Freezing and crashing every 20-30 mins.
I don't know what "ubd.exe" is, but I do not have it on my computer active. You actually have fewer processes active than I do, though.
I don't have "WinMsgBalloonClient.exe" active either, and am unsure what that actually does. |
WinMsgBalloonClient seems to be tied to Comodo (not the antivirus product) and most commenly mentioned along with motherboard drivers and RaidXpert.
Conhost.exe is part of Windows. Usually tied to csrss.exe.
Dstnoted is part of Apple's services again. (Mobile Device or Application.)
Odd, I don't have that process show up on my computer with Windows 7 64bit ever. I do have csrss.exe, but conhost is not there.
Interesting. Maybe it is the issue? |
Easy way to have it show up - open a command prompt.
Edit: Link to a brief explanation.
I've used Process Explorer before to help track down strange programs in the background. May be worth a look for you?
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil...scription.html
Just finished some testing: the old machine works okay; I get a little lag with it (and it can't run ultra mode at all, which is why I want to fix this so badly). Characters I made on the new machine work on the old one without causing it to crash. The new character I made on the old machine just today works on the new one. It seems to be just characters I made before I22 came out. Unfortunately, I didn't make any characters on the new machine prior to I22's release, but since the new character I made on the old machine worked just fine, I don't think the character's creation source is part of the problem.
I got the new machine just before the release of I22. As far as I can remember, it worked fine until I22 came out, but I'm not 100% sure about that. |
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD

So, new characters on the new machine do not crash the PC? Is this correct?
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And the character I created after the I22 update on the old machine did not cause a crash on the new machine.
Characters created prior to I22 cause a crash. I did not create any characters on the new machine prior to I22.
I guess this counts as a tl;dr version.
Ok, now that is helpful information
So we can now determine that the problem is not hardware and not CoH however, it is repeatable on characters created pre i22 on the new machine.
Well, the first thing I could consider is blowing away the CoH app data, possibly some of the data from pre i22 characters is corrupted there. There were some bugs with trays and maps being reset.
Users>"login name">appdata>local>ncsoft>cox>Visited Maps.
try deleting the visited maps data and shader data.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD

Do you have "Show processes from all users" checked? Not all csrss.exe will spawn this. It needs to be a process or program that requires some sort of console (which may not be visible to the person at the desktop.)
Easy way to have it show up - open a command prompt. Edit: Link to a brief explanation. |
Maybe that is the problem for Lucretia. Maybe she is running on an account that is limited in some small obscure way that affects CoH.
After all, it's just the desktop that has issues and only with the older characters. Maybe the game is unable to update the old character files on the desktop due to lacking permission.
T_Immortalus: I'm the admin on the new machine. I also have CoH set to Run as Administrator.
newchemicals: I did NOT make any new characters on the new machine prior to I22 release, which is one of the reasons it's so hard to pin down this problem.
Also, I couldn't find this: Users>"login name">appdata>local>ncsoft>cox>Visited Maps There was no "appdata" folder under my login name.
I've already contacted NCsoft tech support. I'm still in the "giving them more specific information as they request it" phase. I'm seriously considering re-installing the game to see if that fixes anything.
Okay, I reinstalled CoX, and it STILL crashed just like before.
Somehow, I don't think the problem is on my end....
No, its clearly on your end. If the CoH software was crashing on everyone every 20-30 minutes, trust me, these forums would be overflowing with complaints and the mods would be in full damage control mode.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD

And somehow this still sounds kinda like overheating...this game Does push GPUs a bit sometimes.
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Let's recap:
1) Only characters made before issue 22 have the error, and only on one computer.
2) They crash after 20-30 minutes, usually after running an instance which is why /leaveteam temporarily worked somewhat.
I also have this issue, but a lot less often. I am guessing it is a 64bit Windows 7 issue combined with the fact that the game is rather old, buggy and susceptible to network packet loss(which it may be causing itself and certainly makes worse).
