Random Crashing

[epcarie]

I used to use AM, then went a long time without it. I recently reinstalled it, and now my game randomly crashes. I get one of the "The Sims 3 has encountered a problem and needs to close" popups. It's not at any particular time or during a particular activity. What could be wrong?

[jezzer]

Could you vague that up a bit for us?

[HomeschooledByTards]

Mars is not aligned at the proper angle with Sydney, Aus.

[Neon]

Actually the description of the thread starter is pretty precise.

I have exactly the same problem.
I used the Awesome Mod back in 2011 and it worked like a charm. I stopped playing Sims 3 then and started again recently.
I remembered this awesome mod and installed it again, but now get real random crashes which seem to be not reproducable and occur at total random times.

I've Sims 3 base game, World Adventures, Ambitions and High-End Loft Stuff. No mods other than the Awesome Mod installed. Awesome Configuration attached.

Yesterday I played about an hour without any crashes, today the first occured after around 20 minutes.
I once tried clearing my cache, but it crashed anyway.
I'm currently playing with a brand new family created while Awesome Mod was running. I got a random crash during CAS the first time btw.
It consists of three sims, one of them is a firefighter, the second one a cook, the third one a book author. They're just living for around three days now as the crashes ruin my mood everytime when they occur, which means I don't spend much more than 60 minutes a day.

I've Patch 1.33.2 installed.
If you want I can send the savegames, but I don't think that would help as the crashes do not seem to be reproducable.

The exception log just says
ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x00000018
00d619fb => DasmX86Dll.dll not found.

The game suddenly lags/freezes for one or two seconds, then Win 7 starts searching for a problem solution. That's how the crash looks like.
The action seems to be not relevant. Maybe I'm required to click to make it happen, but I don't know.

Btw.: Without the Awesome Mod my game didn't crash at all.

[J. M. Pescado]

The proper procedure for identifying any potential crashes is to start saving often in an attempt to zero in on the moment of crashage. Since, for some reason, my game doesn't actually crash.

[Neon]

I did some testing now with the Awesome Mod as well as without it.

Luckily I somehow managed to reproduce the crash. It seems to be not a story(making) problem, but to be triggered by user input.
I reproduced it while running with Awesome mode two times by moving around quickly, e.g. with the scroll to house or to sim (Enter and Shift + Enter) feature or by swithing the current level, and stressing the game with many left clicks (to open the pie menues).

My interpretation is that the crash occurs if some objects around are or probably rather the object at the click position itself is not yet completely loaded.
This assumption is supported by the fact that the game always lags when the crash occurs. It's like the game freezes and one or two seconds after the freeze began the game crashes.

I was not able to reproduce the crash when Aweseme Mod was disabled (i.e. no framework, no Mods dir). I tried hard for around 10 minutes in two different households. With Awesome Mod running I needed less than 5 minutes respectively.
I used the same configuration that I posted above and cleared the cache files in the user documents each time before starting the game.

The ADDRESS_VIOLATION exception mentioned in all the crash logs could somehow fit to this behavior. Are there maybe click events that access already deallocated memory when the target object is not yet or not anymore loaded?

So why does it not occur for you?
Maybe your computer needs less time for loading than mine (although I can't tell my computer is bad, it just may be that my graphics card is slightly flawed and thus needs a tad longer sometimes) or there is a different behavior because I don't have newer expansion packs like Generations or Pets.

I hope these results help you more. I'd really like to continue using the Awesome mod as it adds some fixes I don't wanna miss.

[jezzer]

If Awesomemod works for everyone else but only crashes for you, then obviously there is something you have in your game that the others don't.  When you said you tried taking out other "mods," did you take out ALL the custom content, or just what you considered a "mod"?  Because even things like custom clothing and hair can fuck up a game and cause it to behave in unexpected ways, especially if it's something that came out before an EP changed core game behavior or was created by someone who has no idea what the fuck they are doing, or who gets sloppy with details (Rose and Peggy are both notorious for this, and yet are constantly being downloaded).

[Neon]

I've no other mods, no custom content, nothing. All I did is install Sims 3 and the named expansion packs, the 1.33 patch and Awesome Mod (plus the required framework).

And if you didn't notice it yet: I'm not the thread starter so there are already two with this issue. I also found some other threads where similar problems are described.

The thing is many users here probably have much more experience with both Sims 3 in general and mods or rather the Awesome Mod in particular. I'm fine with any solution and it's not important whether it's my fault or the Mod's, I'm just trying to find out what causes the crashes so anything can be done.
It could've been e.g. that there are options of the Mod that might cause such an issue when the ingame objects stream in slowly or whatever.

I'm not here to insult any of the Mod's developers or whine about how badly it's programmed. Just looking for help and maybe it's really a bug in the Mod that occurs under rather rare conditions and if we'd find it out here the Mod could be even more improved.

[Eeyore]

My interpretation is that the crash occurs if some objects around are or probably rather the object at the click position itself is not yet completely loaded.
This assumption is supported by the fact that the game always lags when the crash occurs. It's like the game freezes and one or two seconds after the freeze began the game crashes.

