Crashing Often? Please post to this thread...

I'm attempting to gather as much information as possible on Mac clients that crash very frequently, in an effort to hopefully find some kind of pattern. At the very least, maybe it'll help Support and the Devs too. After you post, make sure you also send a Support request at help.ncsoft.com, because they have a tracking database.

When you reply, mention what kind of crashes you get, when they happen, and also the model of your Mac, how much RAM it has, which type of video it has, and whether you're running Snow Leopard (10.6) or Leopard (10.5).

Here's one for you.

Most common crashes:
Assertion Failure
Pigg corruption (could not batch somepigg.pigg, please run updater and try again)
Insta-quits to desktop after memory leak

Macbook Pro Core i7
4G DDR SDRAM
500GB Hard drive
Nvidia 300M
Latest build of 10.6

I created a new user account and experienced much fewer crashes (none, actually). I can't confirm that this may be a problem-causing event, but I have crashed much less after disabling Spaces and only having no more than 3 separate desktops. I will also note that something in my admin account must be causing frequent crashes. I also see hundreds of thousands of page-outs from my RAM when CoX crashes.

27" iMac (Sept 2010)
Core i7
4G RAM
1G ATI Radeon 5750
10.6.6

Downloaded latest build of CoH in Sept. 2010, installed on new system with new user, new preferences, basically nothing else on the system (literally 1st or 2nd thing I installed). Running 1920 x 1200 windowed, at the setting below Ultra Mode, with geometry buffers, FSAA off.

Problem description: while playing, memory use will rise steadily until crash (usually somewhere around 2G used). Usually the crash has no visible error, shows a "error: can't allocate region" in the console, and only occasionally tries to raise an assertion error. Problem can be postponed indefinitely by using /reloadgfx to lower memory use.

I'm getting a "clean" crash to the desktop where the program (usually) just disappears. Most of the time there is no message, although I rarely get an "assertion failure" popup, or the screen goes black and I have to reboot.. For a while now I've been using /reloadgfx with the belief that it could postpone the crash indefinitely, but not really understanding what it was doing, or if it was doing anything at all. After reading this thread, I decided to run activity monitor with CoH in windowed mode. Sure enough my free memory would gradually drain away, and using the /reloadgfx command would free it all up again.

As for my system:

Mac Pro 1,1
4G Memory
ATI Radeon HD 5770
Snow Leopard 10.6.6

Running CoH v1.0.4462

"There's villainy ... and then there's supervillainy. The difference is performance."
-Doc_Reverend

Same memory leak issue (it appears). In activity monitor, memory kept rising - somewhere over 2 gb the game just disappears and I'm staring at my desktop. reloadgfx seems to be keeping it stable (short term at least).

mac pro 5,1 3.2ghz
8gb ram
Newest version of game
Snow Leopard 10.6.6
ATI Radeon hd 5870

Villain Morality Mission: hold philanthropist hostage in Boomtown.

TWICE now ... I have started this mission, cleared objectives of blowing up supplies, generator and emergency supplies ... fought off the 4 ambush spawns ... defeated the guards on top of the building by my (to be) hostage ... and come stand by Mr. Goody Too Few Shoes.

A radio spawns a few feet away.

I click on the radio.

ASSERTION FAILURE

Client crashes to desktop.

Relaunch CoH client.
Log back in.
Launch original character.
Spawn outside Morality Mission.
Enter Mission.
All objectives of mission have been reset to Square Zero.

That Radio interactive is apparently Beyond Broken as far as the CoH Mac Client is concerned. It very reliably causes an ASSERTION FAILURE.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Since 19.5 came out I'm getting an occasional graphics glitch - when I zone in, All I see are the backgrounds and auras. No people, not streets, not even my own character - just the war wall and outer art.

reloadgfx does not fix it, if I manage to get out of the zone (Happened last time going out of the SG base), and I re-enter, problem is still there. I have to quit the game to fix it.

My issue is the same as yours, Gavin. After a while of play, total screen-lock forces me to do a hard shut-down. It happens when I talk to a contact or click on something in the options menu like "personal info," etc. Cmd/Optn/Esc does not function. Mostly just been avoiding this by running CoH on my Windows partition, which hurts my soul a little.
Thanks for being proactive about this, Cuppa!

iMac7
4G 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
1TB Hard drive
ATI RadeonHD2600
10.6.6

I'm seeing the same "clean crash" mentioned by others here. Playing along just fine, then the CoH screen just vanishes. I'm dropped back to the Desktop, although CoH is still running (it's in the Dock). CoH stays like that for 5-10 seconds, then the rest of the app quits as well, giving me the "Send an Error Report" dialog. No freezing or seize-ups; CoH just gracefully gives up the ghost.

I'll try /reloadgfx later today to see if it keeps the crash at bay... although this is obviously a temporary solution.

MacBook Pro 15
2.66MHz Core i7
4GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Snow Leopard 10.6.6
City of Heroes v1.0.3068

El - I put reloadgfx on a keybind to save time, and it seems to be keeping me much more stable - as long as I remember to hit it regularly. Hope it is a proper band-aid for you too!

Gavin - Thanks! I'll give that a shot next time.

For the record, The patch that fixed the long loading screen, did not fix the lockup when talking to NPCs.

Still get that one all the time.

I have been crashing very frequently as well, plus the long loading screen and sometimes black screen after a crash. I have to restart my computer if I get the black screen. My most frequent crash messages are Assertion failure and corrupted pigg file. I crash at least once every TF and frequently on zoning. I have also noticed some strange graphics issues where the people or objects disappear and only the basic background is present. I turned off Ultra Graphics mode after the Feb 15th patch as I could barely run the game after that one. I haven't done a clean install to see if that helps because the process takes so long.


Mac Book Pro, OS X10.6.6, 2.5 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

I launched COH today and it automatically downloaded the newest patch. Afterwards, the game will not launch at all.

After hitting the accept button on the opening splash screen, the game goes to load, but goes to a black screen and completely locks up the computer, requiring a reset by holding the power button down on the MAC.

I've tried Verifying All Files twice and still the same result.

Any suggestions?

I'm running:
Mac OS 10.5.8
Model Name: Mac Pro
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Number Of Processors: 2
Total Number Of Cores: 8
L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB
Memory: 6 GB
Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz

See two posts above, that might help.

Hiya folks......not a regular visitor to the forums, but much respect for everyone here. I've played CoH on and off over the past 5 years, the last time leaving because one day I simply could no longer log onto the game. This occurred a few months after switching to a mac. I went through 2 weeks of trouble tickets to no resolution (circles) and eventually couldn't take it any longer.

A bud got me back into the game a couple weeks back, and needless to say I was again hooked. That was, until last night, where once I was forced to install the new updater, and since then have been in gaming hell trying to log in. SO, please bear with me as I try to keep a calm head whilst typing.

I too am getting stuck on a black screen during log in. I was able to log in after deleting the preferences folder, but it took almost 2 hours of efforts to convince the game to let me slowly change my settings back to normal (must reboot for changes to take effect, which has about a 50/50 chance to not work since a preferences folder now exists!). I eventually got my settings back to normal and was able to get the log in to work several times in a row. Somehow I think trying the circle once while in safe mode helped, although that's a theory with no proof. Still, we're talking time after time of waiting to see if the game would lock up and force me to hard boot the comp. Very displeasing.

So, issues supposedly resolved, I came home today ready for a full friday night of gaming, only to be stuck on the black screen again. I simply cannot go through this process every time I want to play. PLEASE HELP.

Try the stuff in the troubleshooting guide in my signature and let me know how it goes.