character crashes on each log-in [Incident: 110107-004423]

I have a level 43 Brute on Virtue who crashes the game whenever he logs in. None of my other characters have yet exhibited this problem, whether it be Virtue or another server.

It started yesterday morning, as he was leaving the Vault Reserve in Cap Au Diable. The game froze while he was in the doorway, then crashed completely. I could not log him back in; the same freeze-then-crash would happen each time.

I submitted a petition (via another character). The email reply said:

Quote:

Hello Richard, We received your report of not being able to log on your character. We have moved your character to a safe location and you should now be able to access it again. If you are still unable to access the character, you may need to wait for the next daily server maintenance for the character to become available. Please let us know if you are still unable to access the character after that time. Take care, GM Stalwart

"Great!" I logged him in again. He was moved to Mercy, near Kalinda. Unfortunately he still freezes then crashes.

Not wanting to just wait until Thursday morning, I tried using my portable to log him in. It worked, with no apparent problem. Well, all I really know is that I could move him and the game did not freeze nor crash. The portable defaulted to an 800x600 screen, and the GUI had overlapping elements. (Even on my portable I normally play at 1920x1080, using the display usually connected to my desktop. This time I just logged in with the portable's own screen, which does not support that resolution, so I guess it defaulted to minimum res.)

"Great", I once again thought. "He's fixed." I logged out from the portable and tried once again using the desktop. I could tell that he had moved, but the game once again froze, then crashed.

Which brings me to actual questions. What local file(s) on the desktop PC could be causing this problem? Can I fix it myself? Since the character works on one computer but not the other, I'm guessing that the coming server maintenance on Thursday will not fix the problem.

I decided to try to get the desktop PC to rethink the problematic brute. So, using my desktop, I logged in a warshade and reduced the game resolution to 1024x768 and restarted the game for it to take effect. Upon restarting, I logged in the Warshade to see if everything was ok. GUI was overlapping, but I expected that. Then I logged out the warshade and logged in the problematic brute.

Sigh, no go. He still crashes.

[edit add, 14 minutes later than original post]
I also just tried logging the brute in under Safe Mode. No crash! He moved fine. The game was running with minimal graphics and sound, though, I think at 800x600. Thinking maybe the problem had resolved, I quit the game normally, and restarted in normal mode. Nope. Still the crash.
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[edit add]
Went back to my portable. Logged in a non-problematic character, and set game resolution to 1366x768 (the portable's native res). I quit and restarted the program for the new res to take effect, and logged in my brute. He still functions fine on the portable. I was thinking perhaps there might be something magical about the 800x600 resolution, but that's not it.
[/edit]

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

I don't know for how long, but the desktop PC is now able to play the brute, Lickity Zplit, again.

Since the 1366x768 was working on the portable, I decided to try that rez on the desktop. The closest available rez was 1360x768, and I chose that. After restart of game, Lickity Zplit was working fine at this intermediate rez.

Okay, let's wear all the pajamas ... I reset the rez to the normal 1920x1080 and quit the game. On restart, Lickity was still functioning properly.

Does anyone know what might have been the problem, and how possibly to avoid it in the future?

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Well, phooey. I started to actually play Lickity Zplit on my desktop PC. He entered his base, sent a chat line to a friend, and started to open his Contact tab. Just as the tab started to zoom up to full size, the program froze and crashed. He now crashes again when I try to log him in.

Any advice?

Some people who have the television as a contact are experiencing crashes whenever they open their contacts window unless they are in safe mode. It might be related to your problem.

Yes this is happening to me as well.

After my characters go to Steel City on the Protector server the connection times out and I get a map server error.

I've been able to go to Steel City on other servers and load times are fine.

I even went out and purchased a new CD thinking maybe I needed to just reinstall Going Rogue.

I hope they fix this because my characters can't log in.

My ticket was submitted as "Stuck".

There appear to be two different log-in problems in this thread. Mine (OP) is only affecting one character, and leads to an immediate game crash when he is logged in. The other issue described seems to affect every character belonging to a player, with the game reporting "No Mapserver connection." In both cases, though, we cannot play a character we would like to play.

If you are having issues with only one specific toon and support already moved it "to a safe area", and still having issues logging the character in:

Log in with safe mode (minimum graphic settings) and make sure you close your Contacts window (or any other window that may have a secondary 3d environment in it like costume or info windows).

Then try to log in again normally.

As for any possible local files causing a problem:
To confirm that one way or another, simply temporarily rename your personalized folder.
For example, change:
C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\Account_name\
to:
C:\Program Files\City of Heroes\Account_name_old\

If the problem goes away, it might be one of your personalized account files. The only problem with that theory is that all your characters use those same files, so that shouldn't be a reason why one character gets stuck when another doesn't... whereas the character's window status is saved server-side on each character separately, making my first suggestion work more often for some people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mandu Some people who have the television as a contact are experiencing crashes whenever they open their contacts window unless they are in safe mode. It might be related to your problem.

It's apparently not just the Television. One of my Praetorian toons had the issue almost immediately after moving to Villainside, which is far to low to have had that contact yet.

Talbein_Vikshus, I don't feel you "threadjacked" this. For all I know, your symptoms and mine could be part of a common underlying problem.

Master-Blade, closing the contact window in safe mode, then relogging normally, does seem to allow me to play Lickity Zplit. I just cannot ever look at the contact window without freezing and crashing again. None of the other windows cause a crash. There are several active contacts, but the contacts shown are the Rogue Isle Protector and Regent Korol. The Regent's gauge is 50% full, and she is a "Comrade". She has given me the "Punish Countess Crey" mission.

Presumably a server restart occurred this morning, and I'll report the current status in a reply to the email I received from support.

Sigh, I guess I'll try writing them later.

If your contacts window does not crash the game with the game's safe mode enabled, then I would suggest you check your graphics drivers and your graphics settings.

There have been reports in other threads of the same problem and some people have been able to resolve the problem by reducing or disabling the water effects in the graphics settings.

-Tex
Technical Issues & Bugs Discuss technical questions and/or bugs here! This is NOT a forum where official technical/QA support is available. To report a bug use the /bug command in game. For technical assistance email support@coh.com.

If you are using ATI, drop down to the 10.9 drivers. I had the same issue with 10.12.

This fixed the contact list freezing problem.

Tex and Fitz, thank you. I do have an ATI Radeon HD 5700 series graphics board:

Driver Packaging Version 8.791-101026a-107889C-ATI
Catalyst™ Version 10.11
Provider ATI Technologies Inc.
2D Driver Version 8.01.01.1094

However, I play numerous other characters regularly with no problem, and played this brute in the last few weeks from around level 32 to 43, all with the same board and driver.

Could there be a driver problem that would suddenly start affecting just a single character in this manner? Also, on the original crash, he was just exiting the Vault Reserve in Cap Au Diable, and the contact tab was not even open.

It's an issue with the contact list or any other lists. Trust me, rollback to 10.9 and it'll all be better.

Reference link: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...15#post3378915