Have I Reached GameSalad's Limit?

netdzynrnetdzynr Member Posts: 296
edited November -1 in Working with GS (Mac)
Figures... I added the final stage to my game, and now when exiting from Preview mode to Editing mode (clicking the arrow in the upper left) GameSalad crashes consistently. When I run the app in the viewer on my iPad, the final stage runs fine, so I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this. The game project file is just under 30MB. I've converted almost all non-essential prototype actors to instances, leaving about 60 prototypes remaining. The final stage has no animation, but does have (what I think is) a simple routine for swapping images of one actor.

Any suggestions?

Comments

  • expired_012expired_012 Member Posts: 1,802
    Same happened to me, I fixed it though. Check over every single actor to see if the rules/attributes make sense. One attribute can cause everything to crash!!

    Finding a mess-up of rules/attributes in GS is nothing. Just imagine having to find a tiny mess-up in 12,000 lines of code! Ahhh
  • TouchTiltGamesTouchTiltGames Member Posts: 1,162
    Yeah, backtrack to where it was working just before it wasn't. I save 3 or 4 builds out every day I work on my game, that way I can go back and see what wrong.
  • netdzynrnetdzynr Member Posts: 296
    If I delete the entire final scene, the file appears to work OK, so I guess redoing the behaviors is the only way to go. Thanks for the suggestion.

    [sigh] I'm quite weary of GameSalad at this point.
  • TouchTiltGamesTouchTiltGames Member Posts: 1,162
    netdzynr said:
    If I delete the entire final scene, the file appears to work OK, so I guess redoing the behaviors is the only way to go. Thanks for the suggestion.

    [sigh] I'm quite weary of GameSalad at this point.

    I feel your pain!

    You shouldn't have to delete all..just start in that scene with the last behaviors you worked on and go backwards...
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    netdzynr said:
    I'm quite weary of GameSalad at this point.

    What did you expect... a Zombo.com SDK?
  • TouchTiltGamesTouchTiltGames Member Posts: 1,162
    Photics said:
    What did you expect... a Zombo.com SDK?

    That actually hurt my eyes so I shut it off...but..it WAS inspiring!
  • netdzynrnetdzynr Member Posts: 296
    I do save multiple copies of my app for just this problem (learned by painful experience). Deleting the scene allowed me to verify that that scene was where the problem existed.

    Just found out something by accident: I resaved the game project file as a completely new file, opened the problem scene, and a few of the behavior attributes showed up as blank. After deleting those behaviors, crashing appears to have stopped. Maybe this is old news for most of you, but a most welcome event in my situation. Thanks for the commiseration. :-)
  • TouchTiltGamesTouchTiltGames Member Posts: 1,162
    Ah blank because you must've deleted those attributes but the names were still cached...
  • netdzynrnetdzynr Member Posts: 296
    @Photics - Not sure what zombo is, but I *expected* to be done with my app months ago.

    Anyway, I'll quit whining for the moment. After I fix this stuff, will try to post a demo of a scrolling image menu with momentum. Took a long time to figure out, and it's way too complicated, but it works reasonably well and folks might find it useful.
  • netdzynrnetdzynr Member Posts: 296
    Arg. Spoke too soon. Still crashing. #$%& Nothing is easy.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    It's an Internet Meme... a joke... 30 MB should not crash a GameSalad game. The limit, on older iOS devices is around 40-45 MB of memory. Maybe your file is corrupt. If it was me, I'd be considering a clean file... restarting the project and recreating everything... then making a copy of that file as a backup point.
  • synthesissynthesis Member Posts: 1,693
    You more than likely have an empty attribute somewhere.

    Play the level and delete 1 actor at a time between tests to identify the troubling actor. Then go into that actor...and if necessary...delete 1 rule at a time to narrow in on the troubling rule. Then fix it. :)
  • netdzynrnetdzynr Member Posts: 296
    Thanks. I started down the path you suggested, but wasn't getting anywhere (was thinking there might be some possible corruption somewhere), and it was taking way too long, so I took screenshots of the rules, pulled the whole thing, and recreated it. Seems to be working now (no crashes).
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    netdzynr said:
    I took screenshots of the rules, pulled the whole thing, and recreated it. Seems to be working now (no crashes).

    The GameSalad play of the night...

    Announcer #1: Did you see that?!
    Announcer #2: Whoa, yeah... a huge recovery by netdzynr
    Announcer #1: Yeah, he's gotta be mighty happy with himself.
    Announcer #2: He certainly is, and listen to the crowd.
    Announcer #1: Oh yeah, the GameSalad Arena is on their feet.
    Announcer #2: Let's see the replay.
    Robot Replay Machine said:
    ...netdzynr struggles to get his game in the end zone.
    ...it looks like he's about to lose control.
    ...here comes Photics with a huge assist.
    ...Bam... netdzynr scores.

    Announcer #1: You know, not a lot of developers like to dig in like that, but Photics is a worker. Years of experience have shown him how to get the job done.

    Announcer #2: You better believe it. These developers keep it up like this and the players might get some good games.
  • jstrahanjstrahan Member Posts: 498
    I lived with this problem for the last month at first I thought there was a time limit for gs to get update or crashes start happening kinda atime limit built in to push the gs team to release updates then I found a way around this by hitting the pause button before I hit the back or redraft button then things got worst which made me really believe in the time limit everytime I would add an actor to the scene and you would click it during game play the game would freeze and after a month of frustration I asked for help from a fresh set of eyes about an hour later the problem was found and fixed it was an actor attribute that should have been a scene attribute
    Thanks TS for the help
  • hrsmediahrsmedia Member Posts: 522
    There are a couple of games I am working on which I just cannot preview without crashing. I have to play them in the GS viewer to test them. There are no errors in the rules. I have also rebuilt with same problem.
    You can get GS to crash just by dragging in a couple of images. Very unstable to say the least.
  • jstrahanjstrahan Member Posts: 498
    Check all rules for the first 45 min of checking for my problem all the code looked right and should have worked but it didn't
    Start by deleting one actor at a time until it works then reload game delete that actor and see if it works if not start deleting actors again until you find the next one then reload delete both actors and repeat until u find all actors causing problem then see what they have in common and more then likely that's the problem
  • hrsmediahrsmedia Member Posts: 522
    Well I am using very basic rules. Just a few interpolates and timers. I think it's the images that are causing the crashes when previewing on the mac. Plays fine on GS viewer on ipod touch.
    I have been having problems with previewing for projects that use images that are 480x320 PNG8 and PNG24.
    I think I read somewhere there are issues with GS and ATI cards?
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