Surviving Mars - Constant crashes ever since Below and Beyond

[Missile597]

Description
Constant crashes ever since Below and Beyond


Windows


Steam

What is your game version?
1009413

What DLC do you have installed?
Space Race, Green Planet, Below and Beyond, Stellaris Dome Set, Marsvision Song Contest, Colony Design Set, Project Laika, In-Dome Buildings Pack

Please explain your issue is in as much detail as possible.
Got gifted the game, really started to enjoy it too! So much so that I bought many of the DLC for SM. However, ever since installing Below and Beyond I've been having crash issues. All of a sudden, the game will suddenly freeze for a second, then close without warning. This happened once during a save (to which I lost my save game and about an hour's progress!) but the majority of the time it randomly occurs with little to no warning. I've not downloaded or used any mods since playing, just game + dlc. I got a feeling this may be something that needs patching but currently my best workaround is to save often, and have 2 saves on the go just in case. Frustrating at best.

Can you replicate the issue?
I can kind of replicate it? I will attach my current save game, but the only way to replicate the issue would be to keep playing until is crashes on me. I'm not overly sure what causes the crash, my hunch would be that it's something to do with switching between the maps or something with the asteroid landers. I'm at a relatively medium/large size colony of just over 1000, and game was running fine. The crashes began to occur once I started exploring the underground and the asteroids. I will attach the CRASH and DMP files as well. Unfortunately whenever the game crashed it does not seem to save a .txt log though so I can't send one of those.


File(s) attached

 

[AndrewT]

C:\Users\ ***\AppData\Local\Discord\app-1.0.9003\modules\discord_hook-1\discord_hook\2b6f62ed4f4\DiscordHook64.dll

If you disable the Discord overlay do these crashes still happen?

 

[Missile597]

Yep, Disabled the overlay just now and played for about... 40 minutes before it crashed? And about 5 minutes after I saved, cause I was saving often due to these crashes. I'll attach the latest save file and the next crash log to this post.

 

[AndrewT]

I can't read .dmp files I'm afraid. Do you have a matching crash log?

 

[Missile597]

Hmm, I thought it should have attached. Here, I'll try sending it compressed again this time.

 

[AndrewT]

A number of things of concern in that file, but no outright crash or error really.

What I'd suggest is a full clean reinstall of the game:

- move any valued save games elsewhere; they are under
C:\Users\{UserName}\AppData\Roaming\Surviving Mars\{large number}\
- "uninstall" in Steam-Surviving Mars
- manually delete both the Steam/SteamApps/common/Surviving Mars AND C:\Users\{Username}\AppData\Roaming\Surviving Mars\ folders
- re-install game in Steam, run a Steam Verify when done.
- add MarsSteam.exe to the exceptions list/whitelist of your antivirus app
- start the game with no mods active and test with a new colony - NOT any existing one

In particular you need to make sure there are no files or folders left under either the Steam SM or AppData SM locations, before installing again.

If you get it with a new colony (so one started under this patch) that would be a real problem ... if so attach a new crash log please, plus:
DXDIAG is a program you run from the Windows search box on the task bar. After running it will open a window and start collecting info with a progress bar in the lower-left corner. When it completes click the 'save all information' button and save it to a file then attach that file here.

 

[Missile597]

Alright, I will do all that and probably start fresh just to be sure. If the crash is caused by something in large colonies though it could take a few days of play time to get back to the point where I am now where I'm having these crashes occur. I will keep you posted if this happens again, though might not be for a week or so unfortunately!
On the plus side, I was pretty far into that save and thinking of starting over soon anyway. Thanks for the responses!

 

[Missile597]

Update: After playing a new save after doing the full reinstall, I seem to have not run into any more issues with crashes. I couldn't recreate the exact conditions of course, but I played the new save up to Sol 193 and trying to use all the Below and Beyond content with going underground + asteroids and the game seems to not be crashing anymore which is good, as I'm pretty much at the same level of progress I was at before. Perhaps it was some kind of bug in the old save that has lingered from an old patch that was causing the issue?
Thanks for the help.

 

[AndrewT]

. Perhaps it was some kind of bug in the old save that has lingered from an old patch that was causing the issue?

I think that is pretty likely, yes. Sometimes a patch can fix a bug in an existing save file, other times all it can do is prevent it from happening again.