In Game Crash After Exiting Battle, Now Unable To Start Client

[CptPrincess]

The game crashed to desktop after exiting a fleet battle with another player on the PvE server. After the crash, the harddrive on which Naval Action is installed was not shown in Windows Explorer and attempting to reopen the game client resulted in a "disk read/write error" (Which is expected if Windows was no longer seeing the drive). Restarting the computer allowed the drive to be seen again and everything on it (with the exception of NA) is where it should be and works fine.

Attempting to start NA gives the "Oops" dialogue box and creates a crash log. Attempting to send the log through the NA Bug Reporter in Steam also generates the "Oops" box. I've since verified the NA cache (which passed successfully twice) and have reinstalled NA and am still met with the "Oops" dialogue box anytime I try to start Naval Action.

 

I can upload the logs to you - is attaching them to this message the best way to do that?

 

Windows 7 64bit, AMD FX8350e, AMD R9 390

 

Edit: System specs and clarity of post.

Edited September 27, 2017 by CptPrincess

[Ink]

Captain, have you tried to reinstall the game on another hdd/ssd? Also, did you run drive check?

[CptPrincess]

Hi, and thanks for the reply

Chkdsk ran without any issues. I'll try installing it on another partition when back home tonight and report back. Not entirely convinced it's a HDD problem - everything else (games included) on the same partition still work A-Ok.

Are there any files that may have been corrupt which the uninstall through steam might leave behind?

[CptPrincess]

Hiya, back home for the night and a quick update.
So, I tried uninstalling NA and removing all files left behind from the location (copied them elsewhere) and then reinstalling it - same result, generation of the "Oops" box on launch of the bug reporter and of the client. For whatever reason, I then tried launching the client from the exe directly. This launched the client and got me to the Server Select screen and I was excited. Unfortunately, selecting a server to load in to briefly showed a "Steam start required" sort of message in red and then quit the client, (I assume) tried to start the client the Steam way and produced the "Oops" box again. 

 

So I took your advice, removed NA and reinstalled it to a new drive and, in fact, a new Steam library. No luck there either, when starting through Steam both the client and the crash reporter give me the "Oops" box. 

When started through browsing explorer to the location and launching the .exe files directly, both applications start and seem to behave as expected until the point they request to be started through Steam. Perhaps a registry entry somewhere needs resetting - is there anything set by NA explicitly?

 

Any help greatly appreciated  I have copies of all logs if they'd help - just let me know where to send them.

[CptPrincess]

@Ink any more thoughts? Still not able to get into the client when launching through Steam. Am at work but eager to give anything a try again this evening

 

Edit: And how do we properly tag people in posts?

Edited September 29, 2017 by CptPrincess
Added question

[Ink]

7 minutes ago, CptPrincess said:

@Ink any more thoughts? Still not able to get into the client when launching through Steam. Am at work but eager to give anything a try again this evening

 

Edit: And how do we properly tag people in posts?

Captain, please try this workaround:

If this does not solve the issue, please try to reinstall Steam

[CptPrincess]

H agaiin @Ink,

Took your advice and removed the registry entry for NA. Interestingly, lots of the values seemed to just say "Invalid DWORD (32Bit) Value". When restarting NA, however, the same behavior as before is given. Also, no new registry entries have been created in place of the ones I removed, even when reinstalling and restarting NA, Is this expected? Or should it have created new registry entries?

I have a copy of the entries prior to deletion, if that would be of any use in going forwards?

Edited September 30, 2017 by CptPrincess
Updated error message

[CptPrincess]

Hi again, and another quick update. I've been tinkering through this weekend trying to get back into NA. I'm still not 100% what the issue is, hopefully you guys can still help me there, but fortunately I seem have found a workaround this afternoon. 

After I had no luck with the registries (they were not recreated when NA launched thru Steam) I decided to see if starting the .exe would generate them. This created some but it didn't look like as many as there were before, and starting through Steam still caused the crash. I have noticed, though, that some of the crash logs contain incorrect information - saying I have 8126Gb (yes, Gb) of addressable space - this is certainly not the case - so I'm not sure if that's an indication of what may be wrong?

Anyway, I was out of ideas so gave up until this afternoon. I was still feeling that it's a registry issue, and I'd noticed thatl the keys are all created in the Current User registry section, so I decided to create a new Windows user account and try installing and running NA with that. Low and behold, I was into the client, logged into the server, and sailing without a hitch. Very happy with that.

I didn't have the time to switch back to my usual account to see if NA was working there and, if not, I'd like to continue trouble shooting to see if I can.

@Ink I hope it's ok, I have a couple of questions. 1) Has any of this given any clue as to what may be wrong, or how to solve it? 2) Would seeing the collection of crash logs shed any light? 3)   Is copying the registry entries from the working User account to my original account likely to get NA starting?

And finally, Are you able to tell me where the log generator queries for system resources so I can find out where it's getting the incorrect value?

