urgent - game cuts off after playing for at least 15 mins

FirstDan

@everyone,

If I have actors on my scene that are unlocked so that I can use my players x and y using scene.layers.player.x etc rather than players x and y!

If I accidentally delete the prototype, does it still keep the unlocked actor, can this be the issue?

gyroscope

Hi again @FirstDan , no it wouldn't be that because if you delete a Prototype from the Library, a dialog pops up which says: "Removing this actor prototype will remove all instances and references to it."

Are you certain you've no behaviours/rules where their attributes are showing blank?

Just before your app crashes, do you get the spinning wheel, and if so, for how long?

Personally, I'd spend a day putting the whole game into separate scenes, but I guess you don't want to go down that route...

FirstDan

@gyroscope - HI
Gutted, I really thought I had a fix with prototyping and unlocked actors.

I am fairly certain that I don't have attributes showing blank.

When my app crashes, my iPhone 5 seems to heat up and then it just crashes. There is no loading wheel.

@GYRO - my game is infinite, so putting on separate scenes wont make sense....


Arhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Dan - 99% Stress levels

gyroscope

Oh yes, an infinite game, i think you mentioned that before... so frustrating for you, I can understand.... I'll think on...

gyroscope

I'm beginning to wonder if it IS a RAM issue (the point you made right at the beginning...); memory caches are building up and not being cleared so it eventually bombs...

FirstDan

@gyroscope - I really hope not , how can I dump the memory? Is it by changing the scene.

jonmulcahy

Are you spawning / destroying at all?

You really need to show a video and go into detail of what you are doing. Everyone is just shooting in the dark here

FirstDan

@jonmulcahy - i'm trying to protect my work, i hope you can understand that...

when you say "are you spawning/destroying at all?

I am only spawning bonus items, enemies and obstacles.

jonmulcahy

How often are you spawning? What happens when items leave the screen and/or are collected?

I understand trying to protect your work, but you gotta give us something to go on. It's like asking people online to diagnose car trouble by saying it goes 'clank'

The_Gamesalad_Guru

If you're spawning stuff make sure you have them destroy after they are off screen or no longer in use.

FirstDan

How often are you spawning? What happens when items leave the screen and/or are collected?

I understand trying to protect your work, but you gotta give us something to go on. It's like asking people online to diagnose car trouble by saying it goes 'clank'

- made me laugh

I do have a rocket powerup, that when the player collects it, i change the x, y outside the scene

when the player touches the rocket power up i constrain the x and y of the rocket to player x and y.

Generally I destroy all spawns once used, but for my health bars i spawn at level 5 and keep them until level 15

dan

FirstDan

@gyroscope - it may not be memory as when I read the crash logs it gives me an error code which basically means that gamesalad is trying get hold of an pointer that's been deleted or something like that

gyroscope

Ah, OK, then your best bet is to inspect any new additions of Rules/behaviours that appear just before the app crashes... as Jon @jonmulcahy said, it's a bit difficult to analyse fully without seeing what's actually happening with your rules and behaviours...

Anyhow, best of luck tracking a missing attribute down, if that's the problem...

jonmulcahy

how many objects are you spawning and how often?

1 object every 10 seconds?
10 objects every minute?
100 objects every second?

it all matters, and if you are spawning/destroying often, that gradually increases the memory load.

However, on an iPhone5, i expect the memory number when using the viewer should be well over 150/200MB since it has so much memory. If it is a lot lower, something codewise is going on.

OniCraft

I notice sometimes the values of attributes would go blank when copying actors or scenes. For example, normally it would be HP = HP+1. After copying the actor, the second actor's HP would sometimes become HP = "blank, completely nothing".

jonmulcahy

I notice sometimes the values of attributes would go blank when copying actors or scenes. For example, normally it would be HP = HP+1. After copying the actor, the second actor's HP would sometimes become HP = "blank, completely nothing".

this is because you were using local attributes. when you use a global attribute (game attribute), you can copy the rule from actor to actor without any problems. When you use local attribues (actor attributes, seen as self.whatever), when you copy it outside of the actor, that rules breaks.