I'm not sure how to solve it, especially since I haven't solved the more rare version I have, but I know it is tied to character tracking and team status. I also know this was never an issue before the league function and incarnate level shifts were added to the game.
Like I said, incarnates and the league system appear to be a very messy coding trick that just barely works. Get a little network packet loss and suddenly the whole thing breaks(possibly apparently treating you as if you have switched to an alternate build, are level 0 or 1 and makes your trays and team/league windows blank/screwy) ultimately resulting in a crash.
Sooner or later, they are going to have to fix the team status bug(where you are on a team if you enter an instance whether you have a team or not, and stay on that team until you use /leaveteam after quitting it), make the league grouping function more reliable and find a way for the game to more reliably deal with level shifts, especially under packet loss conditions(which are all too common when teaming).
Here's something interesting:
I recently transferred a pre-I22 character from another server to my home server (Infinity). She hasn't crashed so far. She's only lvl 12 (was lvl 11 when I transferred her), and is still using the default difficulty settings, so there isn't much lag due to massive mobs and her missions aren't very long. Still, I'm hopeful.
I've transferred one of my main I22 characters to another server and made a nameholder on Infinity for her. I'm gonna leave her there for a day or so, then transfer her back and see if she still crashes.
No idea why this would work, but.... *crosses fingers*
Here's something interesting:
I recently transferred a pre-I22 character from another server to my home server (Infinity). She hasn't crashed so far. She's only lvl 12 (was lvl 11 when I transferred her), and is still using the default difficulty settings, so there isn't much lag due to massive mobs and her missions aren't very long. Still, I'm hopeful. I've transferred one of my main I22 characters to another server and made a nameholder on Infinity for her. I'm gonna leave her there for a day or so, then transfer her back and see if she still crashes. No idea why this would work, but.... *crosses fingers* |
Moving them likely forced the data to finally update or moved it to an entirely new section of the same hard drive or another hard drive.
Edit:
These are just the "common sense logic" ideas for why this is.
Edit 2:
Also, good luck getting them to actually admit that the server's hard drive could have bad sectors and then getting them to test for it or replace it. They would rather blame your end for the error until the end of the universe, especially since they are "NCSoft support" and know very little facts about how City of Heroes runs.
Okay, so I transferred the character back to Infinity server and...
she STILL crashes!!!! This is getting REALLY ANNOYING! I haven't heard anything back from tech support. I'm getting pretty fed up with this.
Edit: LOL just checked my e-mail; NCsoft sent me a survey about their customer service quality. *sigh*
re-install is only the 2nd step in the tech support handbook.
Step 1: Re-boot
Step 2: Re-load
Step 3: Re-image
Before you try step 3, do you have a custom login screen? I recall someone had an issue like this and noticed they did not crash in beta but did on live and tracked it down to a custom login screen.
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD

Okay, so I transferred the character back to Infinity server and...
she STILL crashes!!!! This is getting REALLY ANNOYING! I haven't heard anything back from tech support. I'm getting pretty fed up with this. Edit: LOL just checked my e-mail; NCsoft sent me a survey about their customer service quality. *sigh* |
No, I don't have a custom log-in screen.
Yes, I've been checking my spam box. That was actually my first thought when I didn't get any further responses.
I had an interesting thought about what the problem might be. I won't be able to test it until later, and I feel really dumb for not thinking of this earlier, but I'm posting it here now anyway to see what you guys think. First, some necessary info:
I tend to play mostly higher-level heroes.
When one of my characters outlevels a zone, I usually go around and collect all the badges and plaques from it.
I usually skip hazard zones, but I tended to get the old Dark Astoria badges because the badge titles were cool.
I think you can see where this is going. I'm going to check to see if only characters with badges and/or plaques from the old Dark Astoria will crash. I know the character I tested the transfer back-and-forth with has them. Has anyone else noticed this correlation for their characters? Am I just crazy, or could this be the problem? It seems similar to other problems that CoX has had in the past, so...
