a really silly bug

[drunk71]

Hello, i think i've found a bug and its very repeatable (unfortunately its so damn repeatable the game is becoming to fustrating to play )

 

 

My system specs

 

- CPU (AMD Athlon 1400)

- RAM (512 MB)

- Monitor (iiyama 85hz refresh)

- Sound Card (soundblaste live value)

- Motherboard (err dunno)

 

- Operating system and version (Windows XP fully updated)

- Game language and version (english unpatched)

 

The error message comes up that xp has found a fault with ufo.exe and closes the programe down.

 

- A detailed explanation of the problem

 

 

I've been playing the game for a while and only recently has problems occured. I've got way past the russian base, i've got two older aliens in my squad, i control half the planet and have just started researching into the biomass.

 

Recently the problems arrise from the save games, either when i first load up to continue playing and it goes to the strategic screen and crashes, or i load up to part through a tactical game and can continue to play until i complete the mission finish level increases and return to the stratigic screen and crash. This happens everytime with the particular save game loaded up, it is not random, either the game is not saving data correctly or it cannot load up correctly.

 

The only way i found around this is to just keep going back in save games (ie having to replay the game, which when i'm saving constantly now you would think it would'nt be a problem, unfortunately more and more of my save games are not working so i'm losing hours of gameplay.

 

the problem actually started around the same time i started saving over old save games with the same file name, now i have stopped that. I now save constantly with different filenames and the problem still continues.

 

I have checked with other forums for anyone else suffering this problem but so far it seems to be just me (doh).

 

If anyone can help i would be thankful.

 

Its a shame, i've played the other games and though this is'nt the besr one in the series it is still pretty good but not good enough to repeat hours of gameplay.

 

Cheers

 

Martin

[Amenable to Change]

It sounds like your save games are perhaps being corrupted, first the best thing to check is that it isn't a non UFO:a problem.

 

First thing to check is do a scandisk and maybe even a surface scan make sure your hard disk isn't failing and have a cluster of bad blocks where your save games are being saved.

Second check for any malware runnign on your computer. I would recommend, running a virus checker and adaware of some other anti-sypware software on your computer.

 

Next make sure there is no other applications running on your system that may interfering with writing to disk, applications such as virus checkers background apps can cause problems so disable those temporarily and try again.

 

Have you installed anything since you've installed UFO:a?

 

Also check all your wire are correctly plugged into your hd and motherboard, with the power off obviously. A slightly loose at one end IDE connector can cause dodgy reads and writes.

 

IF your computer is in good general heath thats good. but just to be sure check the voltages your PSU is giving out, if the 12v or 5v rails are out by a large margin. especially the 5v rail then there may be a lack of power to the harddrive that can be causeing problems.

[drunk71]

cheers

 

i generally keep my hard drive clean and in good working order, though i am running norton anti virus, so i'll give that a go. Just got to find a save that doesn't crash.

 

but the weird thing is if the save is mid tactical the game runs okay until it goes to the strat view of earth then it either works or crashes, if it crashes i can still reload up and replay the tactical until it crashes at the strat screen again but even if i load up the tact game again any futher saves in the tact game become useless as well, meaning that all futher saves from that mission will crash

 

if the save is in the strat view it either works or it doesn't

 

now why is the only part of the save that does'nt work is the strat part, why does the tactical part of the save always work proparly. it just goes nutz when i finish the mission???????????????????

 

but i'll see if norton is the cause

 

cheers

[DarkCm]

Drunk - this happened to me to. i must admit its really annoying. i mean you dont want to be using plasma guns and rifles and then go back to using uzis, its silly.

 

Regardless of what the poster said. its not your computer. i have run adaware, spybot, and norton. no virus' yet the game still crashes exactly where you say.

 

its really annoying and, really dissapointing.

 

My theory is; you only loose saved games that are in the tactical mission - the map saves seem to work.

 

solution? save regularly on the map...

 

(if it happens once more i wont play it again)

[drunk71]

hi

 

yup i tried evrything and probably believe it not to be my computer,

 

though even when i save on map screens it was a problem as when i loaded up it crashed in the same manner as going from tactical to strat view.

 

So with the patch out and intalled 1.1a still same problems, so i completely wiped the game and did a fresh installation with patch.

 

No problems so far!!!!!

 

though previously i never had save game problems untill after the russian base and rescue of the aliens, its gonna take some time to get back to that stage.

 

Thanks for acknowledging the problem, if more people have it they might look into it more

 

cheers

[drunk71]

well that didn't last long

 

it was working sweet as, no problems untill i whooped some alien ass in the ruskie base, now my save games are going funny again

 

most times when i finish a tactical mission that i just loaded up and go to the world view it crashes

 

most times if i saved on the world view and load up it crashes straight away

 

i'vetried everything and because its sooooo repeatable i am determined it is the game, i've bent over backwards playing with drivers and configurations, defragging drive scanning, virus checking etc

 

the thing that most annoys me is that it only goes pearshape well into the game, why not at the start??

 

i play games to relax after a hard day, not to get more wound up.

 

please can someone help because it would be a shame for me to have to take the game back, plus i just wasted a load of time getting halfway through the game TWICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[DarkCm]

Dude. I can feel your pain. i have restarted and so far my game is fine. BUT i am not enjoying it anywhere near as much as i should, as I think that this will happen again.

