FEEDBACK: Non-system specific crashes.

Ay · 10-09-2005, 01:41 AM

Hello, I'd like to give some feedback on exactly how some crashes are happening on the LIVE servers that I just cant ignore anymore. I would like to hear if you've seen these crashes/freezes as well because i've seen them happen on different computers using different components. Hopefully some of these symptoms of the crashes can help them get fixed.

Before I talk about the crashes I'd like to point out that what makes the crashes/freezes about 1000x worse is that it takes what seems to be 10 long long minutes for the EQ2 servers to even recognize the player has crashed or went LD. This is just wrong. The person is sitting there trying to log in for what seems to be a long long time. I havent timed it but it feels like 5-10 minutes before the game will allow you to log back in. I have never seen any MMO take this long to recognize an LD. I know the ping time between the servers/client has to be less than that SMILEY

.

Crash #1: This is the most irritating of all crashes imho. It is sort of a crash/freeze thing. What happens is the person who this happens to, in your group, see's every mob and person just sit there (sort of frozen, but with animation), BUT you yourself can actually move around. It is like someone stopped time for you. Meanwhile, your group doesnt get any sort of message at all that you've just lost connection (or gotten out of sync, whatever it is), even if they wait for hours, and they just see you sitting there in game doing nothing. It is an odd crash, in that i think the server still is getting some sort of ping from you that you are still connected, but you are out of sync with the mobs and your group mates to the point where you cant see them move nor the mobs and they just see you sit there doing nothing. I am not certain, but this sort of crash may happen more in instances than other places. The only way to fix this thing is for the person out of sync to log out the game. They have to "Exit without camping". All of the other exit options wont actually exit the game for you.

Crash #2: EQ2 Client Crash. I am admitting this may be client specific, because I think some peopel may actually never have a client crash. I'll go days w/out a client crash to desktop, but then i'll go about 5 hours with 5 client crashes one day. I have no idea what is causing it but it would be sooo much smoother if i didnt have to wait 10 mins for the server to even recognize i'm gone, even though all traces of the EQ2 program are gone from my system memory. SMILEY

Crash #3: This one is probably not high on the priority list because it happens out of game. It happens at the character log in screen and I really believe it is not system specific. It happens after you've played one character, then log back out into the character select screen then select another character to play. Boom, client crash 90% of the time. It may happen more often when going from a good to evil character or vica versa. All i have to say is logging back into the character select screen should not even be an option if this is going to happen every time. I understand how it's low priority, but it can be pretty frustrating.

lisasdarr · 10-09-2005, 04:21 AM

Ayun wrote:
Hello, I'd like to give some feedback on exactly how some crashes are happening on the LIVE servers that I just cant ignore anymore. I would like to hear if you've seen these crashes/freezes as well because i've seen them happen on different computers using different components. Hopefully some of these symptoms of the crashes can help them get fixed.

Before I talk about the crashes I'd like to point out that what makes the crashes/freezes about 1000x worse is that it takes what seems to be 10 long long minutes for the EQ2 servers to even recognize the player has crashed or went LD. This is just wrong. The person is sitting there trying to log in for what seems to be a long long time. I havent timed it but it feels like 5-10 minutes before the game will allow you to log back in. I have never seen any MMO take this long to recognize an LD. I know the ping time between the servers/client has to be less than that .

Crash #1: This is the most irritating of all crashes imho. It is sort of a crash/freeze thing. What happens is the person who this happens to, in your group, see's every mob and person just sit there (sort of frozen, but with animation), BUT you yourself can actually move around. It is like someone stopped time for you. Meanwhile, your group doesnt get any sort of message at all that you've just lost connection (or gotten out of sync, whatever it is), even if they wait for hours, and they just see you sitting there in game doing nothing. It is an odd crash, in that i think the server still is getting some sort of ping from you that you are still connected, but you are out of sync with the mobs and your group mates to the point where you cant see them move nor the mobs and they just see you sit there doing nothing. I am not certain, but this sort of crash may happen more in instances than other places. The only way to fix this thing is for the person out of sync to log out the game. They have to "Exit without camping". All of the other exit options wont actually exit the game for you.