Well, after some checking, I don't think the old Dark Astoria badges are causing the crash after all; some of my older villains still crash, and they've obviously never set foot in the old Dark Astoria.
*sigh*
I hope this gets fixed somehow. I'm out of ideas, and it doesn't seem to be a problem with my PC or internet.
How hot does your whole computer run? How hot does your internet access box(broadband modem/router/cable box) run?
Your network card inside your computer could be overheating due to the higher demand placed on it by CoH, so could your internet access point.
Although, if you use it to download and upload much more demanding things then the internet access point is likely not the issue, but the network hardware inside your computer may still be adversely affected by heat from other parts, such as your graphics card, blowing heat onto it.
I'll check it out, but I kinda doubt it. Why would it overheat for some characters and not others? I can (and do) play newer characters for hours without problems, but older characters can't even last an hour, or even half an hour. Lately, they don't even have to be in a mission to cause a crash.
In spite of what I said yesterday, I have a new idea for what the problem is:
Badges from zones that don't exist anymore (the old Dark Astoria and the old starting zones). All the characters I made before I21 came out have Isolator or Jail Bird, so they don't work. Any characters that went to Dark Astoria before I22 came out have badges from there, so they don't work. I know that the old Dark Astoria is still technically accessible through Ouro, but I'm wondering if it's a "moved the file so now we can't find it" type thing.
This means that lower-level heroes and all post-I21 villains should work. I will be testing this.
i dont know if this will help or not, but try turning shadows off completely.
i was crashing bout as much as u were and getting frustrated with it.
that fixed my problem.
@Eternal Twilight
Friends don't let friends buy an NCSoft controlled project.
Save Paragon one more time!
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index....ic,4877.0.html
Petition to end shutting down CoH:
http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
You may want to look through your characters for other things specific to the older ones, such as missions/story arcs that were changed/removed, enhancements that were changed/removed, costume pieces that were changed and anything else that is different that could possibly explain the error.
The only other option to explain it is likely to have some company person go through the character data on the servers/your computer for you and look for inconsistencies.
This game has gained some nasty issues with lost/out of order network packets(information such as character position), over the past 2 years especially, that will cause crashes.
That is why the /leaveteam function worked, at least temporarily, for you as the team status not updating caused a serious error.
As for the image....
I don't know what "ubd.exe" is, but I do not have it on my computer active. You actually have fewer processes active than I do, though.
I don't have "WinMsgBalloonClient.exe" active either, and am unsure what that actually does.
I notice by "Symantec Service Framework", in the far right column, that you must be running a Norton product, or other product from Symantec, which has a reputation for being both a bandwidth and system resources hog, at least occasionally.
I use "avast!", since at least 3 years ago, without any issues and have never regretted it. It's the free version I use as well.(got to love free AV software
Your "conhost.exe", "Console Window Host", is something I don't know, either.
I don't know what "dstnoted.exe" is.
I'm guessing "beats64.exe", "HP beats", is a music program, but is it streaming off the internet or something entirely on your own computer? If it is a streaming music program(the iTunes program could also have this issue) then it may be causing you more lag by eating your bandwidth.
Other than those things, everything else seems good or is identical to my own computer, and I experience the issue with crashes only randomly when teaming(with incarnates also I believe), which is a lot less than you have the crash issue apparently.
Edit:
There may be some misplaced/leftover data on those old characters that is causing them to experience the issue.
1) Do they still have the old Fitness pool form before it was made inherent? A respec would fix that.
2) Is there anything that jumps out as being something that had changes or was reorganized, such as the costume options? They did reorder a few large sections of the tailor interface, changing the reference calls in the programming slightly(likely, not sure).
It would not be surprising that there is something that was changed considering the fact that our combat attributes were reorganized/reprogrammed a bit such that our monitors needed to be reset after issue 22.
I would also run the repair/check for consistency option on CoH and probably defragment your hard drive. That could help. Don't forget to run the check after defragmenting as well.