Crash when Revert to Launch pad, or to KSC

[spacejohn]

Hi KSP Support,

This is a new issue, but related to another current unresolved issue posted here in "unmodded" 28/07/15.

The new issue: I uninstalled KSP, then re-downloaded it from Steam, working to resolve a crashing issue, which Sal_vager was working on. Anyway, after uninstall, all the game settings are preserved, including all the crash and ship files, everything. As if it didn't uninstall. It appears Steam kept everything. I may manually delete all KSP files, or uninstall/reinstall a second time.

Despite all this, the primary underlying issue is: I can not revert back to the Launch Pad or KSC without the game crashing. I think I have made all the system modifications recommended by KSP Support and forums, but still the issue persists. I am bummed because I know there are others who are having a great time playing this game without issues. Is there something else I overlooked? The log files look like they indicate the same error.

Please advise. I really miss playing this great game! And I want to recommend it to my Mathematics students.

Thanks in advance for your help.

The complete sys and ksp details:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6d3sehdwtqmp68a/AAA0JD_-Jj4w71NYFXrFD1v9a?dl=0

The summary: Unity Player [version: Unity 4.6.4f1_99f88340878d]

KSP.exe caused an Access Violation (0xc0000005)

in module KSP.exe at 0023:013d5510.

Error occurred at 2015-07-31_174440.

D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\KSP.exe, run by John.

37% memory in use.

0 MB physical memory [0 MB free].

0 MB paging file [0 MB free].

0 MB user address space [2364 MB free].

Read from location 00000138 caused an access violation.

[sal_vager]

Hi Spacejohn, I still don't know what's causing this yet, the error log only shows a general out-of-memory error and the output_log doesn't say what caused the crash, usually the output_log will say "system out of memory", but for you it just crashes.

So there's no smoking gun here, which suggests the cause might be outside of the game and KSP can't do anything (except crash).

I'd like you to try starting your PC with a clean boot.

A clean boot is performed to start Windows by using a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. This helps eliminate software conflicts that occur when you install a program or an update or when you run a program in Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows 7, or Windows Vista.

If KSP doesn't crash while in a clean environment it suggests there's a conflict with something else installed on your system.

[Rune]

Hi Spacejohn, I still don't know what's causing this yet, the error log only shows a general out-of-memory error and the output_log doesn't say what caused the crash, usually the output_log will say "system out of memory", but for you it just crashes.

So there's no smoking gun here, which suggests the cause might be outside of the game and KSP can't do anything (except crash).

I'd like you to try starting your PC with a clean boot.

If KSP doesn't crash while in a clean environment it suggests there's a conflict with something else installed on your system.

I'm getting the exact same crash after 5-6 scene changes, no matter where to/from. High part count on scene seems to hasten it, as does how fast you go through the scene changes, but not much. It's a memory issue (access violation, just like above), but I have KSP nowhere near the limit (2.5 gigs or so), and the RAM also shows 0% usage. So not a case of excessive texture loading. I run an old Nvidia GT9800, I might try to force OpenGL to see if the problem is DX-related. My crash folder creation is about 5-6 logs a day... Some context out of a typical error log:

mono.dll caused an Access Violation (0xc0000005)
  in module mono.dll at 0023:10107259.

Error occurred at 2015-07-28_020022.
C:\Juegos\KSP\KSP_win\KSP.exe, run by Rune.
71% memory in use.
0 MB physical memory [2346 MB free].
0 MB paging file [1948 MB free].
0 MB user address space [61 MB free].
Write to location 00000000 caused an access violation.

Glad to see it's a stock thing, though. I was considering nuking a lot of mods to see if I could make things better.

Rune. I have been seeing this for many versions, but never as much as now.