With crash one, can you still chat to others on global channels?

Ay · 10-09-2005, 05:21 AM

not sure, i havent tried chatting at all actually.

Mel · 10-14-2005, 07:05 PM

lisasdarren wrote:
Ayun wrote:
Hello, I'd like to give some feedback on exactly how some crashes are happening on the LIVE servers that I just cant ignore anymore. I would like to hear if you've seen these crashes/freezes as well because i've seen them happen on different computers using different components. Hopefully some of these symptoms of the crashes can help them get fixed.

Before I talk about the crashes I'd like to point out that what makes the crashes/freezes about 1000x worse is that it takes what seems to be 10 long long minutes for the EQ2 servers to even recognize the player has crashed or went LD. This is just wrong. The person is sitting there trying to log in for what seems to be a long long time. I havent timed it but it feels like 5-10 minutes before the game will allow you to log back in. I have never seen any MMO take this long to recognize an LD. I know the ping time between the servers/client has to be less than that .

Crash #1: This is the most irritating of all crashes imho. It is sort of a crash/freeze thing. What happens is the person who this happens to, in your group, see's every mob and person just sit there (sort of frozen, but with animation), BUT you yourself can actually move around. It is like someone stopped time for you. Meanwhile, your group doesnt get any sort of message at all that you've just lost connection (or gotten out of sync, whatever it is), even if they wait for hours, and they just see you sitting there in game doing nothing. It is an odd crash, in that i think the server still is getting some sort of ping from you that you are still connected, but you are out of sync with the mobs and your group mates to the point where you cant see them move nor the mobs and they just see you sit there doing nothing. I am not certain, but this sort of crash may happen more in instances than other places. The only way to fix this thing is for the person out of sync to log out the game. They have to "Exit without camping". All of the other exit options wont actually exit the game for you.

With crash one, can you still chat to others on global channels?

I've had #1 happen to me a few times. Your tells, global messages, shouts, OOC, guild chat and such will accept it as if it sent, but it doesn't come up anywhere. I have also recovered without having to log. everything seems to hang just as in #1 then all of the sudden it all comes back in a rush. If I'm in combat, I'll get multiple hit noises and everything will sync back up. It's a little startling the first time. (and has gotten me killed a few times) Considering how difficult it is to diagnose a problem like this, I doubt anything can be done to fix it.

Lasia2 · 10-14-2005, 08:57 PM

Hm. I THINK i may be getting your #1 crash as well. My fiance and I both get it. different houses, differetn computers, different video cards.same crash.

What happens is that all frames and buttons disappear, but the numbers are left behind......so i'll see these little white numbers littering the screen. its almost-frozen....i can hear things happening, but i think in slow-mo.....it was happening to me one day and i IM'd my fiance and said you know, hey, i'm crashing, please let the group memebrs know to wait for me........and i said boy thats a long fight (i'm still hearing fighting noises) and he says "we finished that fight 2 minutes ago".............

I can still see chat going by though, not sure if anybody was getting my messages. They see me as just standing there...frozen.

This crash ONLY happens when I'm in a group, so far. All three times i've been in a full group. Once it was in OOLS, and the last time it was....in RoV. Thought that maybe the combo of the full group, the dungeon, etc was too taxing on my computer or something.

Ay · 10-14-2005, 08:59 PM

Melik, be specific if you can about how you go things to sync back up. I looked for ways to get things going again to no avail. Did you mean all you had to do was take a few hits and you were better again? That doesnt work for me.

A few other things i've noticed about #1 is that often times my cast bar is stuck at full when it happens OR my heroic opportunity window is up and flashing. Every time it's happened i've seen this, i'll take note if i dont see either of those things next time it happens.

I"m not sure if we're talkign about the same thing though. Yours sounds more like a the huge lag spikes that sometimes happen. I'm talking about something that wont fix itself no matter how much time you give it.. unless there's some trick i dont know about.