 

I wonder what causes it?

 

have you contacted cenega?

[drunk71]

cheers for replying

 

i haven't contacted anyone other than the post,

 

you can email you save games to altar and they will look at them but unfortunately i can't attach files bigger than a meg on my e-mail (damn hotmail and btopenworld)

 

In the offical message boards i noticed that some people with the polish version have similar problems and they have been told that the new patch should sort this???

 

but depending on what we read from different posts the subject of a new patch is iffy nevermind what its gonna fix.

 

Think i'm gonna give it a few days as i'm to busy to play for a while and see if the new patch comes out and fixes it otherwise i'll get in touch.

 

drunk71

[Pete]

Can't think of a solution, but perhaps copying your save games folder when you finish playing for the night into a separate folder for each night's play (extremely tedious I know) will allow you to go back to an uncorrupted version a little easier without having to restart until a solution prevents itself.

 

Sorry, but that's the only sugestion I've got on me at the moment

[drunk71]

hi

 

i found this on the official web site message board, its not ideal but may help a little

 

Your savegame crashing ? try this then

Here's something that worked for me the game, autosaves before u enter any mission. Locate your savegame folder something like this C:\GAMES\UFO AFTERMATH\Profiles\ YOUR PROFILE HERE \Saves\ locate a file called Strat_000000xx.vfs where xx is the highest number you can see, rename it to the file of your save game, for example something.vfs and your done well it worked for me.

remember rename to the exact name of your savegame!

 

it might help but knowing my luck with this came those saves will be buggered as well.

[synchro]

i will say this:

anti virus has ruined several of my games and i've had to reinstall them. i now only do virus scans manually and updates too cos AV progs really do bugger up game installs. and, as i found out recently, the AV i use is only the controlinterface and it buggered up my installation of nvidia ref drivers.

so, AV progs really do make a mess of game installs.

my advice? only use them manually. they install all kinds of stuff so make sure they are not interfering with your startup options, cos , as i said, they mucked up my nvidia driver install.

i have never had a problem with games, and i have a huge amount of them, until i installed AV software.

obviously, AV wares are important but try and keep to manual use of them . anything automated can do a number of things to slowdown your system or bugger up installations.

 

das

[Edge]

I tried the rename method to no avail. I, too, am suffering from the corrupt savegames. It's really annoying, as I was on a roll and doing really well, and now, it looks as if I'll have to go back VERY FAR in my game and do a lot of things over again which I shouldn't have to. I do hope that the game devs are looking into this ferverently, as it's not good to have a new game out there that is unfinishable due to buggy save games.

 

Don't tell me that "I finished the game without a problem" because it doesn't help me, nor does it help the others with the same issue I am experiencing. If you didn't have the same issue, I am honestly, truly, and sincerely happy for you. If you finished the game without issue, you are not frustrated, angry, and feeling helpless because this incredible game that has captivated your imagination and has vampirically stolen a weekend (or more) of your life is now not allowing you the satisfaction of completion and finality.

 

I am distraught.

 

Ok, so perhaps that's a bit strongly worded, but if you're a gamer, you know what I mean. You know the pain.

 

I have tried many things: new drivers, saving at different points in the game, using unique save game names, saving over old games, quick-save, and sometimes combinations of all of the above. The bottom line is: late game brings save game bugs.

 

I do hope that this is addressed quickly. I must save the earth, and I was bloody close to doing so!!!

[drunk71]

great!!!!

 

i had thought the latest patch had stopped these problems of the borders, but no i have just got to the same timeframe later in the game as the others.

 

Whenever i capture a base at the moment when i am successful the game crashes out when i return to the strat screen.

 

Can anybody help please?

 

does anyone still have these problems?

[tcotn]

hello

 

I just would add, i have the same problem with the french version, game crash when i return to the world from the strat.

 

And, one question, where is (if someone can help me) the french website who talk about UFO AM ???

 

Thanks

[Slaughter]

I don't know about a French forum, but the French distributor is: https://www.sgdiffusion.fr/

 

And I am not sure what your problem is. Check the official site's support section, or contact ALTAR.

[Strahd]

I have exactly the same problem and it happened for the third time now!

However I did notice (may be just a coinsidence) that this happens after the Russian base and only if I exit the game (save and exit) while on the mission.

[Mr. Tiddlesworth]

I am running the English version, v1.2.

 

I have the exact same problem. It worked fine for the weekend, I am just after the 'rescue the greys' mission (just after the russian base), and it started doing the same thing. Game loads fine just so long as it isnt from the strategic view (it looks like). I got this error first when I started the game with just 1.0. Then I installed the patch, but it really did nothing. I still have unlimited alien laser ammo too. They had better fix this, and quick.

[Mr. Tiddlesworth]

When it crashes it throws this error:

 

 

ERROR

 

Application crashed: Access violation reading from address 0x12023000!

Syminit Searchpath: D:\mydir\UFo

SymGetSymFromAddr:126, addr: 0x017f2569

StackWalk:126

[Bomb Bloke]

A patch won't fix a corrupted save file, you'd need to go back to a save before that russian base and replay from there...

 

Don't have such a save? Remember peoples, save early, save often...

 

Not that I know anything... https://www.angelfire.com/games3/jeffy90/images/smilies/sarcastic.gif