[spacejohn]

Hi Sal_vager, and Rune,

First of all, I really appreciate all your time and effort to respond for help. I will try this. Although, note... I don't have an issue with crashing with other space ships either. Unless they have lots of parts or are a bit complicated. When it crashes, the screen sometimes makes it to the hanger, but the Kerbals inside are not moving, and then the crash. Note I have not had any crashes, all the way through Scott Manley's videos, until the Duna Rover, and Space Plane missions. I never had any crashes before this. Even now, I don't have crashes with simple ships. I can build a Kerbal orbiter now, and it does not crash either system on revert launch. I thought it was a ship problem because it was built on it and I transferred the saved files to the 64bit sys. Hence, I built a duplicate of the ship in the 64 bit sys, but it still crashed. Maybe its the ship? Complicated ships with many parts do crash. No crashes with simple ships. The only ship that is crashes for me, is the Scott Manley's Duna Rover, and Space Plane Mission Ships, from You Tube. I figured his were bullet proof designs. My new system is fresh, as it was just reformatted prior to the crashes, and only has Win8.1, Office, a VPN as I work in China, and Norton running. It was in the shop, at that time, the 32 bit sys was cashing Scott's Duna Rover. When the 64 bit came out of the shop it has higher specs - powerful - and would eliminate the crashes. I don't mind deleting KSP and reinstalling from scratch all the science if it would solve the problem. I am at a loss now, now I know, I don't know anything. It is all vague now. I will try a clean boot.

Thank you for replying.

Spacejohn

[Targa]

The game will always crash after a certain amount of time playing if you do a lot of scene changes, especially if you enter the VAB, launch, revert to VAB repeatedly. There's an ongoing issue with the game utilizing more and more memory until it crashes. I don't know enough about Unity to know if this is an issue with Unity itself, or with the way KSP is programmed. If you can start the game and launch/fly a single ship for a long period of time without crashing, but always crash after a number of scene changes and/or reverts, it's this "out of memory" error that has plagued the game for a long time.

I think what KSP does is when you start the game, it loads everything into memory (which is wasteful). It also has no "cleanup" method (this may be a limitation of Unity, or not) of removing things from memory on scene changes. So even though you're only looking at one scene during play, everything else that you've done/loaded is still taking up memory. Make sense? In other words, you enter the VAB, the VAB scene is loaded into memory. You exit to the launch pad, the launchpad scene is loaded into memory (but the VAB scene is still taking up memory), your ship crashes so you revert to the VAB, now the VAB scene is loaded a second time (now you have the first VAB scene, Launchpad scene, and the 2nd VAB scene taking up memory). At least this is the way it seems to work to me. I can reliably crash the game by going to VAB, launching, reverting to VAB a number of times. How many times it takes depends on the number of parts in the ship.

The only "solution" I've found is to regularly quit the game and re-start it.

[spacejohn]

Hi Sal-vager, Rune, and Targa,

The clean boot did not solve the issue. The game still crashed. It flies a simple orbiter, but not the Scott Manley Duna Rover, nor the Space plane, at least those two. The graphics settings at zero, the recommendations in the general support forms applied, and the clean boot. Still crashes. Load the ship, launch, revert to pad or VAB, and the game crashes.

Game details - Logs, DxDiag, saves and ships: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6d3sehdwtqmp68a/AAA0JD_-Jj4w71NYFXrFD1v9a?dl=0

@ Targa, I understand, you explained it well. Thank you. I only load Scott's ships, launch, revert and a crash. I have played the game for entire days (teacher holiday), for weeks with game crashes, and restarting. There comes a time when efficiency and frustration outweigh the fun and educational benefit, unfortunately. This is an awesome game - One last time, I may delete all KSP files, reinstall from steam and play a new game from scratch. If this does not work, I will not have any more time to introduce this to my Math students in a few weeks. I will be too busy, and dealing with game instability, on my end or KSP, or otherwise, won't matter, its all dark matter - unseen, but there, and indirectly detectable.

[sal_vager]

Are you using any software designed to use both your graphics adapters to "boost" game performance?

[EvermoreAlpaca]

I am experiencing this issue, also when using the duna mission design from Mr. Manley. A restart did not fix the issue, I am using a SLI configuration on my GPUs. Anything I can do to help you diagnose this?