Misery 2.2.1 crashing while spawning a particular npc Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

So my game was crashing as soon as I was approaching container warehouse for the rescue mitay mission. After reducing a-life range and pin pointing I found a lone bandit npc guarding the main gate who as soon as he spawns, he gets alerted to my presence and tries to take out his weapon and then the game freezes for 2-3 secs and crashes to desktop without any error log. How do I find out what's wrong with him or remove him from the map? A similar crash was happening when I tried to approach Jupiter plant from southern gate of bandit checkpost so it would help in that instance also.

This is the npc that's causing the crash

Edited by: avikgarain10

Can you identify what weapon he is carrying? There are 3 weapons which can cause a crash when they are equipped: KSVK, one of the Fn2000's and a STG58 or something like that. You can make yourself invisible and kill him with a single shot. It should prevent the crash as he will not be alerted...

Edited by: jasper34

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately cant identify the weapon. Matter is now that I think, when I initially encountered the problem, my a-life radius was set to 300 and the game experienced crash when I went towards the npc. So from such a far off distance, he didn't even detected me and hence wouldn't draw his weapon out. Happened again when I set the radius to 150m but I could go further closer without crashing. So im 100 percent sure just the act of his spawning is causing the crash and his weapons may or may not play a role. Below is the npc btw

The Jupiter plant is, because of its importance to advance through the story, the MOST populated/busy part of any of the maps. That character is already on the map and being simulated while outside your switch_distance, and drawn once he is within it. If you zoom the map out, you may find there are gigants patrolling the NE corner of the plant above the acid anomaly. Their stomps can cause crashes. If you have a lot of stuff hoarded, entering a densely populated area (introducing that many more objects which the engine is tracking) can also cause crashes. In this case, good housekeeping (selling off everything you simply do not need) will help.

If you could post the last ten lines of your crash log(not the bug trap), it would be helpful in narrowing it down. If the log is empty, please state so.

Are you using ANY addon's like TAZ or anything besides MISERY? What are your system specs CPU, GPU, Memory?

Edited by: jasper34

I dont carry unnecessary items with me while exploring, or are you saying that I should sell items stored in my locker in yanov station? Yes I forgot to mention im using TAZ(taz 2.0 beta with patch 1.12.3.1). I have an i7-4720HQ, GTX-950m and 8 gigs of ram. Also where can I find this crash log? My game simply crashes to desktop without any error message like X-ray engine stopped working, etc.

You can find instructions for locating your crash log at the top of the bugs thread here: Moddb.com

After installing TAZ, did you start a new game? I'm not up-to-date with the status of TAZ, but if an NPC spawns or goes active (enters your switch_distance) in posession of a weapon with upgrades that do not have compatible upgrade trees in the config file (like weapon is upgraded to take a silencer, but the config files don't allow that) it will cause a crash. TAZ is also much more demanding on your system.

With your max turbo core speed of 3.6GHz, you are at the low end of my recommended CPU speed for base MISERY on low settings. This by no means prevents you from playing, but for best stability, some reduced settings are suggested. Lower your switch_distance in alife.ltx to the TAZ recommended range. If that does not solve your problem, consult the TAZ page for further help.

When I refer to hoarding, I mean the total number of items you keep on a map including all stashes, blue boxes, and your inventory. 10 boxes of shotgun ammo is ten objects even though they stack in one square. The engine has limits to the maximum number of objects (including those in NPC inventories and trader stocks). Eventually you will begin experiencing crashes every time you try and change maps. It is very common to hoard, but if you limit yourself to keeping stuff you know you will use (I keep no more than a couple days supplies, except AP ammo for my primary weapons, just a couple medkits/stims, GL ammo.) I sell off almost everything else because I can always buy what I need later.

Hey, I finally found the crash log. Didn't knew that the error lines could be seen only after checking the log file immediately after the crash (without restarting the game) and hence was unable to find it since I already completed the container warehouse mission without letting the problematic npc spawn by keeping alife rad to 10. Then I saw a duty squad going there and tried to see if it the npc had been killed and he obviously hadn't been killed cause it crashed again. Here is the log:

[error]Expression : fatal error
[error]Function : xrServer::Process_update
[error]File : D:\prog_repository\sources\trunk\xrGame\xrServer_process_update.cpp
[error]Line : 39
[error]Description : <no expression>
[error]Arguments : Beer from the creator of 'S_ACTOR '; initiator: 0x00000001, r_tell() = 13566, pos = 13505, objectID = 0

stack trace:

0023:69737365 igdumdim32.dll

Edited by: avikgarain10

That's a new one on me. kcs123 Any ideas? I've never seen Beer mentioned in a crash log...

Nope. Never seen this kind of crash either. Unfortunatelly, log doeas not say much useful info. This piece of log:

]File : D:\prog_repository\sources\trunk\xrGame\xrServer_process_update.cpp
[error]Line : 39

It says that crash occured at line #39 within game engine source code, file "xrServer_process_update.cpp". That is C++ code, not something that I can investigate and tell anything more. If that is line from LUA script, it may be possible to investigate and probably fix.

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Any course of action for me? Can I somehow despawn the npc or remove his inventory or anything to not crash when going near?

