Warning to those with "load hangs"

[strider3]

I just want to relate my recent experience with 1.3.1. I performed a new, clean install on a dedicated, formatted hard drive of 1.3.1. It would always hang at certain files (in my case "smokepuff1" and "adminbuilding-lvl1"). It would sometimes throw an error and create a "game crash" folder in my root KSP directory. At other times it would work through these hang points and finish loading. I tried defragging and starting on a clean boot...finally got the game to load every time...but still had the long delays at the 2 files mentioned above. Herein lies the warning...there were several times when I would come back to the game...and all my settings were lost (Graphics, Sound, etc.)...and none of my saved ships, which I added to my "Saves" folder after install, had disappeared. I redid the settings, re-added my saved ships and sub-assemblies and all went well again for a few days. It would then happen again. Now, in a completely boneheaded move, the last time this "loss" occurred, I didn't "copy" my ships and sub-assemblies over...I moved them (Yeah, go figure). And you can guess what happened...it lost all my settings again and all my saved ships from my years of KSP'ing...and I had no backup to replace them with.

At this point (well...after the weeping and gnashing of teeth). I deleted the game, re-formatted the drive (just because) and re-downloaded the 1.3.1 install exe. I installed from the new download and I have NO hangs while loading the game (the progress bar moves smoothly and continuously until complete) and after 6 days I have not had any issues with the game.

The moral of the story (as if you can't guess the first one? LOL)...

NEVER forget to keep a backup of your saved ships and sub-assemblies.

More importantly, if you are having long load time hangs during loading of 1.3.1 (I'm talking 2-3 minutes per offending file)...give it up. Start over with a new download and a fresh install...before the "settings reset and ship loss" occurs.

Vic

[Corona688]

What mods do you use?  I suspect the repeated crashes and hangs are related to those.

[Kerbal101]

If you manually install files into Gamedata, there is a wild chance that you move the mod directory inside other mod directory, as opposed to moving inside Gamedata itself.
There is also chance to have multiple ModuleManager.dlls, hidden inside individual mod directories.

These two trivial things can contribute to very strange errors, long loading times and weird behavior.

[strider3]

45 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

What mods do you use?  I suspect the repeated crashes and hangs are related to those.

I'm sorry, I did not relate all info. I use KIS, KAS, Kerbal Engineer, Precisemaneuver and planetarybaseInc.. But, I think you are missing the point (because I did not relate all info). Every single one of my 1.3.1 installs included these mods. It was not until I had deleted the install, deleted the 1.3.1 install EXE and started from pure scratch, that it started working. My "guess" is I downloaded a corrupt or incomplete 1.3.1 install EXE...and everything after that was futility.

Please hear me...it wasn't "mods", it wasn't manually installing files...it was a "bad" install EXE. It's all working fine after downloading and using a "new" install EXE. I did NOTHING different between the problem installs and this working one...except download a new EXE.

This was NOT a plea for help! It was a warning to other users who might encounter these issues...and how I fixed them...nothing more.

I do appreciate your responses, however.

Vic

[Corona688]

34 minutes ago, Victor3 said:

Every single one of my 1.3.1 installs included these mods. It was not until I had deleted the install, deleted the 1.3.1 install EXE and started from pure scratch, that it started working.

This is also what you'd expect of an incorrectly installed mod, but I'd expect that to show up in a log, so...

Quote

My "guess" is I downloaded a corrupt or incomplete 1.3.1 install EXE...and everything after that was futility.

Please hear me...it wasn't "mods", it wasn't manually installing files...it was a "bad" install EXE. It's all working fine after downloading and using a "new" install EXE. I did NOTHING different between the problem installs and this working one...except download a new EXE.

It doesn't really work that way. 

1. TCP as used the internet over includes checksums for everything internally.  The odds of an error slipping through are about 1 in 64 thousand.  The only times I've ever had corrupted downloads are from incomplete/resumed downloads.
2. The EXE is extremely likely to have some form of checksumming itself, also.
3. The vast majority of errors would be in graphical data files, and either show as artifacts or get logged.
4. Errors in Unity or game code wouldn't wait until 95% loaded to crash out.
5. A truly corrupt install wouldn't work at all, not work "sometimes".

What's telling, to me, is the lack of a log.  That suggests the kind of exception that kills it unilaterally without giving it a chance to say what the error was.

What's also telling is how it started working again when you reinstalled it.

This does sound a lot like file corruption - but of a different sort.  An ailing hard drive can cause exactly this, when executable data is suddenly needed but unavailable.  Sometimes this read may succeed but take a very long time.  Other times it can just fail completely, after a long wait.  When that read inexplicably fails, the computer is forced to unilaterally kill the program, nothing else it can do.  Reinstalling may fix this, since it's very unlikely to reuse the exact same spot on your hard drive.

Another thing which can cause this is memory errors, but given it went away when you reinstalled, this seems less likely.

It may be nothing, but I think you should get your hard drive checked out, especially if anything else starts giving you mysterious trouble.  Better safe than sorry.

Quote

This was NOT a plea for help! It was a warning to other users who might encounter these issues...and how I fixed them...nothing more.

"If it doesn't work, reinstall from scratch" is your expert advice?

Edited December 6, 2017 by Corona688

[steuben]

19 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

"If it doesn't work, reinstall from scratch" is your expert advice?

that or "Nuke [it] from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." Fundamentally statement number 2 of my tri-axiom of available solutions to a problem.

[strider3]

19 hours ago, Corona688 said:

"If it doesn't work, reinstall from scratch" is your expert advice?

Hey...it worked, LOL. I used PerfectDisk to check out the KSP dedicated hard drive after formatting and it is 100% healthy. I did worry about bad sectors, as you said...none were found.

[SupperRobin6394]

I also lost all my ships recently, haven’t been playing a lot ever since...