Crash to desktop upon entering Daggerfall (city) -- solved!
Fri May 06, 2016 5:26 pm
Hello, I'm hoping I can get some help with this frustrating bug. I am able to enter all other cities/dungeons/etc., including the other capitals (Sentinel, Wayrest), but for some reason when I attempt to enter Daggerfall, the game crashes. This just started happening randomly, as far as I can tell. I have no quests active involving Daggerfall or anything.
The crash happens regardless of how I enter the city: Fast Travel or slow; Cautious or Reckless travel; teleporting from the Mages Guild; etc. I have no mods or anything running, other than those that come packaged with the DosBox install. I've done no hacking other than minor item texture swaps, and nothing at all in the time between my last entry into Daggerfall and now. I have tried deleting all the .ATF files and entering the city "afresh", but nothing changed. I have also tried allowing months of game time to go by, by traveling all over the Bay and then to Daggerfall, but again nothing changes.
I'd be fine with simply staying away from Daggerfall for the remainder of my playthrough, except that I have yet to do Mynisera's quest, or to explore Castle Daggerfall for whichever other quest demands it. I'll be unable to finish the main questline unless I can find a fix, and having sunk half a year into this (very thorough and loving, "ultimate") playthrough, I can't countenance just abandoning the game.
One possible issue is the immense inventory of stored items I keep on my ship, but I can't see why that would create a problem with this one location and no others. I have tried selling the ship, thereby losing all items, and then traveling around for a while and then coming to Daggerfall, but the crash still occurs.
Any help would be immensely appreciated. I'm running the DosBox install, all up to date patches and whatnot, on Windows 7.
[EDIT] -- FixSave does nothing.
The crash happens regardless of how I enter the city: Fast Travel or slow; Cautious or Reckless travel; teleporting from the Mages Guild; etc. I have no mods or anything running, other than those that come packaged with the DosBox install. I've done no hacking other than minor item texture swaps, and nothing at all in the time between my last entry into Daggerfall and now. I have tried deleting all the .ATF files and entering the city "afresh", but nothing changed. I have also tried allowing months of game time to go by, by traveling all over the Bay and then to Daggerfall, but again nothing changes.
I'd be fine with simply staying away from Daggerfall for the remainder of my playthrough, except that I have yet to do Mynisera's quest, or to explore Castle Daggerfall for whichever other quest demands it. I'll be unable to finish the main questline unless I can find a fix, and having sunk half a year into this (very thorough and loving, "ultimate") playthrough, I can't countenance just abandoning the game.
One possible issue is the immense inventory of stored items I keep on my ship, but I can't see why that would create a problem with this one location and no others. I have tried selling the ship, thereby losing all items, and then traveling around for a while and then coming to Daggerfall, but the crash still occurs.
Any help would be immensely appreciated. I'm running the DosBox install, all up to date patches and whatnot, on Windows 7.
[EDIT] -- FixSave does nothing.
Last edited by Lochlann on Tue May 10, 2016 1:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Crash to desktop upon entering Daggerfall (city)
Sun May 08, 2016 9:22 pm
This is a known bug; unfortunately the fix is less definite.
Things that I remember causing it: over-loading the memory somehow (such as having too many items in your ship - removing them doesn't resolve the issue); the Repair item bug; messing up a questline involving Lysandus' ghost and entering at night. There might be others.
Possible fixes include: Fixsave - sometimes running it twice; patching or re-patching the game to the latest version; copying the saved game(s) to a new folder, deleting the game, re-installing it, and copying the saved game back into the right folder.
None of these are guaranteed to work.
Good luck!
Things that I remember causing it: over-loading the memory somehow (such as having too many items in your ship - removing them doesn't resolve the issue); the Repair item bug; messing up a questline involving Lysandus' ghost and entering at night. There might be others.
Possible fixes include: Fixsave - sometimes running it twice; patching or re-patching the game to the latest version; copying the saved game(s) to a new folder, deleting the game, re-installing it, and copying the saved game back into the right folder.
None of these are guaranteed to work.
Good luck!
Re: Crash to desktop upon entering Daggerfall (city)
Mon May 09, 2016 9:34 am
Thank you for the help. I had tried FixSave numerous times, but to no avail. I was preparing to try some of your other suggestions, when actually...
...I found a separate solution!
I had to rewind my memory (and Google efforts 
) to older/(un)happier times before patch 213, when we had to mess with things like the object memory size, used to handle inventory memory. I tried setting this value to a (much) larger number, by adding a new line to the Z.CFG file: objmemsize 9000 . And, presto, no more problems. The city of Daggerfall is accessible to me again, as is the main questline. Big "whew".
The 213 patch (or an earlier one?) was supposed to correct object memory problems. And indeed it did, for most. (Just apparently not for extreme packrats like me.) But it achieved this by setting the value internally and withdrawing it from the Z file, which seems to have had an "out of sight, out of mind" effect, such that we forgot that we can control this value.
Necroing: not just for old posts!
...I found a separate solution!
I had to rewind my memory (and Google efforts ) to older/(un)happier times before patch 213, when we had to mess with things like the object memory size, used to handle inventory memory. I tried setting this value to a (much) larger number, by adding a new line to the Z.CFG file: objmemsize 9000 . And, presto, no more problems. The city of Daggerfall is accessible to me again, as is the main questline. Big "whew".The 213 patch (or an earlier one?) was supposed to correct object memory problems. And indeed it did, for most. (Just apparently not for extreme packrats like me.) But it achieved this by setting the value internally and withdrawing it from the Z file, which seems to have had an "out of sight, out of mind" effect, such that we forgot that we can control this value.
Necroing: not just for old posts!