Still getting Firefox crashes

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

I'm still getting Firefox crashes during my turns. Virtually *all* of them now are related to doing one thing.

I click on a stack. I click on a destination which happens to be where another of my units is (temple, city, open, doesn't matter). The game tries to do a movement path and crashes. Upon restart it has no problem doing the movement path.

I suspect that clicking a destination where you already have units causes some kind of weird problem. Sometime times I get the crash even if I moved the units from the spot where I clicked. As if the fact they were just there earlier in the turn causes the issue. Hugely annoying when you are repeatedly moving stacks for multiple turns and then end up on top of each other turn after turn due to the distance to travel.

KGB

[LPhillips]

I have the same problem. Worse, it re-sets all of your standing orders when you reload the page. So you have to cycle through 20+ units pretty often to get back to where you were, and then the game easily might crash again. Setting 20 units to stand at attention 3+ times in one turn verges on intolerable.

I find the crash happens with long movements that Firefox can't calculate well. In Chrome (used on a friend's computer) it just doesn't calculate the move, instead of crashing the browser.

[SnotlinG]

Hello,

Have you found any way how to reproduce the crash with some kind of certainity?

The good news is that Beta4 will use a completely new (much better obviously) pathfinding algorithm, so with some luck it will solve this issue.
However I would be very interested if there is any way I can replicate it on my computer. Please let me know any additional details in your findings. Like do you see the selected stack while clicking the target tile (or is it outside the viewport). Does it seem to happen regardless if you have 1 unit selected, or a group selected?

LPhillips, yes I know its abit annoying to lose the attention-status. The reason is that this is a client-only setting, so it never gets saved to the server/database (as its a player-help, and nothing game-critical)

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

No way to 100% reproduce as if it was I'd have found it by now with the number of games + turns I play. So it may be something as simple as Firefox leaking some resource over time in the way it handles path finding/stack selection/moving onto existing stacks.

It makes no difference in terms of distance clicked. In other words, sometimes I am literally clicking 10 squares away on the same view screen that the unit can reach this turn. Other times I am setting a long move path that will take 2+ turns. The most reliable way to crash seems to be to click on an existing stack on the map (ideally one you've just added units to or moved to that location already early in this turn).

Most of my turns consists of moving large amounts of men. Usually this means I am regularly moving 1 unit on top of 1 unit from the prior turn (as in I need 3 turns to reach a city from my current city so I have 3 groups of single units moving along that path and if I start at the orig city then I end up moving units on top of units 3 times where if I start at the destination city and work the other way no units need to move on top of another unit). Or if I am moving endless men to a bless site and adding them 1 at a time to a stack until I get an 8 stack there (don't group, just keep adding single units on top of each other).

So if you are looking to reproduce, I'd say start a solo game on the test map. Build slow moving units. Start them walking and perpetually move the newest made unit on to the one from the prior turn and repeat creating a very long chain. Shouldn't take long to get the crash as I'd estimate by the time you have 4-5 cities doing this you should get the crash due to about 15-20 moves onto other stacks. Or move large numbers of men on top of one another 1 at a time.

The thing is, the crash is a major one. The full 'send an error report'. So despite having Firebug installed, there is nothing to capture so unless you are going to build the Firefox source code and run in debug mode I can't see what information you will get from this kind of crash.

KGB

[LPhillips]

My Firefox crash is different. I don't get one from moving stacks over/onto each other. At least, not NEARLY as often as you're describing. The crash from Firefox failing to complete a difficult path calculation happens so often that it may be covering up the other type, but I freely move units onto and over other units dozens of times a day without this crash presenting itself. I wonder if anyone can offer confirmation? I do have an outdated Firefox client, so it might be the difference in our versions.

[zorro]

My firefox crashes about once per game, circumstances are different each time tho. It always happens when I click a square to calc a new movement path. But that can be 7 squares away or 2 screens away and it doesnt matter if I click on a unit or an empty square (FF is up to date).
Mostly I do more close paths since the game calcs really weird paths once ports or bridges are in the way, and it cant calc around something (eg a couple of mountains) at all.