Is ZC becoming increasingly unstable?!

[XMuppetSB]

I mean really! Besides all the critical bugs that instantly crash ZC for a specific reason, and the mechanical and audiovisual bugs, I've been experiencing crashes in the ZC player that just randomly happen for no apparent reason at all, and I'm just about getting fed up with these random crashes!:mad:

I've gotten a random crash involving Link picking up an item that he's supposed to hold above his head, I've gotten one where it just randomly crashes when Link picks up an enemy dropped item with the hookshot, I've seen one where ZC randomly crashes when the go to location cheat is used, and I've seen one where ZC randomly crashes when a Direct Warp combo is triggered, and I've seen so many instances of ZC randomly crashing due to enemy projectiles being reflected and hitting the enemies! What's causing these random ZC crashes to happen anyhow, some sort of pointer bug, or memory leak, or what? If these random crashes are not all fixed before the final 2.5 release, then it would be even more unstable than the infamous 2.10, which was released with still so many (old and new) bugs in it! Of course, 2.10 contains the infamous MIDI bug, as well as other bugs like disappearing shop items...

PS: As soon as I can get all of these random crashes mentioned to happen again, I'm going to upload a copy of user.dmp file.

[Nicholas Steel]

I've been playing DFW's Origin quest with no critical bugs/problems or crashes on build 1200, pretty impressive.

[XMuppetSB]

Well, I've been seeing these random crashes a lot in my new tech demos LOZ-Generation5 and LOZ-Generation5-2 in the latest windows builds, and several other builds before that! In other words, do these random crashes only happen in newer quests these days, or do they also happen in older quests? Another thing, as while new features are largely behind new bugs, sometimes it's fixing the existing bugs that results in new bugs being produced.

[Christian]

sometimes it's fixing the existing bugs that results in new bugs being produced.
It's an endless cycle my friend.

[Saffith]

I've been playing your quest a lot, trying to fix anything that could possibly cause a crash. At this point, I suspect the crashes you're seeing might be related to the music. Try moving the MP3 files so ZC doesn't use them; If that is part of the problem, the game should be a lot more stable that way.

[Freedom]

I don't seem to be experiencing the MP3 crashes anymore, and I still have 10 of them linked/loaded in through dmaps.

[XMuppetSB]

I've been playing your quest a lot, trying to fix anything that could possibly cause a crash. At this point, I suspect the crashes you're seeing might be related to the music. Try moving the MP3 files so ZC doesn't use them; If that is part of the problem, the game should be a lot more stable that way.

I don't think this is part of the problem at all! Because I also experienced these random crashes in older quests of mine that used MIDIs or no music at all! Besides, the only reason I don't use MIDIs that much anymore is because some MIDIs can and will affect the notes of other MIDIs, in other words, make them sound wrong! But if you insist that the MP3's are largely behind these random crashes, then could you at least do something to fix it?

[jman2050]

Have you changed the allegro DLL that's used? Just trying to think of options here, as I haven't experienced any random crashes at all lately that I don't already know the cause of.

[XMuppetSB]

Hm... I just realized that the allegro dll file in my folder was last updated March 5, 2010. In other words, it is somewhat outdated. Oh and, the allegro crt file is not even included in the 2.5 beta packages these days! But the question is, does an outdated allegro file really cause ZC or ZQuest to randomly crash for no reason? And how do you modify the file anyway?

Furthermore, my computer says that opening that kind of file may damage the system, and such files are so big, they crash the word document programs!

[Freedom]

bad mistake trying to open a dll in wordpad/notepad
better replace it, you probably trashed it

[XMuppetSB]

I seriously doubt it...:eyebrow:
Now, tell me how to change the allegro dll file that's used, because I don't know how to do that!

[Freedom]

Gleeok posted one on one of the threads, yours I think, you just replace the one in your folder with it

[XMuppetSB]

Tell me exactly which thread he posted in.

[Freedom]

damn man
http://armageddongames.net/showthread.php?44957-ZC-not-quitting&p=433111&viewfull=1#post433111

[XMuppetSB]

Okay, I just replaced it with the one posted by Gleeok. As for the alleg42_crt.dll file, do I even need that thing? I haven't seen it in any of the recent 2.5 beta packages...
Furthermore, don't you think the developers should keep the allegro file up to date for every build they release? I mean really. If the allegro's last mod date doesn't even match ZC or ZQ's last mod dates, you can't expect it to be all that stable.

[Gleeok]

The alleg42_crt hasn't been used for a few years since around build 200 or so. I believe that was simply the MSVC compiled allegro dll with the standard C runtime included. When I compiled allegro with VC I simply kept the naming scheme the same then just renamed the alleg.lib to alleg_crt.lib so the dll didn't adopt the 'crt' crap. ..I think. ...(It's been a while anyway.) This shouldn't matter anyway since for consistency the latest builds are back to to gcc, which don't even have anything to do with a MS developer runtime redist.


..Anyway, The builds come with the correct dll already in the folder. Why change them? (ipso-facto-switcho- the people who are going to help debug the allegro exit crash from the other thread.)

[XMuppetSB]

Well, the alleg42.dll file in the 1204 windows zip package says it was last updated March 5, 2010 while the one you posted in one of the bug reports topics says it was last updated March 16, 2010.