Perhaps this is no more than a performance issue. If you try to run the game with parameters that exceed your computer's capability then all kinds of things can get hinky. Try turning the game graphics settings all the way down, start a fresh EA neighborhood, and see what happens.

[Neon]

Perhaps this is no more than a performance issue. If you try to run the game with parameters that exceed your computer's capability then all kinds of things can get hinky. Try turning the game graphics settings all the way down, start a fresh EA neighborhood, and see what happens.

This is not only very unlikely to be the case because I've quite good hardware, but also because the crash didn't occur before I started using the Awesome Mod again.
And since I started playing again I played more without the Awesome Mod than with it and, as I said, before I installed it there was no single crash at all and after I installed it they started happening.

I'm getting a new graphics card this week, a Geforce GTX 570, and am going to see if the crash still happens with the new graphics card. And I strongly doubt this gc isn't able to handle Sims 3 at full graphics quality settings. I even doubt my current (GTX 260) isn't as I always used to play Sims 3 at maximum and this crash never occured before.

But I'm also going to look for any driver updates (for all the hardware).

[krenm]

If you have good hardware, you may want to edit your sims3.ini file to allow the game to use MOAR RAM.  Google for it.

[kissing_toast]

If you have good hardware, you may want to edit your sims3.ini file to allow the game to use MOAR RAM.  Google for it.

This is outdated advice, no? Is your AM in program files framework or my documents framework?

[Neon]

Program Files.
Didn't know that there's an alternative at all.

[dajare]

Mine does the same exact thing and i get the same message about encountering a problem and closing. Its done it 4 times within the last 1 1/2 hours and I do not have awesome mod installed as I use Master Controller. Its irritating and I cant figure out the causel

[ebonyspiral]

I experience random crashing. After experimenting with all kinds of advice from various forums, I can personally only put it down to using CC.

I've started who knows how many fresh neighbourhoods in an attempt to narrow it down, but basically I can play with AM installed and nothing else to be confident of no crashes. The last time I tried to add one piddly bit of CC (it was a mod, though it claimed to be compatible with the latest patch) my game started crashing again.

I can never narrow the crashes down to a particular event in the game. I can save a few minutes before a crash, then reload and play way past the previous crash point without incident.

[rhodaloo]

I finally figured out that my random crashes were related to the number of  Late Night Venues that I placed in other neighborhoods. Yes, my personal computer geek needs to check to see what drivers needed to be updated.

[Shadownet]

I'm getting random crashes as well. I've played with Awesomemod back before Generations came out with no issues, but I've come back to the Sims during the 1.34 patch and with Awesomemod, it's been randomly crashing after about 1-2 hours of play. The crash log analyzer typically says the issue is a corrupt save. I've tried deleting the entire Sims 3 folder under My Documents, and done reinstalls, but a fresh Sunset Valley save with Awesomemod always eventually gets random corrupted save crashes even when I had nothing else but Awesomemod installed. I can't pinpoint the crashes as they tend to disappear if I fuck off and play the Sims 3 later and which point it runs for another 1-2 hours before the crashes come back. I've got it up to date, and I've made sure the base game is patched as well as all the expansion packs I have (WA, Ambitions, LN), but it keeps happening. I've got Awesomemod installed via Documents framework.

The crash log produced by the game itself usually says its an access violation at reading address 0x00000030, and the address under it is usually always the same depending on the patch (for 1.34 it was always 0x00d5d48f and another address for 1.36). Sometimes when it crashes during saving, CLA just says it's an unknown issue.

My system shouldn't be an issue, as the game runs fine graphically without Awesomemod and I've got 8 gigs of RAM. At this point, I honestly don't know what to do next to try and fix whatever issue I'm having.

[ebonyspiral]

The crash log produced by the game itself usually says its an access violation at reading address 0x00000030, and the address under it is usually always the same depending on the patch (for 1.34 it was always 0x00d5d48f and another address for 1.36). Sometimes when it crashes during saving, CLA just says it's an unknown issue.

I get the same in my crash logs, though I've never had problems saving.

I've just now updated to 1.36 patch and AM, and after about a half hour of play it crashed. Bollocks.
This is on a neighbourhood less than a week old and with absolutely no other CC.

I'm going to recheck with a vanilla game (*cries) and see how it goes.

[Capitaine Marie]

If you have good hardware, you may want to edit your sims3.ini file to allow the game to use MOAR RAM.  Google for it.

This is outdated advice, no? Is your AM in program files framework or my documents framework?

Editing the Sims3.ini worked for me.  Before I tried that, my game would crash about every 20-30 minutes.  Of course, that could have just been a coincidence.

[Shadownet]

I get the same in my crash logs, though I've never had problems saving.

I've just now updated to 1.36 patch and AM, and after about a half hour of play it crashed. Bollocks.
This is on a neighbourhood less than a week old and with absolutely no other CC.

I'm going to recheck with a vanilla game (*cries) and see how it goes.