Message Edited by Ayun on 10-14-2005 10:01 AM

Ay · 10-14-2005, 09:03 PM

thats the one Lasia. i wonder if others have it as well.

And yes, it's one of those thngs i'm not sure how SoE could even reproduce. I'm not sure how they coudl test for it if they dont know how they can reproduce it.

Lasia2 · 10-14-2005, 09:32 PM

WONDERFUL

so what youre saying is that this is basically like a car, and YOU hear the pinging noise sometimes, but it didn't do it for the mechanics, and so it doesnt get fixed SMILEY

crunchybob · 10-15-2005, 04:50 AM

I had Crash #1 in RoV the other night...well it lasted a full 2 minutes , then got about 25 hit noises and saw my group had killed the three mobs they were working on, but someone else had the same thing happen to them at the same time, and since we were the two priests in the group we had a few casualties, including the other priest. Because the wonderful thing is, if you're moving when crash #1 happens, you keep running until the server detects you're not there (up to 10 minutes), or until you die.

The other client crash I seem to get once in a while always happens on the kill shot. That last hit lands and the screen freezes before the death animation kicks off, you just see the rest of your group in mid air, pounding the mob. I can alt-tab out to other applications, but EQ itself is dead frozen.

Message Edited by crunchybob on 10-14-2005 07:51 PM

Jelrak · 10-15-2005, 04:56 AM

Re Crash #3: I had this situation for quite a while and after some major forum combing came to the conclusion that my problem causing this was actually UI related (Custom UI - not the default). Just something to check out - as once I changed my UI to a different one the character change crash problem vanished.

Ay · 10-15-2005, 05:08 PM

I'll check that out jelrak thanks, I do have a few custom UI pieces. I cant live w/out my 3/4 size hotbars though.

Phurrin · 10-15-2005, 05:45 PM

Crash #3 is actually related to custom experience bars. Was brought to my attention by another poster that if you have a custom bar and a level 3 artisan or adventurer, you'll crash when switching to that character from another without restarting the game. Simple fix: take five minutes to get artisan level 4, problem solved. Have tested this with several characters so far and it got rid of the crashes. SMILEY

Mel · 10-15-2005, 05:57 PM

Ayun wrote:

Melik, be specific if you can about how you go things to sync back up. I looked for ways to get things going again to no avail. Did you mean all you had to do was take a few hits and you were better again? That doesnt work for me.

A few other things i've noticed about #1 is that often times my cast bar is stuck at full when it happens OR my heroic opportunity window is up and flashing. Every time it's happened i've seen this, i'll take note if i dont see either of those things next time it happens.

I"m not sure if we're talkign about the same thing though. Yours sounds more like a the huge lag spikes that sometimes happen. I'm talking about something that wont fix itself no matter how much time you give it.. unless there's some trick i dont know about.

Message Edited by Ayun on 10-14-2005 10:01 AM

That's the thing. I don't do anything to recover, it just happens on its own. Than everything happens really fast to catch up.

Lasia2 · 10-17-2005, 07:05 PM

Hrm. see my crashed I dont recover from. I suppose i coudl TRY, but I'm in a group and don't want to make them wait 10+ mintues to see if it's going to correct itself......I've waited a few, the first tiem up to 5 minutes, but then gave up and rebooted my whole system.

Mel · 10-17-2005, 07:33 PM

Lasia221 wrote:

Hrm. see my crashed I dont recover from. I suppose i coudl TRY, but I'm in a group and don't want to make them wait 10+ mintues to see if it's going to correct itself......I've waited a few, the first tiem up to 5 minutes, but then gave up and rebooted my whole system.

The times I did recover, it never lasted more than 30 seconds to 1 minute. I think beyond about 2 minutes, you're better off to just cut your losses and reboot.

