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  1. #1

    Computer Freezing

    Hi. I am truly sorry if I am annoying anyone. I am simply desperate. I took my laptop in to the Geek Squad earlier this week. Just got it back, they said there was some corruption of the gpu drivers that they fixed, supposedly everything was repaired. I started rebuilding things for my campaign that is supposed to finally start a week from today and, after 15-20 minutes, had the same thing happen: a complete system freeze. No ctrl-alt-del, no ctrl-shift-esc, nothing. I let it sit for a minute or so and the machine just turned off.

    I am seeing nothing in Event Viewer. The only critical errors showing up are yelling at me for not shutting down correctly. If there is something specific I am supposed to be looking for I do not see it. The truly vexing thing is that, as far as I can tell, there are no crash logs being created. Maybe because it is a system freeze rather than a traditional crash? The only .log file I can find is FantasyGroundsUpdater.log, which has the following:

    ARGS: -c
    CheckNewUpdater(): False
    Launch D:\Program Files\SmiteWorks\Fantasy Grounds\FGUpdaterEngine\FGUpdaterEngine.exe -c

    I know that the chances of some miracle solution being offered up are slim to none. Still have to try though, right? I mean, I have spent what is for me a huge amount of money on this program because it seems so useful, so just ditching it and using Roll20 or something is not really an option. As far as I can tell so far this is the ONLY program that is continuing to have trouble on my machine. I have tried fresh installs of both it and C++ multiple times. Are there any other places I should be looking for crash logs or any clues as to what to look for in the Event Viewer? It seems weird that I can run modern video games at full specs with no problem, but this program keeps freezing everything up. Weird and incredibly, unbelievably frustrating.

    Again, my deepest thanks to everyone who has given any advice so far and to those with any other tidbits you could send my way in the future. Take care and Happy Gaming.

  2. #2
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AsmodeusUltima View Post
    ...after 15-20 minutes, had the same thing happen: a complete system freeze. No ctrl-alt-del, no ctrl-shift-esc, nothing. I let it sit for a minute or so and the machine just turned off.
    Can you remember what you were doing when the freeze occurred?

    I had an issue a few weeks ago on a laptop where resizing an image window (to make it a bit larger) resulted in the system becoming unresponsive. Just an example that caused an issue in my case, I didn't spend time looking for a solution - and I'm not saying if this has anything to do with your issue. But, if you have a reproducible cause of your freeze, then that can help towards working out a solution.
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

  3. #3
    @Trenloe: I wish it was consistent! Just since I got my computer back from Geek Squad it has happened three times: first when scrolling through another post on this very forum (FGU was minimized), once when attempting to close the program, and once when attempting to minimize it. Last week it happened several times, two of which I remember distinctly: while scrolling through the options menu, and when I clicked a tab on a character sheet. The only thing that has been consistent with every freeze I have encountered is that FGU was running.

  4. #4
    LordEntrails's Avatar
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    MOD: I moved this to its own thread since it's not exactly the same as the previous thread.

    The first I thing I look at when my computer freezes like that is the graphics card and driver. I would start by reinstalling the graphics driver. Then if that doesn't work, go back two versions of the driver and install that one (after uninstalling the current one). If those two steps don't work, the third would be to check the settings in the driver. This part is often a crap shoot as it so depends on the card and the options available, but if you can turn off settings per application, then disable various advanced features and see if that resolves.

    On the FG side, are you using any extensions? Or any third party modules? It's possible one or a combination of those might be doing something.

    FYI, the link in my signature has links to how to collect the FG logs. Edit: it will also help give ideas on some of the info that if you can tell us might help us troubleshoot.

    Problems? See; How to Report Issues, Bugs & Problems
    On Licensing & Distributing Community Content
    Community Contributions: Gemstones, 5E Quick Ref Decal, Adventure Module Creation, Dungeon Trinkets, Balance Disturbed, Dungeon Room Descriptions
    Note, I am not a SmiteWorks employee or representative, I'm just a user like you.

  5. #5
    @LordEntrails: Got really confused as to where the last couple posts had gone until I found the email in my trash and read that the thread got split! That link in your sig was very useful, thank you, finally have logs, though looking over them I did not see anything that seemed to indicate a reason for freezing. I'm on Windows 10, exclusively use the Pathfinder 2e ruleset, and I have disabled all extensions for now. I am using some user-made modules from Forge that were working just fine before the problems started. Is there a way to tell if one of them is the issue?

    As for GPU drivers, trust me, they have been vetted thoroughly. That is the majority of what Geek Squad did with my computer earlier this week to stop the BSD crashes and restarts. Said that Nvidia software said I hadn't updated drivers (even though I did and the device manager said they were current), that they flushed out all old drivers and "forced through" the latest ones. And, like I said, every other program I have run, including demanding games, seem to no longer have a problem, so I am not sure how FGU could be straining my GPU to the point of freezing when other programs do not.

    And just to add to the list of things I was doing when it froze: typing a name for a new image file, and deleting an occluder point in said file.

    Anyway, attached the logs, hopefully someone more familiar with reading them will spot something I did not. Thank you for your help!
    Attached Files Attached Files

  6. #6
    There is nothing in the logs that indicate any sort of error condition; but that wouldn't catch lock ups.

    We haven't gotten any other specific reports like this in the last couple months; and we haven't done an application client update in the last couple months either. So, nothing has changed recently.

    My guess is that it is most likely it's the size of the data you are working with. (If the files are small that you are working with, I would still mention that there may be remaining issues with drivers/hardware on the machine (not just GPU, but memory and other components); and that a full diagnostics of drive/memory/GPU might be needed).

    How big are the map graphics in pixel dimensions that you are working with?

    Regards,
    JPG

  7. #7
    @AsmodeusUltima

    Does your comptuer stay frozen for eternity until you manually shut down or does your computer shut down automatically after some time?
    The first is a freeze and will not really log anyhting. The latter is a crash and should log something.

    There have been very rare problems with UI scale in the past. Maybe set to default for some time to see if it fixes the problems.

    Otherwise, check window file integrity via elevated powershell (may take ~10 mins):
    sfc /scannow

    and

    DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

    Furthermore, I'd run Windows Memory Diagnostics to check RAM (doesn't take too long)

  8. #8
    Thank you for your advice!

    I realize that the problem must lie with my system, not the program. Still, this program is the only one that is freezing, so cause or not it must be involved somehow. Hoping very much to figure out the exact culprit and deal with it.

    The base image is 2600x3600, but the freezing started before I even imported the file so I doubt it is the cause. First time it happened all I had done was create and load a campaign then start scrolling through the options menu.

    I am confused myself as to the lack of anything useful in Event Viewer. All it is giving me are alerts that the computer was shut down improperly, not the how or why. Everything else seems usual.

    I ran all the scans you suggested and nothing was found. The drive was formatted and a fresh copy of Windows was installed less than two weeks ago.

    Guess I will try reverting the UI and squinting for a while. Fingers crossed!

  9. #9
    We're having issues with lag since the last update. Anyone else seeing this?

  10. #10
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Temmpest View Post
    We're having issues with lag since the last update. Anyone else seeing this?
    Lag and the computer completely freezing are two different things. Please provide more details on what your issue is.
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

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