FirstDan

@jonmulcahy, I will compile a list of all spawns and destroys when I get home!!

But for level 10 which is a boss level I'm spawning anything between 30-40 actors providing the player gets past a point, I then delete them all once the boss is dead

I'll get you a list soon

Thanks

FirstDan

@jonmulcahy - i have a screenshot- that shows the exception within Xcode

but i dont know how to post it on this forum, care to help?

FirstDan

AudioStreamBasicDescription: 2 ch, 44100 Hz, 'lpcm' (0x00000029) 32-bit little-endian float, deinterleaved
OpenAL error 40964 in call to ~SGSound: alDeleteBuffersOpenAL error 40964 in call to ~SGSound: alDeleteBuffersOpenAL error 40964 in call to ~SGSound: alDeleteBuffers2012-12-10 21:51:05.726 GameSalad Viewer[2122:12803] Game paused by system. Count: 1
OpenAL error 40964 in call to ~SGSound: alDeleteBuffersOpenAL error 40964 in call to ~SGSound: alDeleteBuffers2012-12-10 22:13:35.152 GameSalad Viewer[2122:12803] Received memory warning.
Ran out of chunks of size 16
(lldb)


this is the exception i get in Xcode, anybody knows what this means?

Socks

little-endian

Did you try what I suggested (it shouldn't take more than a few minutes of your time) ?

Spending hours playing around with mysterious esoteric coding languages that I don't understand tends to get me nowhere and slowly, whereas good old common sense and a basic process of elimination (and half a bottle of red wine) tends to find the problem fairly quickly.

I'd dump the audio and run the game, then dump the backgrounds and run the game, then get rid of the score counter (and run the game) - and the particle effects (and run the game) - and the spawning (and run the game) - and so on . . . . . . basically strip things out one at a time, eventually you will be left with nothing - but between this nothing and the complete game you started with the issue that is causing your game to crash will disappear - this process will help you pin down the culprit.

jonmulcahy

little-endian

Did you try what I suggested (it shouldn't take more than a few minutes of your time) ?

Spending hours playing around with mysterious esoteric coding languages that I don't understand tends to get me nowhere and slowly, whereas good old common sense and a basic process of elimination (and half a bottle of red wine) tends to find the problem fairly quickly.

I'd dump the audio and run the game, then dump the backgrounds and run the game, then get rid of the score counter (and run the game) - and the particle effects (and run the game) - and the spawning (and run the game) - and so on . . . . . . basically strip things out one at a time, eventually you will be left with nothing - but between this nothing and the complete game with started with the issue that is causing your game to crash will disappear - this process will help you pin down the culprit.

follow this advice and report back!

FirstDan

@socks when you say dump, do you mean delete? Or turn off?

Thanks

Socks

@socks when you say dump, do you mean delete? Or turn off?

Thanks

Turning something off and deleting it has much the same effect.

jonmulcahy

Make a copy of the game first!!

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Yes I agree! You should be debugging with a copy and making notes of the results and fixes and then go in and fix your main copy. Deleting and monkeying with your game can lead to XML file issues. It's more work but easier than having to redo the whole game.

FirstDan

@everyone- I'm going to do as you all advised!

@socks, @jon, @fsb- great debugging advice...


May I ask if anyone had a look at the exception error I posted in an earlier post and what you all think about it?

Dan

gyroscope

@FirstDan

Hi Dan, as much as I understand it, it's an audio issue, from what I can tell from the exception error, with "SGSound" and deleting buffers mentioned. I'm sure you consider the same.

So your first "port of call" would certainly be checking out the sound/music files by turning off any Sound or Music behaviour, one by one, to see which audio file might be the corrupted file. Especially start by turning off any sounds or music which are happening for the first time in the levels where it crashes...

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Yes from what I read about this error code is that it is related to audio. I start by turning off all sounds and seeing if it crashes, then I would turn them on one at a time until the crash happens. When you find the file delete it and the play sound behavior that addresses it and redo it.