10-14-2005, 07:05 PM	#4
Mel General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 24	lisasdarren wrote: Ayun wrote: Hello, I'd like to give some feedback on exactly how some crashes are happening on the LIVE servers that I just cant ignore anymore. I would like to hear if you've seen these crashes/freezes as well because i've seen them happen on different computers using different components. Hopefully some of these symptoms of the crashes can help them get fixed. Before I talk about the crashes I'd like to point out that what makes the crashes/freezes about 1000x worse is that it takes what seems to be 10 long long minutes for the EQ2 servers to even recognize the player has crashed or went LD. This is just wrong. The person is sitting there trying to log in for what seems to be a long long time. I havent timed it but it feels like 5-10 minutes before the game will allow you to log back in. I have never seen any MMO take this long to recognize an LD. I know the ping time between the servers/client has to be less than that . Crash #1: This is the most irritating of all crashes imho. It is sort of a crash/freeze thing. What happens is the person who this happens to, in your group, see's every mob and person just sit there (sort of frozen, but with animation), BUT you yourself can actually move around. It is like someone stopped time for you. Meanwhile, your group doesnt get any sort of message at all that you've just lost connection (or gotten out of sync, whatever it is), even if they wait for hours, and they just see you sitting there in game doing nothing. It is an odd crash, in that i think the server still is getting some sort of ping from you that you are still connected, but you are out of sync with the mobs and your group mates to the point where you cant see them move nor the mobs and they just see you sit there doing nothing. I am not certain, but this sort of crash may happen more in instances than other places. The only way to fix this thing is for the person out of sync to log out the game. They have to "Exit without camping". All of the other exit options wont actually exit the game for you. With crash one, can you still chat to others on global channels? I've had #1 happen to me a few times. Your tells, global messages, shouts, OOC, guild chat and such will accept it as if it sent, but it doesn't come up anywhere. I have also recovered without having to log. everything seems to hang just as in #1 then all of the sudden it all comes back in a rush. If I'm in combat, I'll get multiple hit noises and everything will sync back up. It's a little startling the first time. (and has gotten me killed a few times) Considering how difficult it is to diagnose a problem like this, I doubt anything can be done to fix it.

10-15-2005, 04:50 AM	#9
crunchybob Loremaster Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 26	I had Crash #1 in RoV the other night...well it lasted a full 2 minutes , then got about 25 hit noises and saw my group had killed the three mobs they were working on, but someone else had the same thing happen to them at the same time, and since we were the two priests in the group we had a few casualties, including the other priest. Because the wonderful thing is, if you're moving when crash #1 happens, you keep running until the server detects you're not there (up to 10 minutes), or until you die. The other client crash I seem to get once in a while always happens on the kill shot. That last hit lands and the screen freezes before the death animation kicks off, you just see the rest of your group in mid air, pounding the mob. I can alt-tab out to other applications, but EQ itself is dead frozen. Message Edited by crunchybob on 10-14-2005 07:51 PM __________________ Igio - Mystic and officer of Aeternus - Oasis server ."if you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit." - Mitch Hedberg 1968-2005 RIP

10-15-2005, 05:57 PM	#13
Mel General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 24	Ayun wrote: Melik, be specific if you can about how you go things to sync back up. I looked for ways to get things going again to no avail. Did you mean all you had to do was take a few hits and you were better again? That doesnt work for me. A few other things i've noticed about #1 is that often times my cast bar is stuck at full when it happens OR my heroic opportunity window is up and flashing. Every time it's happened i've seen this, i'll take note if i dont see either of those things next time it happens. I"m not sure if we're talkign about the same thing though. Yours sounds more like a the huge lag spikes that sometimes happen. I'm talking about something that wont fix itself no matter how much time you give it.. unless there's some trick i dont know about. Message Edited by Ayun on 10-14-2005 10:01 AM That's the thing. I don't do anything to recover, it just happens on its own. Than everything happens really fast to catch up.