The save crashes are actually very uncommon and might not be related.
After some more playing, it seems like the game gets more and more unstable after only about four weeks in game time. I thought it would only crash after a couple hours playing, but it seems to be a combination of the two and after a certain point it just crashes too much to even bother trying to continue playing the save.

I recently checked that my computer's processor just meets the minimum requirement (2.4 GHz on Vista), and I guess the problem may be that Awesomemod's story progression could be pushing it over the edge? I don't really know, it's just about the only thing I can come up with to explain the constant crashing even when I reinstall with a cleaned out registry and whatnot. But would that really produce corrupt saves? I'd understand if CLA is just misunderstanding the crash log, but it seems that the saves get more and more unstable, suggesting actual corruption.

Maybe I'll have to try out Twallan's SP just to see if there are continued crashes.

[vorpal]

Since 1.33 I've been having the same. Random crashes with Story Mode on, on two different computers, and CLA identifying them as corrupt saves. I turned StoryMode off and no crashes at all. For the whole period of patch 1.34 I had played either without any story progression or with twallan's SP and didn't crash a single time. Shortly before updating to 1.36 I tried a new game with AwesomeStoryDriver on (AM version from 06/18) and within one Simweek I had a total lockup of my machine again and had to use the power button to turn it off. I then disabled StoryDriver again an not a single crash or even hiccup after that. I haven't tried with 1.36 yet and have continued with either no SP or twallan's, crash-free, with the longest playsession probably being something around 11 hours.
My mods are in Documents, there is no chance of any remnants of the old framework in Program files, as it's a new computer and a fresh install. The only thing where the installation on the new computer differs from a default install is that both the game and the user files are not on the system drive and the page file has been relocated to that other drive, too. But the other computer has a default install and the crashes were the same. The new computer exceeds the system reqs by far with an i7 3440 clocked at 3.4 GHz, 8GB of RAM and a 570 GTX GPU and there are 1.75 TB of free space on the harddrive.
I still suspect that it's the skilling system that causes the game to crash but it's hard to narrow down on it as on reloading a crashed save many actions seem to get dropped. In the last test run I began to save whenever I got a notice of an inactive skilling and wrote its name down. Reloading the crashed save and making the Sim active only showed it as being idly standing in its home.

My uneducated guess is that there has been a change on how the game handles low detail mode on inactives as their skill record doesn't change unless one of my actives is near them and that the AM skilling systems produces a conflict then. I noticed this change especially in a test I did yesterday:
One of my Sims has an illegitimate child in another household. When this child aged up to toddler, my Sim rolled all three wishes for teaching to talk, walk and potty training. In the past I usually did not teach the toddler myself but made the other household active and ordered the mother to teach her child and switched back to my own household. This had always allowed me to control the toddler's progress because the wish was fulfilled as soon as the mother succeeded, even with both of them at the other end of the map. This time, however, it did not work. After almost the whole day the wish did not fulfill. I then sent a household animal over to fool around in the other household's front yard, hoping that this would draw the others into more high detail mode, but no dice. At the end of the day I sent my Sim and the moment he stepped over the lot's border the wish was fulfilled. This must be rather new, because, as I said, in the past this method had always worked.

[J. M. Pescado]

I cannot think of any particularly logical reason why Story Mode would crash, since it is purely C# code and involves no potentially unstable MSIL codes at all. All of it is fairly generic and benign, with very few actual actions taken during it. It's distinctly possible that something about your neighborhood is choking the entire computer under the higher activity that StoryMode tends to cause, as more sims start moving about.

[vorpal]

So far I've had it in two custom worlds (Setra and Grey Meadow), one Store world (Lunar Lakes) and three EA worlds (Sunset Valley, Appaloosa Plains and Starlight Shores), playing either with my own or pre-made Sims. The way it happens is always the same: first the sound stops for a split second, then it comes back for a split second then it stops completely and the game crashes. The older computer crashes to desktop with "The Sims has stopped working etc. etc." the new one locks up completely.
I can't say anything more, as I haven't tested it with 1.36 so far.

[Shadownet]

I played around on Nraas story progression on a new neighborhood and it seemed to be stable after playing for an extended period of time. I checked back on one of the saves that crashed with AM SP and it seemed to be fine, but at that point I didn't have time to play it longer to see if crashes are actually gone for good. Still, I'm fairly sure the problem wasn't corruption, but rather a performance issue.

I guess Awesomemod's SP is working as intended, and I'll just have to get used to using Nraas SP. I'm just glad the bug fixes and features in AM aren't the cause of the crashes.

[J. M. Pescado]

If you really believe Story Progression is responsible, the only answer I can think of is that a corrupt sim is somehow causing it: Since AwesomeStory actually performs visible actions rather than just invisible, unstoppable handwaves for everything, causing a damaged sim to become visible may result in the game seizing and dying, particularly if it has gotten to some invalid state that would ordinarily just cause it to die slowly in a puddle of its own piss in some forgotten corner of the world.

You could always thus resolve the matter by rapturing the neighborhood. Switching Story Engines/Turning off SP are just putting bandaids on a chest wound: The neighborhood still has something WRONG with it that will just bite you at some other point. When things like this happen, you have to take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.