Bug Repro Help! UI locked while building

Discussion in 'Support!' started by garat, July 15, 2014.

  1. garat

    garat Cat Herder Uber Alumni

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    Hey guys! We're currently trying to track down a bug, and if anyone has an exact repro of this bug, it would be incredibly helpful, because it's a seriously annoying bug.

    The bug is:

    There's a critical bug that interrupts game play. You can get into a state where you have fabbers selected and the ghost of a building under your cursor, but you can't build anything and the UI appears locked up. You may be able to get out of this state by pressing escape several times or pressing F5.

    I know a number of you have seen this - WE have seen this. What we have not yet been able to do is find some 1 - 5 steps of "Do this, and you will get it to happen". We're still investigating, but since ya'll are playing every day, there's a good chance one of you have figured out exactly how to make it happen (and in turn, learned how to make it not happen during your own play).
  2. brianpurkiss

    brianpurkiss Post Master General

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    I haven't seen it, although I haven't been playing the PTE if that's where you're finding it.

    I'll keep an eye out for it.
  3. garat

    garat Cat Herder Uber Alumni

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    And to be clear, this is in unmodded games. There's zero chance this is being caused by some random mod, so.. ergh! :)
  4. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    I get something like this 100% when using hotkeys. Are you seeing it from build-bar clicks, hotkeys, or both?

    PA#3613 - Unable to build after using hotkeys
  5. s03g

    s03g Member

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    I feel this is a very similar bug that I have noticed in the stable build. If you create a rectangle to select a fabber\s or the commander, if the rectangle goes over where the build bar is then the UI locks up - if you press the arrow keys the screen will not move - you can move the screen with the middle mouse button and if you press either mouse button the screen will become responsive again with the arrow keys. I have also noticed that you can build a structure in this "fixed" state as well in which it will correct itself.

    btw I can repro this every time with the above steps - it won't show itself if the mouse doesn't stop over a structure and it doesn't matter how fast\slow you do it too.

    I hope this helps somehow :)
    wondible likes this.
  6. aevs

    aevs Post Master General

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    I also get this bug, and I don't use hotkeys at all. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to repro it :confused:
  7. stonewood1612

    stonewood1612 Well-Known Member

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    I've had this several times in a row, yet last time it happened was weeks ago.
  8. exterminans

    exterminans Post Master General

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    I have encountered a variation of this bug two weeks ago in stable:
    Same lockup, but with no selection active. I mean I tried to select fabbers, but the selection didn't became active. It did resolve itself though, I didn't need to press F5 or ESC, all I had to do was to wait 15-25 seconds. Then the UI became responsive again.

    FPS were already quite low at that moment. If I had to guess, I would say that two Coherent processes tried to update at the same time and this wasn't resolved by chance since the driver was already busy executing different batch operations.

    Also:
    It sounds very much like something is triggering an error condition in Coherent which in return is backing off for a while. And the fact that this occurred during a high load situation (or similarly in situations where two coherent processes would have to process large DOM changes simultaneously) indicates that these Coherent processes are lacking semaphores somewhere.
  9. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    Discovered something that might do it; not specifically build related but could be a bumped key.

    PA#3837 - Drop down debug console invisible in live_game, blocks input while open
  10. Tellaris

    Tellaris New Member

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    Hey Garat.

    I can reproduce this bug with extreme accuracy, (As in, it always seems to happen in my second/third game in Galactic War) but based on some theorizing here, it may be key press related? Is there some way I could contribute with a video/keylogger combination for the game?
  11. mered4

    mered4 Post Master General

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    This bug only appears for me in the worst circumstances - as in, when I am being attacked, sniped, or planet smashed, or nuked, or anything that requires extreme speed. I'm not entirely sure what part of the code does this - but its the WORST.

    Will test, :D
  12. garat

    garat Cat Herder Uber Alumni

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    If you can provide exact repro steps, that will be incredibly helpful. Even if it involves a keylogger, we can probably work with that, but simpler is better, of course. :)
  13. bearcatindustries

    bearcatindustries New Member

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    I could do this 100% of the time: Start game, use alt-c to select commander, hit b, then v, then t, then try and click a mex. locks up everytime. Give me 5 minutes and i'll verify it still repros

    also, i'm on a mac.
  14. bearcatindustries

    bearcatindustries New Member

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    And of course, now that i say that, those steps fail to repro... good luck!
  15. Tellaris

    Tellaris New Member

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    I'll grab the logfile I talked about earlier as well. Are there any other log files that would be useful?
  16. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    This bug (or one very much like it) was fixed in 69170.

    PA#3613 - Unable to build after using hotkeys
  17. Tellaris

    Tellaris New Member

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    Alrighty, SO! Here are the coherent UI logfiles!

    Part 2 is the more interesting one of them all, as well as the end of "Coherent_UIFirstRun.txt."
    I've recorded the battles within which these errors occurred, and can upload them if you wish me to do so.

    The error as to which I described earlier shows up again, that of the GPU Crash limit reached. Part 1 is included just if it might be of use.

    First run contains something else of interest. There is no GPU crash limit error, rather, a slightly different set of symptoms occurs. Rather than a complete UI lockup, in that one, I was still able to select units one by one, and command them. Screen selection via double clicking also worked, though all menus failed to load. It made me wonder if this bug, and the problem of the UI disappearing is related, or if this is merely coincidence. Regardless, I included its log file anyway.

    Is there a specific set of actions that bring it about? I've not found any specific reason. It can happen after selection, it can happen before selection. Perhaps its related to the massive amounts of things that fail to load? Maybe it can only deal with that so much before it crashes.

    There is one thing I actually have noticed though. The crash seems to occur around minute 20 of the 3rd game. The length of the previous ones don't seem to matter.

    As for key presses, I can tell you exactly what I use. Shift, and arrow keys. That's it. I can mash my keyboard like crazy and not have any problems pop up.

    Additionally, I'll include the DXDiag.txt I have.
    Yes, I know my video drivers are out of date. Proprietary hardware. Nothing I can do about that. I'm guessing the UI lockup is unlikely to be caused by that since so many others happen to get the problem...

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: July 23, 2014

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