Why does GameSalad keeps crashing ? So annoying!!!!

steve86

Seriously its so frustrating.. I just lost about 6 hours of work because I forgot to click on save.. Please get it together guys, this isn't the cheapest SDK to make games so I expect to get a quality product in return.. I Have been with you years and years, there is no excuse for the client to be this unstable after all the years that have passed!!..

Armelline

Which version are you finding is crashing a lot?

steve86

The latest "Stable" one .13.14

Armelline

Unfortunately Make sure you file a bug report explaining what you were doing when it crashed, will help to make the next version more stable!

Thunder_Child

Yep me as well...crashing way more than it used to...disappearing/offsetting of animations inside animation box....super duper lag and freezing if scrolling images in the image inspector. These three issues are new bugs...astounding how something does work and then it doesn't in later builds. I would expect new stuff to not work...I mean that's what we have come to expect anyways.

Now not only have we been asked to file bug reports as usual...I see they want videos and for us to provide a crash logs.

Armelline

I've not experienced many crashes, and haven't experienced any freezing if scrolling even hundreds of images. I have seen the vanishing animation images though. Overall I've found the build very fast and very stable. Guess I've been lucky

Hopscotch

No problems as described here either, not under Mavericks or Yosemite (except Animation box probs).

Thunder_Child

I will say performance wise...in relation to the lagging that builds up over a 10-15 minute time frame is gone. That is great so props to them for that as least.

ferzheng

@Thunder_Child said:
Yep me as well...crashing way more than it used to...disappearing/offsetting of animations inside animation box....super duper lag and freezing if scrolling images in the image inspector. These three issues are new bugs...astounding how something does work and then it doesn't in later builds. I would expect new stuff to not work...I mean that's what we have come to expect anyways.

Now not only have we been asked to file bug reports as usual...I see they want videos and for us to provide a crash logs.

hey ThunderChild,

I always thought it was my Mac Mini´s CPU being dual core that cause GameSalad to be so slow. I would like to ask you if the CPU of a mac, whether Mini, Macbook Air or MBP, plays a big role when developing with GS and using Photoshop or Illustrator.

Thank you!

Thunder_Child

Oh gosh I'm not positive but as far as what a Mac does vs a PC...PC's tend to have an ANORMOUS amount of things running in the back ground. I personally feel Macs do not. So in a sense have a larger number of CPU's and the faster they are...plus having good amounts of memory only lead to good performance...and especially with graphics programs and in my case...I'd like to feel game creation as well because more resources are available for those tasks at any given time they request usage of them. On a PC you need to work your aliases just right depending on function and programs you want to allocate cpu's and memory too. macs do this very well without the user needed info to do this. So Mac's...graphics and game creation. As far as I'm concerned now....PC's are still the way to go if your a hardcore gamer...like myself :-)

Gnarly

Yeah lots of crashes every day. Save every 5 minutes. Seems random. 12.20 was way better for me. Less crashes but slower.

BlackCloakGS

Which crashes are you seeing constantly ?

Is this the main crash bug you guys are seeing ?

Slayre77

I'm experiencing occasional crashes after double clicking actors -it freezes up for a second then crashes. Luckily I only lost 10 minutes of work, now I save after every action to be sure.

steve86

I´m also getting constant crashes after double clicking actors, especially background actors (images measuring 2048 x 1536). Same thing after dragging a custom behavior to an actor.

Also the images inside an animation behavior sometimes wont appear but I guess you already know that..

Thunder_Child

@BlackCloakGS my first initial...consistent crash with this new build was with having the ad banner display in first scene of previewer. I turned that function off and that stopped that crash. The other is indiscriminately happening. I wouldn't know what bug to even submit sir.

Bad wolf Guy

Its actually a nightmare to build at the moment. After the previous stable build, I haven't worried about always saving. So this stable build crashes every 5-10 mins, I keep forgetting to save. So it takes twice as long.

I am a bit curious how this got pass Headquarters? Or do they not do this anymore since work is being done on the new engine?

Armelline

Sounds like there's probably a common element between all those experiencing crashes that isn't present for those who aren't. Maybe we can work out what it is?