10-17-2005, 07:33 PM	#15
Mel General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 24	Lasia221 wrote: Hrm. see my crashed I dont recover from. I suppose i coudl TRY, but I'm in a group and don't want to make them wait 10+ mintues to see if it's going to correct itself......I've waited a few, the first tiem up to 5 minutes, but then gave up and rebooted my whole system. The times I did recover, it never lasted more than 30 seconds to 1 minute. I think beyond about 2 minutes, you're better off to just cut your losses and reboot.

10-09-2005, 01:41 AM	#1
Ay Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 97	Hello, I'd like to give some feedback on exactly how some crashes are happening on the LIVE servers that I just cant ignore anymore. I would like to hear if you've seen these crashes/freezes as well because i've seen them happen on different computers using different components. Hopefully some of these symptoms of the crashes can help them get fixed. Before I talk about the crashes I'd like to point out that what makes the crashes/freezes about 1000x worse is that it takes what seems to be 10 long long minutes for the EQ2 servers to even recognize the player has crashed or went LD. This is just wrong. The person is sitting there trying to log in for what seems to be a long long time. I havent timed it but it feels like 5-10 minutes before the game will allow you to log back in. I have never seen any MMO take this long to recognize an LD. I know the ping time between the servers/client has to be less than that . Crash #1: This is the most irritating of all crashes imho. It is sort of a crash/freeze thing. What happens is the person who this happens to, in your group, see's every mob and person just sit there (sort of frozen, but with animation), BUT you yourself can actually move around. It is like someone stopped time for you. Meanwhile, your group doesnt get any sort of message at all that you've just lost connection (or gotten out of sync, whatever it is), even if they wait for hours, and they just see you sitting there in game doing nothing. It is an odd crash, in that i think the server still is getting some sort of ping from you that you are still connected, but you are out of sync with the mobs and your group mates to the point where you cant see them move nor the mobs and they just see you sit there doing nothing. I am not certain, but this sort of crash may happen more in instances than other places. The only way to fix this thing is for the person out of sync to log out the game. They have to "Exit without camping". All of the other exit options wont actually exit the game for you. Crash #2: EQ2 Client Crash. I am admitting this may be client specific, because I think some peopel may actually never have a client crash. I'll go days w/out a client crash to desktop, but then i'll go about 5 hours with 5 client crashes one day. I have no idea what is causing it but it would be sooo much smoother if i didnt have to wait 10 mins for the server to even recognize i'm gone, even though all traces of the EQ2 program are gone from my system memory. Crash #3: This one is probably not high on the priority list because it happens out of game. It happens at the character log in screen and I really believe it is not system specific. It happens after you've played one character, then log back out into the character select screen then select another character to play. Boom, client crash 90% of the time. It may happen more often when going from a good to evil character or vica versa. All i have to say is logging back into the character select screen should not even be an option if this is going to happen every time. I understand how it's low priority, but it can be pretty frustrating.

10-09-2005, 04:21 AM	#2
lisasdarr Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 186	Ayun wrote: Hello, I'd like to give some feedback on exactly how some crashes are happening on the LIVE servers that I just cant ignore anymore. I would like to hear if you've seen these crashes/freezes as well because i've seen them happen on different computers using different components. Hopefully some of these symptoms of the crashes can help them get fixed. Before I talk about the crashes I'd like to point out that what makes the crashes/freezes about 1000x worse is that it takes what seems to be 10 long long minutes for the EQ2 servers to even recognize the player has crashed or went LD. This is just wrong. The person is sitting there trying to log in for what seems to be a long long time. I havent timed it but it feels like 5-10 minutes before the game will allow you to log back in. I have never seen any MMO take this long to recognize an LD. I know the ping time between the servers/client has to be less than that . Crash #1: This is the most irritating of all crashes imho. It is sort of a crash/freeze thing. What happens is the person who this happens to, in your group, see's every mob and person just sit there (sort of frozen, but with animation), BUT you yourself can actually move around. It is like someone stopped time for you. Meanwhile, your group doesnt get any sort of message at all that you've just lost connection (or gotten out of sync, whatever it is), even if they wait for hours, and they just see you sitting there in game doing nothing. It is an odd crash, in that i think the server still is getting some sort of ping from you that you are still connected, but you are out of sync with the mobs and your group mates to the point where you cant see them move nor the mobs and they just see you sit there doing nothing. I am not certain, but this sort of crash may happen more in instances than other places. The only way to fix this thing is for the person out of sync to log out the game. They have to "Exit without camping". All of the other exit options wont actually exit the game for you. With crash one, can you still chat to others on global channels? __________________

