More Awesome Than You!

My unpatched legal game runs pretty well on my rig (Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.40GHz, 4G RAM, ATI X850X card, two internal fans, Windoze XPSP2).  Graphics are good;  no lag.   No awesomeness installed yet, just a few goodies from the pudding factory.

I delete all the cache files from the TS3 folder within my docs before I start the game using the TS3.exe shortcut.

All would be well in Simstan except just about every time I go into CAS to change the clothing choices, I get a CTD.    

I've looked around in the TS3 folder and note that each time this crash happens, two files are created.  They are always called "xcpt D3585F61" followed by the crash date. One is a text file, the other a MDMP file and both include the time of the crash.

I've copied  the exception information from two of the five CTDs I've had:

[Exception info]
date: 2009-08-06
time: 22.38.22
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x0000002c
address: 0x004dbc05 "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3.exe":0x0001:0x000dac05

(22.38.22.mdmp)

[Exception info]
date: 2009-08-01
time: 19.41.03
type: ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x0000002c
address: 0x0069583b "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3.exe":0x0001:0x0029483b

(19.41.03 mdmp)

Of the five text files, two show the following type:

[Exception info]
date: 2009-07-18
time: 18.21.01
type: INT_DIVIDE_BY_ZERO
address: 0x007c3774 "C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\TS3.exe":0x0001:0x003c2774

I'm clueless about what these exception errors mean and if there's something I can do to avoid them.  

Is there an interpreter handy?

Okay really obvious question, but did you try taking your custom content out? In particular some of those Peggy hairs that have been posted in the pudding factory have been known to cause issues. That yours is happening in the CAS makes me very strongly suspect some custom content item.

Make sure you delete your cache files too when you yank everything out.

If you installed anything via sims3pack deleting them from the downloads folder will not suffice as they get shove into the DCCache. You might just want to rename the whole My Documents/EA Games/The Sims 3 folder or just temporarily drag it to the desktop.

If you have anything stashed in Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods yank that directory out too and also the resource.cfg.

If you take all that out and you can go into the CAS and look through clothing and hair with no crashing then your culprit is some custom item. Then you get the fun part, figuring out which one it is. :P

Hi Motoki.  Was good to see you back after your long hiatus.

No Peggy hair in my game.  The only stuff I've downloaded here came from the store.

I do have a mods folder in the program files folder, but that only contains HP's hair and my game was doing its CTD dance long before I added that folder.

Like Pavlov's dog, I've learned to save immediately after futzing around in CAS and use the reload time for a bathroom break. 

Will try moving out the TS3 folder, but I keep wondering about those errors related to the TS3.exe file.

Every time I see this I cringe.

There are millions of users out there who never heard of these cache files and the only thing they did to update the game is click on the "yes" button.  They didn't delete any caches, they didn't remove any custom content (mostly downloaded from the Store). They just clicked the button.  The updates have to work for all of them.  If an update needs a cache file deleted, it will delete the file itself.

The errors you see from TS3.exe are exceptions thrown when the program encounters a problem.  ACCESS_VIOLATION means the program tried to read some memory address it wasn't supposed to, possibly because it was passed a pointer to that invalid address.  INT_DIVIDE_BY_ZERO would be a divide by zero, likely happening because some value wasn't properly initialized to a number.  Both of these are good candidates for data that should have been in the cache files that no longer exist.

It may be necessary to delete one or more cache files if you're using a core mod.  It's up to the creators of these mods to either tell you exactly what to delete, or to include code in the mod to fix the cache.  If you end up deleting the wrong cache files, you may see problems.  In your case, you didn't have any core mods according to your description.

I removed a cache file to my desktop once on advice from someone and lost the ambrosia effect on my sim.  Age went back to 100+ days.  After putting the cache file back the age was back to about 80 days.  Perhaps removing all the cache files would have worked, but that's really irrelevant because it's obvious that some data is being stored in cache files instead of your save files.

Do what you wish, but I won't be deleting any cache files again, nor do I expect to be using any core mods.  My updated game runs without problems with the few mods I do have.

Hook

It's my understanding that the CasPartCache, compositorCache, scriptCache, and simCompositorCache are temporary files (like the accessory and groups cache files in TS2) which regenerate when the game is started.  I didn't begin to delete them until after the first of the CTDs, and that was done on some advice here and at MTS2.  Since it has had no effect, will leave them in.

The odd thing is that I can get through all the steps of creating a new Sim, including three sets of clothing in each category, with no issues.  The CTDs happen only in-game.

Just a reminder: you can't use the dresser on pregnant sims.  It borks the game.

If you were already having CTD problems then do whatever the modders advise.  Just don't delete the cache files as a normal step in updating unless you're using a mod that requires it for whatever reason.

Hook

What does it do to the game? The Ursine character was the first Sim I played when I was exploring the game.  Tried changing her clothing but I recall the option didn't exist.  I played her through the pregnancy then created my own Sims.

If this hadn't been my self sim and I had been playing more than one family in the neighborhood I might not have noticed.  Where's the coincidence when the age dropped back to what it was supposed to be after replacing the cache file?

Hook

Actually, deleting the cache files can't break your game, simply because the game never had them as part of the core data to begin with: Even having NOTHING in your userdata directory is an acceptable run state for the game. This particular error is just some obscure hardcoded programming bug you can't do anything about. It's not even something the scripts can cause, because managed code can't crash from divide-by-zero errors.

Having no save files is a normal state.  Is having save files but no cache files a normal state at any point?

It's obviously extremely bad practice to store data that should have been in a save game in a file designated as cache instead.  But it only takes one indication that this has happened to mean that they do it all the time.  Just because no programmer in his right mind would do such a thing doesn't mean that EA programmers never did it.

If you have an obviously corrupted cache file, then any possible harm done by deleting it is overridden because the file is already causing problems.  In that case you delete the file.  Deleting a cache file when there are no problems is putting a lot of faith in EA using proper engineering practices.

Hook

It sounds that it is WINDOWS that is considering TS3.exe as access violation. I saw briefly some file names when updating my Windows that had something to do with xml and it was in the section "critical updates". Did you update your Windows recently?

Yes. This happens at the very moment you start the game, when it loads the standard save file cachelessly (and redraws everything). The cache files are not part of the game and contain only data to accelerate texture loading. If they are not present, the game simply regenerates them. They are not essential, although they do improve performance until they become so bloated with obsolete data that the opposite begins to happen, and periodically detonating them helps clear out stale data.

The real culprit is probably dodgy CC.

Nope.


Nah, I think it's something more insidious than that.  I've used Norton Utilities for years.  It was great software way back when.  The last incarnation I purchased was the 2005 Symantec SystemWorks.  I stopped using the a.v. program a couple years ago but continued to use the utilities.  That is, until this weekend when it refused to load and a popup appeared telling me I needed to activate the same software I purchased years ago, then refused activation unless I paid forty bucks.

That's blackmail, so I banished Symantec and installed Advanced SystemCare, plus their defragger (both free).

Last night I played my Riverview family and ran them through CAS for wardrobe changes.  No CTD.   Did the same with my Sunset Valley family tonght.  No CTD. 
Coincidence?  Maybe.  I guess only time will tell.

You should update your Windows. Do you have a link for this Advanced System Care? I run a comp. without internet and cannot install any of those Anti Whatever because they pop up revisions and updates at every minute.
I cannot install anything that requires internet connection AND I DON'T want to connect my comp in anyway. Have group motives for this decision.

Who said my Windoze wasn't up to date?  The question was whether it had been updated recently.

Google will show you the way to Advance SystemCare.