Random game crashes in northrend

fixitman333 · 09-05-10, 09:54 AM

I started experiencing seemingly random crashes in NR after the last WoW patch. They seemed to happen just about anywhere, with no apparent cause. I eventually started to realize they were most common around and in Dalaran, as well as when flying over Wintergrasp. One of my guild-mates was experiencing the same issue, and eventually was able to discuss it with a GM. The GM told him the issue was caused by Carbonite and/or Questhelper. He said that disabling Carbonite did indeed resolve the issue.

I ran some tests today to see what results I got. I run a huge number of addons, so the easiest test was to simply disable Carbonite and play for a few hours. I followed the exact routine I've followed every day for the past three weeks. I do the Dalaran cooking and fishing dailies, and then Argent Tournament dailies. I have always experienced at least one crash per day following this routine. I experienced no crashes or glitches the entire time.

Once back in Dalaran, I logged out and re-enabled Carbonite. I then logged back in and disabled the "max camera distance" option in Carbonite. I ran around the city for a few minutes-no crash. I then took a "taxi" to the Argent Tournament grounds and back-no crash. I then took a "taxi" to River's Heart in Sholazar. The game crashed as I passed over Wintergrasp with the following error:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This application has encountered a critical error:

Not enough storage is available to process this command.

Program: D:\WoW\Wow.exe
File: .\MapMem.cpp
Line: 558

Requested 2558243 bytes of memory

Press OK to terminate the application
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm running Win7 64bit with 8Gig of RAM. My video card is a GeForce GTX 285 with 2Gig of onboard RAM. I'm guessing WoW is requesting too much VRAM, causing the crash. I'm running WoW in full-screen windowed mode, which might be part of the problem. I'm going to run some more tests now, and will post any additional information I can. I certainly hope this WoW GM was wrong. This bug could be very hard to fix if they aren't...

fixitman333 · 09-05-10, 10:51 AM

I just tried with only Carbonite enabled for about an hour. I've experienced no crashes so far. Testing with every possible addon combination is going to take a long time though. I'll reply with my findings once I get this narrowed down better.

Vis · 09-05-10, 02:21 PM

I've had issues before where WoW would throw memory errors at me and crash as well. The common factor for me was that I was usually flying into or out of Dalaran. In my case, the fix was to reduce my View distance in the Video options about one to two steps below the maximum.

From what i had read while I was having an issue, it seems WoW's memory usage was going beyond what a 32 bit application was allowed or able to use. Which last I knew was approximately 2 gigs ram. Seeing your amount of memory used seems to indicate you have a very very similar issue.

fixitman333 · 09-05-10, 03:45 PM

I usually run WoW with all settings except AA maxed out. I've tried dropping my view distance in steps all the way to halfway, with no effect on the crashes. The problem with this issue is that it doesn't affect everyone, and it seems to affect those it does in different ways. It is quite obvious it is a memory issue. What isn't obvious is what triggers it.

I'm hoping that careful experimentation will reveal a little more about the trigger for my particular issue. That information might then be put to use to help others. It is quite obvious that Carbonite is somehow involved in this, but I doubt it is the actual cause. I have several suspicions, with my strongest being that WoW has a memory leak and Carbonite just happens to use a large amount of memory. That in itself is not an issue, unless you run three dozen other addons like I do. Toss a bucket-load of addons at a program that has a memory leak, and the results are going to be random crashes.

Vis · 09-05-10, 06:59 PM

Originally Posted by fixitman333

I usually run WoW with all settings except AA maxed out. I've tried dropping my view distance in steps all the way to halfway, with no effect on the crashes. The problem with this issue is that it doesn't affect everyone, and it seems to affect those it does in different ways. It is quite obvious it is a memory issue. What isn't obvious is what triggers it.

I would double check and make sure you're running the latest video driver too. A few of the video settings are memory hogs too. I think they were the checkbox toggled ones on the bottom of the Video Effects page.

I'm hoping that careful experimentation will reveal a little more about the trigger for my particular issue. That information might then be put to use to help others. It is quite obvious that Carbonite is somehow involved in this, but I doubt it is the actual cause. I have several suspicions, with my strongest being that WoW has a memory leak and Carbonite just happens to use a large amount of memory. That in itself is not an issue, unless you run three dozen other addons like I do. Toss a bucket-load of addons at a program that has a memory leak, and the results are going to be random crashes.

I have no no idea about running a ton o addons...

...Granted, not every single one is on at the same time, but close. Ive been experiencing zero crashes since I've turned down a few video settings.