 

Thanks again for your help

[Ink]

To clarify - have you tried to reinstall Steam?

[CptPrincess]

@Ink Apologies, Captain, for the long delay - I've not had chance to get to my computer after last weekend. 

I had been hoping to avoid reinstalling Steam fearing it'd be a lot of work to sort everything else in the library again. I took the leap this afternoon, though, and the reinstallation seems to have gone OK. The issue with NA, however, still persists  - An "Oops" box on startup.

I haven't tried the install I made in the other User Account again, yet, but am assuming it still works there. 

 

E: Just to clarify, I reinstalled Steam while NA was uninstalled, then reinstalled NA fresh and still can't make it on :(.

Edited October 10, 2017 by CptPrincess
Further information

[CptPrincess]

Any more ideas, @Ink?

[Ink]

On 13.10.2017 at 8:34 PM, CptPrincess said:

Any more ideas, @Ink?

Captain, please try to turn off avast gaming hook or temporary switch the antivirus off and check the game.

In case turning the antivirus helps, please turn it back on and check the settings related to Naval Action.

[CptPrincess]

Tried as you suggested, running with all antivirus etc. disabled and still got the Oops box.

 

Am finding NA is still running stable in the new Windows user account - not sure if this is any clue?

[CptPrincess]

Hi again, @Ink. Unfortunately not had the time to jump into NA as much these past couple of weeks. Quick update, though (but not much new to report):

I tried copying across the NA registry entries of the working User to my original Windows user but no luck there (I didn't expect much, but thought it worth a shot). 

Running NA from the new Windows User  still works; it's had a couple crashes to desktop but nothing permanent. This is still the only way I can get into the game - it is running the same antivirus etc running as my usual account. 

It may seem silly to keep battling with this as NA in the new Windows account works ok but it is a pain to have to have the second account, and to not be able to use NA from my main user, so I'm likely to keep seeing if I can find anything.

The fact the client launches ok when started through the NA .exe makes it feel like it could be a steam issue - tho I would've hoped the steam reinstall would have caught that... Do you know what steps Steam goes through to launch the NA client? 

 

[CptPrincess]

Hello again, @Ink
I hope you're still seeing these messages, your recent silence was a little disappointing but at least I could play the NA - great work has been done in the recent updates :). When starting the game (in the new Windows account) today, it went through the update process as normal. After clicking "Play Game" to launch the client, though, I was again greeted with the "Oops" box. All other behaviour now seems to be as it was on the original Windows account.

There may have been an update before the first time this happened - is this a clue to what may be happening? 

 

I would very much appreciate any help with this. I am hesitant to just go on creating Windows accounts if this happens with each update.....

[CptPrincess]

@Ink, Hello! Finally some good news. In fact, 2 pieces:

1. A fresh boot off the PC the following day allowed an install to complete without issue. I got back in on the new Windows account and had a play. Unfortunately a crash when docking in a port*, but recovered with a restart.
2. I happened to be browsing other Support posts and stumbled across this incredibly similar sounding problem. I, too, run MSI Afterburner (though, it turns out, not in the new Windows account) - lo and behold, disabling it allowed NA to start up on the original account. 

So there we have it, MSI Afterburner incompatibility issue look to be the cause. Is this a know issue? It may be handy to sticky a note, or edit it into the common problems thread, in case it occurs for others too.

The odd thing is that I've had it installed since before playing NA - is there something in a recent patch that might conflict? Is it something there may be a fix for in the future? I use MSI Afterburner to aid in fan control, it would be ideal to keep it on.

 

*Finally, just a note about the crash to desktop when docking in port. I've noticed that I'm having fairly common crashes either exiting from battle or docking in port - are these common/expected, and should they be F11ed/reported here or does the in built crash reporter handle it?

 

Thank you very much, @Ink, for staying with this. It's very reassuring to have received this level of support.

[Ink]

Captain, the issue with MSI Afterburner is a specific case not affecting players globally. Such issues will be reviewed in depth after more critical bugs are fixed according to priority list since the reasons might be related to side factors and not the game directly.

Meanwhile please try to check the registry with a program that removes invalid entries as was said in pm and try to turn the MSI afterburner back on.

There are no global issues with game crashes at the moment (there were some after Unity 5 upgrade but they were fixed), the logs can be checked to find out the reason but please make sure that GPU drivers and Windows Updates are up to date and the issue is still there. Crash logs could be sent via NA steam launcher (the second option after "Play Naval Action")

 

[CptPrincess]

Hello again, @Ink. Sorry for the delay in my response, I've only just managed to get any decent time at my computer to look back at this. Tonight, I did finally get around to 1) Ensuring all Windows updates were complete and 2) Using CCleaner to scan and fix the registry. It found quite a few entries which it flagged as problems, which were all fixed successfully. Trying to run NA with MSI Afterburner active, though, presented the "Oops" box again. 

Edited December 2, 2017 by CptPrincess