Frogboy Frogboy

BETA 3: REPORTING BUGS

▼

BETA 3: REPORTING BUGS

READ THIS!

from Elemental Forums

We're seeing a lot of beta tester bug reports that are not following the reporting guidelines.

As a practical matter, there is only one thing we really need and that is the crash file.

In your c:\programdata\stardock\elemental - war of magic directory are zip files when the game crashes.

Inside those zip files is the debug.err and the .dmp file that when we load it, will actually let us open the game and see the exact place in the code it crashed.

Screenshot of the directory:

http://screencast.com/t/MzE5MmQ1Yz

If you're running Windows XP, it's in the hidden \documents and settings\ directory thing.

Use DropBox (http://www.dropbox.com) to share these files.  

There's about 3 separate crash bugs in beta 3 that once fixed should dramatically improve the stability.  I'm not going anywhere for the 4th of July so if I can fix them, I'll put up a new EXE for people to try but I can't do much without those DMP files.

faq support
38,933 views 59 replies | Pinned
Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

Here's another.  Both of these occurred after exiting the game.  Even though I had exited, I got a message saying that Data Execution had shut Elemental down to protect my computer.

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=J6D5BNLM

Reply #52 from Elemental Forums Top

I've also had two crashes which generated a message that the display driver had shut down and recovered.  Doesn't seem that these crashes generated the usual crash files.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

Now, I'm getting a crash with the error message, "DX error: Invalid call."  It keeps recurring--I can only play a turn or two before it happens.  Unhappily, it does not produce crash files.

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

DX error: Invalid call

These kind of errors frequently happen when you use alt-tab to switch out of a full screen Elemental, and have previously (and often) been reported.  Is that what you might have done?  If you want to keep playing without this error, run the game in windowed mode.  (Use the Video options to uncheck full screen, then restart Elemental, or edit the prefs.ini file in My Games\Elemental to change Fullscreen=1 to Fullscreen=0).

Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

Nope.  I haven't done any alt-tabbing while playing Elemental.  I still can't play more than two turns without a crash.  And the one error message came several times when I finished playing and had exited the game.

 

I will try playing in windowed mode, however, and see if things improve.

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

I was able to play quite a while in windowed mode, but it finally crashed again, with the message about the DX error invalid call. Once out of the game, I again received the message about the display driver having stopped and recovered.

 

It still doesn't generate any crash files, though.

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

I am continuing to experience crashes, either during play or upon exiting from the game, which result in the "DX error: invalid call" message, plus either the message regarding the failure of the display driver or the shutdown of the game by Data Execution Prevention.

 

I also finally got another crash file.

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BKFFE0EL

Reply #59 from Elemental Forums Top

Here's another.  It occurred, as many of my crashes do, with a freeze of sorts.  I can navigate around the map, open other windows, etc., but I cannot advance the turn.  Eventually, when I tire of waiting for the game to proceed, I press Ctl/Alt/Del to get out,  That's when the DX error message appears, followed by the other error messages--altho I do get these messages on more typical crashes, also.

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9KNU234M