Need More Info Game Freeze on Character Creation

[Iron Bobby]

Summary: When attempting to start a new game, on both campaign and sandbox, selecting any backstory options for my character's parents or my character's backstory will result in texture bugs and eventually the models disappear entirely. Attempting to continue on and start the game results in an infinite loading screen. I believe this issue started for me at around e1.7.2 and persists.
How to Reproduce: Through character creation
Have you used cheats and if so which: None at all in Bannerlord.
Scene Name (if related):
Media (Screenshots & Video):
Computer Specs:
OS: Windows 7 Professional
GPU: GeForce RTX 2070 Super
GPU Driver Version: GeForce Security Update Driver 473.81
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K
RAM: 16 GB
Motherboard:
Storage Device (HDD/SSD):

 

[Sturmhardt]

Summary: When attempting to start a new game, on both campaign and sandbox, selecting any backstory options for my character's parents or my character's backstory will result in texture bugs and eventually the models disappear entirely. Attempting to continue on and start the game results in an infinite loading screen. I believe this issue started for me at around e1.7.2 and persists.
How to Reproduce: Through character creation
Have you used cheats and if so which: None at all in Bannerlord.
Scene Name (if related):
Media (Screenshots & Video):
Computer Specs:
OS: Windows 7 Professional
GPU: GeForce RTX 2070 Super
GPU Driver Version: GeForce Security Update Driver 473.81
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K
RAM: 16 GB
Motherboard:
Storage Device (HDD/SSD):

That sounds familiar. I have this since 1.7.2, just in a milder form. Now it crashes right away before the campaign even starts.

Unresolved - Very high crash probability while loading of (character model) textures [1.8 but it already started 1.7.2]

Summary: Since update to version 1.7.2 I experience very constant freezes or crashes. I can already tell it is going to happen, when an instance or a screen is being loaded and I cannot see char models or parts or their textures. At that point the game basically crashed already, it just takes a...

forums.taleworlds.com

 

[Sciohan]

This is different than the XML file issue, on Windows 7 / 8 assets don't load properly currently. The workaround for this one is to run Process Monitor in the background, download's on Microsoft's website.

 

[Sturmhardt]

This is different than the XML file issue, on Windows 7 / 8 assets don't load properly currently. The workaround for this one is to run Process Monitor in the background, download's on Microsoft's website.

Indeed a different beast of a problem. Well that sounds interesting.
But it's only a monitoring tool, so what do I have to do with it. Or is that evident when I try ?
Already thanks for the inspiration pal. Hope to read you soon


EDIT: Tried to install it, but get the "unable to load process monitor device driver" error and I am kinda failing getting it to run on my system.

 

[Sciohan]

I'm not a programmer so I don't know the full details on what's going on, but I know that Process Monitor loads a driver on launch, and presumably has to attach itself to processes as other debugger tools do. Also be aware that the default log size is 199 million entries, and will quickly eat all your RAM if not lowered in options.

It's not entirely bulletproof as even with it running, assets can load in slowly (especially the first time) and sometimes but not always will freeze again if you click through character creation very fast. At least it resolves the issue of those assets simply never loading no matter how long you wait.

 

[Sturmhardt]

It's an idea to tackle some of the issues for sure.
The 2 troubleshoot methods for the error I am getting, do not seem to work. it's not a missing service pack or a not running service.
Seems I won't get that thing runing anytime soon or at all.
That's a pity, would have loved to check that out.
Thanks again!

 

[Sciohan]

It's an idea to tackle some of the issues for sure.
The 2 troubleshoot methods for the error I am getting, do not seem to work. it's not a missing service pack or a not running service.
Seems I won't get that thing runing anytime soon or at all.
That's a pity, would have loved to check that out.
Thanks again!

If you already have the required Windows updates and it's still unable to load, it's worth trying right-click -> run as administrator. May also not work if attempting to run it while still inside an archive file and not extracted.
Edit: Also while I'm sure Windows Defender has it whitelisted, if you have an extremely aggressive antivirus like Norton or McAfee you might want to check their logs to see if they're blocking execution.

 

[Sturmhardt]

Avast seems to be cool with it as well. All updates installed. Running as admin with it as exception edited does nothing.
No matter what I try, I get the same "unable to load process monitor device driver" every time.
I am not sure what my problem is with this now. And the options to test things are running low. I am out of ideas how to get this rolling.
But as before, thank you for struggling with me here

 

[Sciohan]

The ol' Wayback Machine looks like they archived several older versions if you want to try one from around 2013 or so, I know you said you have the driver signature-related security updates installed but someone else also had better luck with running version 3.51 after also having that driver error. After that though I'm afraid you'd have to dig through Event Viewer logs to try and find out what's stopping it.

 

[Sturmhardt]

I could fetch a 3.61 which seems to start, hurray \o/
What a fossile. Now I'll see what that tool can do for me.

Thanks for inspiring to seach on.

 

[Sturmhardt]

The ol' Wayback Machine looks like they archived several older versions if you want to try one from around 2013 or so, I know you said you have the driver signature-related security updates installed but someone else also had better luck with running version 3.51 after also having that driver error. After that though I'm afraid you'd have to dig through Event Viewer logs to try and find out what's stopping it.