[Gleeok]

It was actually created much earlier than that. The date doesn't really matter though, they all are exactly the same. ..(Well the new one is the same as the pre 1160 builds and, uh, ..nvrmnd..just use whatever comes with the zip. It's easier that way. :P )

[XMuppetSB]

Well, either way, I think I'm going to stick with the one that you posted in that one bug report thread, for now...

[Saffith]

I hesitate to ask, but have matters improved here?

[Freedom]

I'm still crashing often when entering tiles, it almost seems like it somehow related to 256 color but maybe not.
Once it starts crashing it wants to continue to crash until you reboot and it seems you have to move on away from what you were working on in the tile editor... which is why I suspect it may be 8 bit related.

I posted a user.dmp for Jman some time back, but he hasn't been around since back then, maybe two... three weeks ago

[Anthus]

I'd just like to say, Pokegamer, that a lot of your bugs could be attributed to your test quest having seen so many versions, and it might also explain why some of them are exclusive to your quest, and otherwise irreproducible. Get it? Things are changed from beta to beta, and unless you check every last thing each time, this is sure to effect some mechanics in your test quest.

I understand your frustration, but using lots of angry smiley's is not going to fix anything.

[Shoelace]

So going to version to version explains bugs. I had been updating EotM since the beginning, and I decided to wait for the release because of what you said. XD Well.... I... will stop talking. lol

[Freedom]

I'd just like to say, Pokegamer, that a lot of your bugs could be attributed to your test quest having seen so many versions, and it might also explain why some of them are exclusive to your quest, and otherwise irreproducible. Get it? Things are changed from beta to beta, and unless you check every last thing each time, this is sure to effect some mechanics in your test quest.

I understand your frustration, but using lots of angry smiley's is not going to fix anything.

irreproducible.... is that really a word?
;O)

....and thus the reason that there are very few quests being built and released and the need for a stable version to be released, and the reason bug testing has ground to nearly a halt, and the forums are so slow nowadays, and players have moved on to other interests, AND the reason for everyone's frustration.

[XMuppetSB]

Well then, for god's sake, if that's the case, I'll have to scrap those tech demos of mine once the final 2.5 release comes out or just wait for the 2.6 betas! Besides, my latest tech demos are intended to be prototypes for the next generation.

[jman2050]

irreproducible.... is that really a word?
;O)

....and thus the reason that there are very few quests being built and released and the need for a stable version to be released, and the reason bug testing has ground to nearly a halt, and the forums are so slow nowadays, and players have moved on to other interests, AND the reason for everyone's frustration.

It's been that long? :/

Last I looked into it I was trying to reproduce it because the crash doesn't seem to be occuring in ZC itself, which just makes identifying the bug that much harder.

[Freedom]

It's been that long? :/

Last I looked into it I was trying to reproduce it because the crash doesn't seem to be occuring in ZC itself, which just makes identifying the bug that much harder.

I'm thinking you probably meant to quote the other post, this one wasn't related.

The crash is ZC related, it happens on both of my computers, and working with tiles (editing and loading them into combos) seems to cause it, and it seems working with 8 bit it happens most often.
I can't seem to narrow down exactly what causes it, but once it starts it even will crash on you opening a combo page.
Most often once it starts crashing it will crash over and over until you reboot, and that seems to clear it up, although at least once it crashed right after reboot when trying to enter tiles, and that time was after just building some new 8 bit tiles.

[XMuppetSB]

And remember these random crashes I've seen before? I've seen some of these (and others not mentioned in the first in this thread, such as certain projectile shooters randomly crashing ZC back when I was testing LOZ-Generation4.qst, which has since been scrapped) in some of my previous tech demos and possibly quests that are not even mine! So I don't think it's quest specific at all. Further more, I mentioned that it could be either pointer bugs or a slight memory leak.



I've gotten a random crash involving Link picking up an item that he's supposed to hold above his head, I've gotten one where it just randomly crashes when Link picks up an enemy dropped item with the hookshot, I've seen one where ZC randomly crashes when the go to location cheat is used, and I've seen one where ZC randomly crashes when a Direct Warp combo is triggered, and I've seen so many instances of ZC randomly crashing due to enemy projectiles being reflected and hitting the enemies! What's causing these random ZC crashes to happen anyhow, some sort of pointer bug, or memory leak, or what?

[Saffith]

Well, that's the thing. Most crashes are due to pointer errors, but there just don't seem to be that many left. I'm certainly not seeing any in the places you're having problems.
It seems to me you're running into a lot of crashes that no one else is, and I wonder why that is. Can we rule out malware and hardware issues? Or maybe it's related to your hardware or software configuration. Or I could just be wrong about this altogether...

[XMuppetSB]

Well, a few other users have also been seeing the crashes having to do with reflected projectiles, and Freedom has mentioned quite a few crashes that I myself can't seem to reproduce...

Plus, don't forget about some of the new features that people like _L_ and Joe123 continued to implement even when you guys said that new features were on hold until after 2.5. Because new features often result in mechanical and even critical bugs.

[Freedom]

Different people see different crashes, because different people do different things
;O)
now say that 3 times real fast ;O)

[Nicholas Steel]

Funny, I had the exact same crash occur at virtually the exact same moment (same room/situation) as the moment that occurred many many years ago. using F11 to walk through walls and get there quickly yields no crash though. but I plan to debug this problem!