Strange sequence of bugs, anyone experienced this?

[airelibre]

I started off trying to do a contract where I have to test the LFB KR 1X2 in Munar orbit. For some reason this contract was giving me 2.2 million funds for completion which is massive in my experience (I have only just started playing in .24 and missions to Duna, Eve etc. are all for only a few hundred thousand). Do the funds offered increase as you go on?

Anyway I made a pretty basic design, emptying the LFB KR 1X2 and attaching two S3 KS-25x4 with the appropriate tanks. I also added probes, SAS batteries and solar panels, and Kerbal Engineer parts. +6 Long boosters

All was going well when I got to low kerbin orbit and I transferred nearly all the fuel from the side tanks to the test tank so I could deorbit the side tanks and have enough in the test tank to reach Munar orbit. I deorbited the two side tanks, then:

Bug 1

Switching back to the test tank, everything attached to it was gone - no control, electricity, orbit data - just the tank. Also, Kerbin had "disappeared": not one of those ones where it goes completely or turns into a small blue disk, but it had turned mostly white with clouds (I have the enhancement mod installed).

I switched to map and everything was fine there but same situation when switching back. I switched to another craft orbiting Moho and then back to the test craft and then

Bug 2

Same story as last time, but this time pressing buttons like Exit and Space Center don't work: there is an animation but nothing happens. I quit using ALT + F4 and restart.

Bug 3

Try again, this time the view in normal mode constantly zooms out without me doing anything: within say 30 seconds Kerbol starts to disappear from view and the zoom out continues. Switching to map mode I can see Kerbal but twisted to one side and off centre, also the background stars are visible and if I zoom in far enough I can see a different craft (my space centre). This is where I really start to worry as maybe my whole save is corrupted, and I did nothing to provoke it. I kill the program again, restart and delete the craft from the Tracking Station. Everything seems fine now (hopefully!) apart from

Bug 4

All my current contracts have gone, and the completed ones are not visible in the mission control building. The money I earned is still there as is the reputation, but I'm worried that come a few years' time I will lose 2.2 million funds for not completing the mission that started all this off. Also worried there are still problems in the aftermath of all these bugs, that I still haven't noticed yet.

Has anyone else noticed these kinds of bugs, and is there a better way I could have handled it or something I should do now before continuing with the save?

Edited October 5, 2014 by airelibre

[el_coyoto]

I don't have a precise idea of what's going on, but :

1. are you using KSP 32bits?
   
2. how many mods do you have installed? Are there any "beast mod" (B9 for example)?
   
3. do you have any texture compression mod installed?
   
4. what is the RAM usage reported by Windows Task Manager for your KSP around the moment it starts bugging and crashing?
   
5. are there any errors in the logs and/or debug console?
   

Because this apparently random string of bugs looks awfully like your KSP has hit the memory limit, but I may be wrong...

Anyway, I think providing some more data might help us diagnosising the problem more easily.

[Aethon]

My guess is mod related as well. Could you list them please. I had something similar happen a couple of times.

Edit- just remembered what it was. Do you use ScanSat and Tarsier Tech?

Edited October 3, 2014 by Aethon

[airelibre]

I don't have a precise idea of what's going on, but :

1. are you using KSP 32bits?
   
2. how many mods do you have installed? Are there any "beast mod" (B9 for example)?
   
3. do you have any texture compression mod installed?
   
4. what is the RAM usage reported by Windows Task Manager for your KSP around the moment it starts bugging and crashing?
   
5. are there any errors in the logs and/or debug console?
   

Because this apparently random string of bugs looks awfully like your KSP has hit the memory limit, but I may be wrong...

Anyway, I think providing some more data might help us diagnosising the problem more easily.

1. Yes (if that's the default, because I haven't opened x64 on purpose)

2. Mods:

Toolbar,

Engineer

Chatterer

Distant Object

Hotrockets FX

Smokescreen

Alarm Clock

Jool Rings

Texture Replacer

Environmental Visual Enhancements

City Lights, Clouds

KAS

Docking Port Aligner

So quite a few but nowhere near some people, and I don't think any are beasts mods?

(3. No)

4. Haven't checked.

5. Don't know how to check

It may be, as you say, to do with the RAM. In general, my laptop is very good but for some reason every now and then it takes a funny turn and produces all sorts of errors or crashes over the smallest thing. In this case the rocket is not large at all compared to some I have launched so I don't know why the RAM would be overloaded but as I say sometimes the laptop bugs out for no apparent reason.

[Claw]

I was slow to read this because it includes mods that I don't use, however I think you might be running into a stock bug that's causing problems.

Based on this, which I don't even think you were pointing at as a problem:

Anyway I made a pretty basic design, emptying the LFB KR 1X2 and attaching two S3 KS-25x4 with the appropriate tanks. I also added probes, SAS batteries and solar panels, and Kerbal Engineer parts. +6 Long boosters

All was going well when I got to low kerbin orbit and I transferred nearly all the fuel from the side tanks to the test tank so I could deorbit the side tanks and have enough in the test tank to reach Munar orbit. I deorbited the two side tanks

So in some instances the game has a problem when detaching two controlled objects at a time off of a root parent. What I mean by that is that you are creating two new children with controlling parts (not just debris) off of some central piece. The game has a bug where it NullRefs back to one of the other parts (I'm not certain on the details).

You can check if this is the problem by pulling up the debug log (ALT+F-2) while you stage off the side tanks. If you see a NullReference warning, then that's your problem. The fix is to decouple the parts one at a time. That will prevent the initial NullRef, and presumably prevent the other cascading problems.

Hope that helps.

~Claw

[airelibre]

I was slow to read this because it includes mods that I don't use, however I think you might be running into a stock bug that's causing problems.

Based on this, which I don't even think you were pointing at as a problem:

So in some instances the game has a problem when detaching two controlled objects at a time off of a root parent. What I mean by that is that you are creating two new children with controlling parts (not just debris) off of some central piece. The game has a bug where it NullRefs back to one of the other parts (I'm not certain on the details).

You can check if this is the problem by pulling up the debug log (ALT+F-2) while you stage off the side tanks. If you see a NullReference warning, then that's your problem. The fix is to decouple the parts one at a time. That will prevent the initial NullRef, and presumably prevent the other cascading problems.

Hope that helps.

~Claw

Thanks, that seems very plausible. I'm just going to delete that craft since the contract disappeared with all the bugs and I'm scared of flying the craft again, but I will bare in mind your suggestion of the cause so that I can diagnose future bugs like this.