Well, it really seems to do what you promised. Cool stuff.
I could get it to run and it seems to stabilize loading processes without me doing anything much really.
So it was totally worth digging in dirt for a few hours

Thanks again pal, you inspired me in the right direction.
A pleasure to work with you! o7

 

[Iron Bobby]

Summary: When attempting to start a new game, on both campaign and sandbox, selecting any backstory options for my character's parents or my character's backstory will result in texture bugs and eventually the models disappear entirely. Attempting to continue on and start the game results in an infinite loading screen. I believe this issue started for me at around e1.7.2 and persists.
How to Reproduce: Through character creation
Have you used cheats and if so which: None at all in Bannerlord.
Scene Name (if related):
Media (Screenshots & Video):
Computer Specs:
OS: Windows 7 Professional
GPU: GeForce RTX 2070 Super
GPU Driver Version: GeForce Security Update Driver 473.81
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K
RAM: 16 GB
Motherboard:
Storage Device (HDD/SSD):

*Edit: Forgot to include that I have used Bannerlord Online since before the last update

 

[Sturmhardt]

*Edit: Forgot to include that I have used Bannerlord Online since before the last update

Found something you could try, with the esteemed user Sciohan, who was so kind to point me in the right direction.

Get a version of the program Process Monitor (from microsoft) that runs on your system, without just spitting out the error code that some driver could not be loaded.
My computer was a hard case and only accepted a very old 3.61 version. Try a new one anyway. If it works, great, if not, look for 3.61. Only few places will offer such an old version. But there are some if you know what you are looking for.

When you get it running, got into the Options and there into the History Depth...
Then select a size of log that is very small - we don't really want a log, we want this little tool to run in the background.
Otherwise the default of that option will gradually eat all your ram because the default log is gigantic.
So don't skip that step for your own sake.

And then I cross my fingers and wish you luck starting the game.

Have fun! o7

 

[Iron Bobby]

Found something you could try, with the esteemed user Sciohan, who was so kind to point me in the right direction.

Get a version of the program Process Monitor (from microsoft) that runs on your system, without just spitting out the error code that some driver could not be loaded.
My computer was a hard case and only accepted a very old 3.61 version. Try a new one anyway. If it works, great, if not, look for 3.61. Only few places will offer such an old version. But there are some if you know what you are looking for.

When you get it running, got into the Options and there into the History Depth...
Then select a size of log that is very small - we don't really want a log, we want this little tool to run in the background.
Otherwise the default of that option will gradually eat all your ram because the default log is gigantic.
So don't skip that step for your own sake.

And then I cross my fingers and wish you luck starting the game.

Have fun! o7

Going to try this next! Wish me luck and thanks for the suggestion

 

[Iron Bobby]

!!EPIC UPDATE!!

Thanks to the efforts of Sturmhardt and(Especially) Sciohan, I have been able to start a new game without crashing. More testing will need to be done, but for now it would seem their solution has solved my problem! I am hopeful that this will also solve a similar issue I have recently ran into with multiplayer. Many thanks to both of you!

 

[Sturmhardt]

I'm not a programmer so I don't know the full details on what's going on, but I know that Process Monitor loads a driver on launch, and presumably has to attach itself to processes as other debugger tools do. Also be aware that the default log size is 199 million entries, and will quickly eat all your RAM if not lowered in options.

It's not entirely bulletproof as even with it running, assets can load in slowly (especially the first time) and sometimes but not always will freeze again if you click through character creation very fast. At least it resolves the issue of those assets simply never loading no matter how long you wait.

Oh, hey my man. o/
I don't know how you deal with the log file, other than reducing it's size.
But there is an even better way than the lowest (1 million entries for many) log size.
Just go into the 'Filter' options and 'Drop Filtered Events'. So no matter the log size, the results just get straight out trashed once they happened.

Thanks again and have a good one, pal!

 

[Sciohan]

Oh, hey my man. o/
I don't know how you deal with the log file, other than reducing it's size.
But there is an even better way than the lowest (1 million entries for many) log size.
Just go into the 'Filter' options and 'Drop Filtered Events'. So no matter the log size, the results just get straight out trashed once they happened.

Thanks again and have a good one, pal!

Good find, didn't even notice that. Just make sure you have a filter set that won't let much through as the default will still rack up many hundreds of thousands of unfiltered entries after some time, do you just exclude all that don't match a process name you don't have running?

 

[Sturmhardt]

Good find, didn't even notice that. Just make sure you have a filter set that won't let much through as the default will still rack up many hundreds of thousands of unfiltered entries after some time, do you just exclude all that don't match a process name you don't have running?

I actually just unselected all 'Show ...' checkboxes and let it automatically dump all results, so I neither see anything nor will it be stored. I didn't mess with the filters much and so far used the default. But the fact that the log isn't growing at all is having a big impact on memory exhaustion already. I could probably tweak it more, but it's looking fine basically.

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

We have updated 1.8.1 with a potential fix for this issue. Could you try reproducing this issue and report back, please? Sadly we could not able to reproduce this on our end thanks to Windows 7 PCs not helping.