems are likely related, and it's just a matter of the game being able to save a few times without the corruption happening, but the further you go in a season, eventually when it saves, the corruption happens.

If the saves are getting corrupted, there are a limited amount of reasons that can happen.

The first is bad sectors or issues on the hard drive the game is being saved to. So definitely try running disk check/scan disk/defrag on the drive to make sure that's not the case.

If that's not the problem, then the problem almost certainly comes from an outside program preventing OOTP from being able to save data to the disk.

Along with Norton, are any other programs running at the same time as OOTP? Especially, are you using any other antivirus or anti-malware programs? Any other system utilities? Is Windows Defender active?

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

I just tried to upload the files according to your instructions. Not possible, error message occurred: I do not have access rights!

Don't worry about uploading the save now, the more I look at this and the more you tell me, the more it appears the save is a symptom of the problem, not the issue, so I do not think it will tell me anything.

[Lukas Berger]

I'd also be interested in knowing the directory on your system OOTP is saving to.

Can you find that by doing the following?

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

2) Now click on the tab "Troubleshooting".

3) Click "Open folder containing saved games".

4) Now you'll see folders with all of your saved games.

5) Copy the full path of that folder from your Windows browser and either post it here or send me a PM with it if it has your real name or something else in the path you don't want to make public.

[schwejk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

But saving before game 40, it's not a problem?

That's really weird. There's absolutely nothing special about game 40 or any other point in the season that should cause that sort of thing to happen when it wasn't happening before. The only thing that would be changing is how much space the game is taking on disk, as the longer you go the larger it gets.

That being said, as I'm reading your initial post further, I also see that you're getting messages that indicate the save is being corrupted, as it won't load.

The two problems are likely related, and it's just a matter of the game being able to save a few times without the corruption happening, but the further you go in a season, eventually when it saves, the corruption happens.

If the saves are getting corrupted, there are a limited amount of reasons that can happen.

The first is bad sectors or issues on the hard drive the game is being saved to. So definitely try running disk check on the drive to make sure that's not the case.

If that's not the problem, then the problem almost certainly comes from an outside program preventing OOTP from being able to save data to the disk.

Along with Norton, are any other programs running at the same time as OOTP? Especially, are you using any other antivirus or anti-malware programs? Any other system utilities? Is Windows Defender active?

Lukas, please read my posts carefully. I have already stated that this happens around game 40 (plus or minus 5 games) into the season. Saving and exiting before game 40 usually has not been a problem, it might have occurred once or twice, but it sticks out to me that this always happens around game 40 or later.


I did not keep exact track of it, but from my memory it has never occured before game 40. And I have certainly started 10 games so far.


Windows Defender is active, but I have also deactivated it - same results.


Sometimes there is firefox or thunderbird running, but not permanently, same with skype. The bottom line is: I did not change anything and I have played this game in 4 or 5 different versions (OOTP 9, 16, 17, 18) and now 19 is making terrible problems. OOTP17 sometimes crashed in season 10 or 15, but now with OOTP19 it is horrible

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

Lukas, please read my posts carefully. I have already stated that this happens around game 40 (plus or minus 5 games) into the season. Saving and exiting before game 40 usually has not been a problem, it might have occurred once or twice, but it sticks out to me that this always happens around game 40 or later.

Yeah, that's what I'm going on, and what I've understood from your latest posts. So I think we're on the same page here.

[schwejk]

Originally Posted by Lukas Berger

I'd also be interested in knowing the directory on your system OOTP is saving to.

Can you find that by doing the following?

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

2) Now click on the tab "Troubleshooting".

3) Click "Open folder containing saved games".

4) Now you'll see folders with all of your saved games.

5) Copy the full path of that folder from your Windows browser and either post it here or send me a PM with it if it has your real name or something else in the path you don't want to make public.

C:\Users\Administrator.tom-PC\Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 19\saved_games

[Lukas Berger]

Originally Posted by schwejk

Sometimes there is firefox or thunderbird running, but not permanently, same with skype. The bottom line is: I did not change anything and I have played this game in 4 or 5 different versions (OOTP 9, 16, 17, 18) and now 19 is making terrible problems. OOTP17 sometimes crashed in season 10 or 15, but now with OOTP19 it is horrible

There's nothing that changed in OOTP19 that would affect this or cause it to happen where it didn't in earlier versions of the game. So the issue has to stem either from something that's different on your system now than had been the case with those older versions of the game, or with something different about where and how OOTP19 sits on your disk, what folders and sections of the disk it's trying to access and the directory it's writing to.

Which is part of why I asked the question about file path above.

Is OOTP19 installed to the save directory on your system as you installed the previous versions of the game?

Or has that changed?

Do you still have an older version of the game installed? If so, if you do the same with it, is the directory it's saving to something like (C:\Users\Administrator.tom-PC\Documents\Out of the Park Developments\OOTP Baseball 18\saved_games) or is it different?

Did you get previous versions of OOTP on Steam as well, or were they the standalone versions?