Does OFF Produce Error Logs?

[Wayfarer 5]

When OFF gives you a 'this program must close' message, does it produce an error log anywhere that might give a clue as to why?

I am on my 2nd reinstall after having to replace our hard drive. My campaign is all set up but it keeps crashing with that message at some point - up to half an hour into the mission sometimes.

I though it might be the graphics settings being too high, but I wasn't sure if it would cause that sort of crash - so hit upon a cunning plan. I racked all the sliders up to 5 and ran another mission to see what would happen when it finally got overwhelmed, and whether I got that particular message. It looked magnificent, but would it crash ... would it hell! I was even chasing a formation of Rolands in my solitary BE2 in the hope that it wouldn't cope! I exited in disgust in the end.

I guess whatever it was may have cured itself, but if I keep getting the message, is there anywhere that gives any clues as to what the problem might be?

 

 

 

[Olham 164]

I have often thought, that the lower slider settings require more work from the CPU,

calculating everything down.

My sim doesn't crash anymore, since I upgraded the CPU and memory.

My graphic card was not changed.

[33LIMA 972]

I daresay it's Win-doze that's telling you 'This program has encountered an error and needs to close' rather than OFF and if you have XP or above the Windows error reporting service - unless like me you've disabled it - is probably creating an error log which is quite indecipherable to the likes of me, and sending it off, in the (vain?) hope it can offer you a solution or enable the crashed program's developers to fix it sometime.

 

Suggest you do all the stuff one usually does to pin down an obscure software fault. EG run ChkDsk, see if that turns up anything wrong with your Windows files/file system; uninstall your graphics card in Device Manager (with the 'delete drivers' option ticked) then re-install it with a different driver (not necessarily most recent, I here there are some probs reported with NVidia 270+), make sure your HDD doesn't badly need defragmenting, all that good stuff. I have a fairly low spec PC and never had crashes with OFF. Apart from plane crashes that is.

 

Might also be worthwhile using Task Manager to see what else is running on your PC, and then using MSconfig to disable at startup anything un-necessary or exotic that might be conflicting.

 

Am inclined to think this is not OFF-specific; if it is then a reset in Workshop or failing that a re-install should fix it.

Edited July 16, 2011 by 33LIMA

[Olham 164]

Wayfarer, whenever you have that happening again: do yourself a favour and

try "Reset OFF Manager" in "Workshops"; or even "Reset CFS3".

It will also delete your pilots, but will save you the deinstallation and reinstallation.

[Wayfarer 5]

I daresay it's Win-doze that's telling you 'This program has encountered an error and needs to close' rather than OFF and if you have XP or above the Windows error reporting service - unless like me you've disabled it - is probably creating an error log which is quite indecipherable to the likes of me, and sending it off, in the (vain?) hope it can offer you a solution or enable the crashed program's developers to fix it sometime.

 

Suggest you do all the stuff one usually does to pin down an obscure software fault. EG run ChkDsk, see if that turns up anything wrong with your Windows files/file system; uninstall your graphics card in Device Manager (with the 'delete drivers' option ticked) then re-install it with a different driver (not necessarily most recent, I here there are some probs reported with NVidia 270+), make sure your HDD doesn't badly need defragmenting, all that good stuff. I have a fairly low spec PC and never had crashes with OFF. Apart from plane crashes that is.

 

Might also be worthwhile using Task Manager to see what else is running on your PC, and then using MSconfig to disable at startup anything un-necessary or exotic that might be conflicting.

 

Am inclined to think this is not OFF-specific; if it is then a reset in Workshop or failing that a re-install should fix it.

 

Thanks LIMA (again). Yes, I had a feeling that any error log wouldn't be understandable anyway. I did download the latest graphic card drivers, which seemed to solve a couple of minor glitches, but I was aware that it could cause other problems. Might be worth trying rolling back the driver.

I wouldn't have thought that the hard drive was that fragmented yet, but it's true that we seem to have a host off background processes running so that's also worth a try.

 

Olham, the wierd thing is that we only have quite a modest system. I wouldn't have expected it run for a minute with terrain and scenery at 5. I suspect it of being just plain contrary!