Icebox

When working with any software you should save every 15 minutes atleast, I personally save my work every 5 minutes cause im used to it from working with flash and other softwares , so the crash doesnt bother me , im kind of surprised that you work for 6 hours without saving , this doesnt go for gamesalad only , but in general you should save your work cause you never know when a software is going to crash. Even working with any other , you will face the same problem. They are not perfect , but atleast what i like about gamesalad is that I know when it will crash , cause i know there would be a 50 % chance it would crash when I load an image or when I play with the key rule and etc. , so i make sure i save before that . I might be a bit biased cause I really love gamesalad and the simplicity it gives , but I hope they solve these little issues soon.

Gnarly

@BlackCloakGS said:
Which crashes are you seeing constantly ?

Is this the main crash bug you guys are seeing ?

Unfortunately not that bug. Seems random but will watch more closely today.

GS just closes and then a pop up. GS unexpected close. Wish to report a bug?

I restart my airbook and same thing. Very small simple project I'm working on.

Will see today.
Thanks.

Armelline

Could always give SaveSalad a try. Auto-saves at pre-defined intervals. Needs an update, though.

FallingBoxStudios

I hope GameSalad fixes this ASAP. It's unbearable to use.

BigDave

also having some crashes in the newest build. But hard to identify when.

BlackCloakGS

When the pop message ask if you want to send the crash report please press send other wise i don't get the crash report. I will be putting in some changes for a build next week to get better automatic crash data. If you are experiencing a crash you can post here what area of the tool are crashing most (scene editing ,actor editing , etc) will help me focus on finding a fixing the crashes. I agree we need to fix the crashes and i will be working next week to squash all that I can . The hard thing for me is since a lot of the are kind of random it make them hard to track down so any additional information you can provide is greatly welcomed. I will be posting a list in thread of know crashes so we can tell if there are any new one i don't know about.

BlackCloakGS

Is any one experiencing this crash?

Armelline

@BlackCloakGS said:
Is any one experiencing this crash?

I select hundreds of attributes a day normally and I've not experienced that crash. I just tried to reproduce it and after 20 or attribute selections I didn't get it to crash. It really sounds like there's another factor contributing to the crashing for people experiencing lots of crashing. I get the odd crash, but nowhere near enough to really notice, let along term "all the time". People seem to either be getting very few or getting loads.

BlackCloakGS

I was only able to reproduce the crash using an unlocked actor.

Armelline

@BlackCloakGS said:
I was only able to reproduce the crash using an unlocked actor.

I have been unable to produce it even in an unlocked one. Added about 5 or 6 behaviours, changed several dozen attributes. I must have been so lucky with this build

steve86

@Icebox1910 said:
When working with any software you should save every 15 minutes atleast, I personally save my work every 5 minutes cause im used to it from working with flash and other softwares , so the crash doesnt bother me , im kind of surprised that you work for 6 hours without saving , this doesnt go for gamesalad only , but in general you should save your work cause you never know when a software is going to crash. Even working with any other , you will face the same problem. They are not perfect , but atleast what i like about gamesalad is that I know when it will crash , cause i know there would be a 50 % chance it would crash when I load an image or when I play with the key rule and etc. , so i make sure i save before that . I might be a bit biased cause I really love gamesalad and the simplicity it gives , but I hope they solve these little issues soon.

Trust me I almost always save every 10 minutes or so.. Ever since the memory leak problem back in the early GS days I developed this habit.. but this one time I got so into a complex logic of a couple of functions I need for my game and was mostly working inside an actor that I simply forgot to do it... Therefore I lost everything.

I´m still taken about how this passed QA. I understand its impossible for the internal team to caught all the bugs, and sometimes need our help. But they just need to work with the client for 30 minutes to realize this is not a stable release candidate.

I also love the potential and simplicity of the software, but liking GS because you know its going to crash 50% of the time, just doesn't make any sense.

Armelline

@steve86 said:
I´m still taken about how this passed QA.

To be honest if you worked for 6 hours on complex logic, the means 1 crash in 6 hours of heavy-duty work. That doesn't jive with working with the client for 30 minutes to see how unstable it is.

Thunder_Child

@BlackCloakGS said:
I was only able to reproduce the crash using an unlocked actor.

I have several locked and unlocked actors...and have been tested many different co trains and change attributes...not crashing today doing this. In fact in the past 1.5 hours I haven't had any crashes. But last night within an hour I had 2. Again...no particular thing I was able to say caused it. Also...for some reason...today I used animate several times and no offsetting or disappearing. (Shrugs shoulders)

Thunder_Child

Also I am so used to just restarting or force quitting I didn't even look or realize you have a choice to send a crash report. This is fantastic. I can really appreciate this function