There is no command I know of to remove him. You say 'spawn', but he is always there. He begins being active and drawn when he enters you alife.ltx switch_distance.

Here is something you can try: Keep your switch_distance low, approach to just before he appears, without closing in further, shoot a bunch of grenade launcher rounds into his vicinity, even lobbing plain grenades might work. If he does not die, there is no solution I know of. I think there must be soemthing wrong with your installation.

You could try entering the switch_distance while invisible. If it doesn't crash, kill him with a single head shot. The command is invisible on. This would work if the crash happens while he is reacting to you.

Huh. Same crash happened near Jupiter plant and log file shows the same error. Can probably clear the area with reduced a life but such a bummer when I was gathering resources and preparing for soo long to finally go to jupiter. Do you think reinstalling might help? Also will try your method and see. Any way I can spawn grenades or launcher rounds (vog)?

Hey your lobbing grenades method didnt work. In the debug menu im seeing options to teleport someone/something but im unable to properly understand how to do it. Im thinking of teleporting the troublesome npc to some far away location or somewhere where im not going to go again. Can you help me out with the proper syntax of the command?

Actually, there is command to despawn problematic NPC, by executing script command trough advanced page on debug menu. Sorry, I don't recall i tfrom top of my head (despite that I made that function), but you can serch for that trough bug report thread. I have made instruction for that somewhere on forums.

Alternative way, without nasty debug menu, to travel on other map and return back. Whenever you travel on other map, game will despawn all non important NPCs on inactive map.

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I would backup your saves and try a full uninstall, reinstall, then restore your saves.

To spawn vog grenades, use ammo_vog-25.

I tried to teleport the squad away, sometimes the game would freeze and sometimes nothing would happen, dont know if the command syntax was correct. Then I found they were part of protected squads and even after removing their squads name from the list(from 'dynamic_protected' file in configs folder and using the 'axr_dynamic_spawn.del_distant_squads(true)' command, they either didnt disappear or crashed the game after execution. It seems reinstallation is the only other option

Yep, that is right command - "axr_dynamic_spawn.del_distant_squads(true)". It does not work perfectly, though. Reason why it can't despawn problematic NPC may be because it is important (story/quest related NPC), like traders, guides, or like mercenaries guarding bunker, Jack bandit squad, etc. Another reason can be if some NPC is "binded" with some other NPC or task (like combat with someone) that might cause crash if such NPC is deleted.

That command just call script for despawn that have built in protection against crashes, so it will not despawn some NPC imediately, but only when it is "safe" to despawn.

"jup_a12_bandit_guard_squad" may be story related squad (need to check squad files to be cartain). On each spawn or new game, script choose random NPC mesh and loadout from available selection of faction and difficulty level. So, it is quite hard to figure out what is exact NPC mesh that cause CTD. Trough test phase we have isolated few and replaced with similar looking mesh. Less diveristy in NPC looks, but safer to play.

mp5lng have discovered few more problematic NPCs trough TAZ development, don't know if there is more that cause issues. Most wierd thing is that exact same NPC may work just fine with other weapons, but certain weird NPC mesh + weapon/animation combo cause CTDs. It is not easy to detect those trough testing.

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The crashlog shows one particular hint which I've seen bwfore, S_ACTOR, this was a crash related to an npc failing to properly handle his gun, amd it's mostly caused by bolt action rifles. So I'll need you to do one thing that could help with the matter. Could you upload all your w_xxxx.ltx files from configs/weapons folder? I can check them one by one and see which gun is the causw of the crash, than figure how to fix it.

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Misery : The Armed Zone
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Sure thing. I uploaded all the files in my google drive. Here ill share the link

Drive.google.com

I checked the files, they all seem fine, could you play the game with debug menu enabled, so you can see npcs and their equipped weapons on your screen, this way we'll know what npc model and weapon are used. You can load an older save, from Yanov station and retake the rescue quest again, hopefully the faulty data gets rewritten.

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Misery : The Armed Zone
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Yes I managed to get this just before it crashes. Doesn't seem to have any weapon info

Yah it appears he's unarmed, try getting closer to him, make him draw his gun and see if you can recognize it or if the info appears on your screen.

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Due to continuous support we've given you the "Forum Dolphin" title!
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Misery : The Armed Zone
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Using F1,F2, and F3 should toggle the top, left and right huds, respectively to show different sets of information.

Here could get this one, although no mention of a weapon

I think I know what the issue is, the npc spawns unarmed due to some bug, either bugged loadout or the game failed to assign a gun. Have you tried shooting the npc before he attempts drawing anything? maybe a swift headshot with an insta kill would spare you from the crash.

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Due to continuous support we've given you the "Forum Dolphin" title!
- [TZP] LoNer1
Misery : The Armed Zone
Misery's Official website
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Yeah it crashes as soon as he barely even spawns and sometimes the game unfreezes just for a small moment that he says some warning to me, but not till now I haven't been able to squeeze out a shot. Can I kill him off somehow else? I tried spawning NPCs using spawn menu but it doesn't work and I think I read somewhere that NPCs can't be spawned in Yanov. Can I do something else like psy storm or something?