10-09-2005, 05:21 AM	#3
Ay Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 97	not sure, i havent tried chatting at all actually.

10-14-2005, 08:57 PM	#5
Lasia2 Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 54	Hm. I THINK i may be getting your #1 crash as well. My fiance and I both get it. different houses, differetn computers, different video cards.same crash. What happens is that all frames and buttons disappear, but the numbers are left behind......so i'll see these little white numbers littering the screen. its almost-frozen....i can hear things happening, but i think in slow-mo.....it was happening to me one day and i IM'd my fiance and said you know, hey, i'm crashing, please let the group memebrs know to wait for me........and i said boy thats a long fight (i'm still hearing fighting noises) and he says "we finished that fight 2 minutes ago"............. I can still see chat going by though, not sure if anybody was getting my messages. They see me as just standing there...frozen. This crash ONLY happens when I'm in a group, so far. All three times i've been in a full group. Once it was in OOLS, and the last time it was....in RoV. Thought that maybe the combo of the full group, the dungeon, etc was too taxing on my computer or something.

10-14-2005, 08:59 PM	#6
Ay Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 97	Melik, be specific if you can about how you go things to sync back up. I looked for ways to get things going again to no avail. Did you mean all you had to do was take a few hits and you were better again? That doesnt work for me. A few other things i've noticed about #1 is that often times my cast bar is stuck at full when it happens OR my heroic opportunity window is up and flashing. Every time it's happened i've seen this, i'll take note if i dont see either of those things next time it happens. I"m not sure if we're talkign about the same thing though. Yours sounds more like a the huge lag spikes that sometimes happen. I'm talking about something that wont fix itself no matter how much time you give it.. unless there's some trick i dont know about. Message Edited by Ayun on 10-14-2005 10:01 AM

10-14-2005, 09:03 PM	#7
Ay Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 97	thats the one Lasia. i wonder if others have it as well. And yes, it's one of those thngs i'm not sure how SoE could even reproduce. I'm not sure how they coudl test for it if they dont know how they can reproduce it.

10-14-2005, 09:32 PM	#8
Lasia2 Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 54	WONDERFUL so what youre saying is that this is basically like a car, and YOU hear the pinging noise sometimes, but it didn't do it for the mechanics, and so it doesnt get fixed

10-15-2005, 04:56 AM	#10
Jelrak Tester Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: North Carolina Posts: 186	Re Crash #3: I had this situation for quite a while and after some major forum combing came to the conclusion that my problem causing this was actually UI related (Custom UI - not the default). Just something to check out - as once I changed my UI to a different one the character change crash problem vanished.

10-15-2005, 05:08 PM	#11
Ay Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 97	I'll check that out jelrak thanks, I do have a few custom UI pieces. I cant live w/out my 3/4 size hotbars though.

10-15-2005, 05:45 PM	#12
Phurrin Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 29	Crash #3 is actually related to custom experience bars. Was brought to my attention by another poster that if you have a custom bar and a level 3 artisan or adventurer, you'll crash when switching to that character from another without restarting the game. Simple fix: take five minutes to get artisan level 4, problem solved. Have tested this with several characters so far and it got rid of the crashes.

10-17-2005, 07:05 PM	#14
Lasia2 Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 54	Hrm. see my crashed I dont recover from. I suppose i coudl TRY, but I'm in a group and don't want to make them wait 10+ mintues to see if it's going to correct itself......I've waited a few, the first tiem up to 5 minutes, but then gave up and rebooted my whole system.