For reference:
Win7 64 bit
Athlon X2 6000+, 4 gigs ram
2X Nvidia 9800GT cards set to SLI

Jigain · 09-06-10, 01:34 AM

Originally Posted by fixitman333

That in itself is not an issue, unless you run three dozen other addons like I do. Toss a bucket-load of addons at a program that has a memory leak, and the results are going to be random crashes.

Three dozen is nothing, I run with a full seventy-six addons installed!

Granted, I'm not using all of them on each and every one of my characters... but still.

No crashes with medium-to-high settings (custom).

Win7 64-bit
Pentium E5300 @2.60GHz(x2)
4GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 5700

If there're any tests you'd like me to run on my system to assess memory leaks versus a high number of addons, just let me know.

fixitman333 · 09-06-10, 02:08 PM

Once I re-enabled Auctioneer, WoW finally crashed with the following error:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This application has encountered a critical error:

Not enough storage is available to process this command.

Program: D:\WoW\Wow.exe
File: d:\buildserver\wow\1\work\wow-code\branches\
wow-patch-3_3_5_a-bnet\engine\source\blizzardcore\
blizzardcore\source\system\memory\MemoryStorm.cpp
Line: 64

Requested 11255510 bytes of memory

WoWBuild: 12340
Realm: Shu'halo [206.16.118.216:3724]
Local Zone: Krasus' Landing, Dalaran
Local Player: Crazyeddie, 06000000027A0FAC, (5813.89,449.13,658.75)
Total lua memory: 51945KB
Current Addon: Auc-Advanced
Current Addon function: LoadAddOn
Current Addon object: (null)
Add Ons: Armory ArmoryGuildBank Auc-Advanced Auc-Filter-Basic
Auc-ScanData Auc-Stat-Histogram Auc-Stat-iLevel Auc-Stat-Purchased
Auc-Stat-Simple Auc-Stat-StdDev Auc-Util-FixAH BeanCounter BugMeNot
Carbonite Stubby !Swatter TitanExitGame TitanSkills TitanSpec
TitanBag TitanClock TitanCoords TitanEmote TitanGoldTracker
TitanLootType TitanPerformance TitanRegen TitanRepair Titan

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm now flying around Northrend with only Auctioneer disabled, to see if any more crashes occur.

Seeing system specifications for both of your systems has given me an idea. This issue appears to be caused by WoW mismanaging memory. Both of you have the same OS as me, but you both are running 4Gig vs my 8Gig. I wonder if WoW is failing when it tries to use over 4Gigs...

All drivers on all my computers are up to date. Out of the three that can run WoW, this is the only one that crashes. The other two only have 2Gig of memory. I might just remove two sticks and see what happens. If that cures the issue, the cause will be obvious.

fixitman333 · 09-06-10, 04:24 PM

Just a quick update- I did all my Northrend dailies with Auctioneer suite completely disabled, and I experienced no crashes. I'll leave it like this for the rest of the week and see how it does. If it does crash, I'll post another reply and prepare to remove a couple sticks of ram this weekend.

Jigain · 09-06-10, 04:40 PM

It should be noted Auctioneer (with all its optional addons) is something I run on all my characters. Maybe a combination of Auctioneer and 8GB RAM?

Vis · 09-06-10, 07:43 PM

Just some additional info for anyone to peruse:

One of the main (and many) topics on the Official Blizzard Tech Support forums:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

A potential helpful fix from Blues:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...23843232&sid=1

Another potential fix:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

There unfortunately is no clear cut answer to 100% fix the crashing issue.

fixitman333 · 09-08-10, 05:54 PM

The third link was what I needed, Vis. Thanks for the information

It is now quite obvious that this is a memory management issue with WoW. It looks like WoW isn't supposed to use more than 50% of system RAM, but isn't actually able to use more than about 2 Gig. This explains why users with 4Gig or less don't see this issue. It also explains why 32bit OS users shouldn't see this issue-anything over about 3.5Gig is a waste...

My system always hovered around 2.2 Gig to 2.7 Gig total during game play before (about 1.1 Gig is used by my OS). Turning on the Large Address Aware flag not only fixed the problem, it also improved performance dramatically. I now see memory usage at around 3.5 Gig total while playing. Frame rates in Dalaran have nearly doubled from around 15-20 to a solid 30-35. I also have experienced no graphical glitches. I'm sure this bug will return if my memory usage goes above 5 Gig total, but I'll be careful with what I run while playing.

I'm glad I can finally feel certain that Carbonite is in no way to blame for this issue. I just hope Blizzard gets this corrected for Cataclysm...