Odd bug

[trinko]

I'm running version 1.0.1(1) of Genforge on Mac OS 11.2.3

Last night the game wouldn't play any sound.  I checked and the Mac sound was on.|

Then today the sound played but it sometimes sounds glitchy; a sound, like a creature roar, will start off as static and then become normal.

But the real oddity was that I had just entered the Icewall area and had fought a few creatures when as I hit the f key the game froze and I got the spinning beach ball.

I've seen that happen before but usually the game recovers after a few seconds. But this time the image on my screen changed from what I'd been looking at to the place where I exited Kantras place--that's where there was an auto save of the game. Then after a few seconds the screen returned to what I had been seeing in the Icewall.

But the beachball kept spinning. According to Activity monitor GF was taking between 4 and 28% of a CPU so it's not like it was just dead. 

After awhile I force quit it using Activity Monitor. When I restarted it worked ok but with those sound glitches.

[BenS]

As a fellow Mac user/player, I'm sympathetic. Unfortunately I have no xp w/ that sound bug nor the F(3?4??) freeze, but I've played the game w/ a 2-year old 10.14.6 OS. Sorry to hear there might be a slight incompatibility w/ the latest OS update and the game, if that's indeed what the problem is.

[Ess-Eschas]

Firstly, let’s not start out by making any assumptions about what’s going on here!

 

It’s always good trying to help people out, BenS! But, even with the best of intentions, it’s all too easy to start urban rumours on forums like these, ones that can come back to bite people years down the line. If you’re making suggestions, I think it’s always a good idea to make it abundantly clear that you’re just putting out ideas, rather than giving concrete explanations for what’s going on. Otherwise, people quickly flicking through the message can pick up the wrong idea – even if you’ve put a little caveat at the end of your message. Unfortunately, that’s the way that rumours sometimes begin!

 

So, just to be clear, there is currently no evidence to suggest that there are compatibility problems with any version of Mac OS within the game’s system requirements, or with any Mac OS update. This game has been extensively tested and verified on the wide range of systems supported by this game, right down to 10.10 (and actually in some rare cases on systems even older than that!).

 

There’s also currently no evidence that this is actually a bug in Geneforge Mutagen at all! Hopefully we can figure out whether that's the case in this topic!

 

Sorry to hear that you’e been having problems, trinko. In order to help you, it would be useful to try and figure out what’s happening on your end. While this may be a bug in Geneforge, there are plenty of other explanations that it’s worth ruling out before going down that road. It’s all to easy to cry “bug” when something else is going on – it’s happened quite a few times on the boards recently!

 

For instance, one possible explanation jumps out to me. This is just a suggestion, to illustrate some of the possible problems you could be experiencing. For example, your computer could be having problems reading and writing from your file system. That could explain the apparent freeze you had at the Icewall, no pun intended – if the game was trying to produce an autosave, and had to wait for the system to write the save file, the game would become unresponsive. That would be the fault of the OS, not the application.

 

So, could you help us out by answering a few questions?

 

1. Have you ever experienced a slow response from your OS when moving files around, opening folders, or opening applications or documents?

 

2. Do you have problems with small pauses in any other applications? This is particularly relevant if those applications have an autosave feature.

 

3. Do you have problems with sound playing on any other applications? It’s worth testing this right now, in case you’re having problems with your speakers/headphones, or with the software producing the audio.

 

4. If you're playing the sound over speakers, do you still get audio problems when using headphones? Or vice versa?

 

5. Do you get a slow response from Geneforge Mutagen when you make a manual save?

 

6. Do you currently have problems with lag or audio in any other Spiderweb applications?

 

7. If you download a fresh version of the Geneforge Mutagen application, do the problems continue on that fresh copy?

 

Sorry for the slight barrage of questions! But this should hopefully give us a bit more of an insight into what’s going on!

[BenS]

Point taken. Best of luck to trinko.

[Ess-Eschas]

That’s alright, BenS. No harm done!

[Quiconque]

One more question: what other applications (if any) did you have running at the same time as Geneforge?

[trinko]

On 4/9/2021 at 4:03 AM, Ess-Eschas said:

Firstly, let’s not start out by making any assumptions about what’s going on here!

 

It’s always good trying to help people out, BenS! But, even with the best of intentions, it’s all too easy to start urban rumours on forums like these, ones that can come back to bite people years down the line. If you’re making suggestions, I think it’s always a good idea to make it abundantly clear that you’re just putting out ideas, rather than giving concrete explanations for what’s going on. Otherwise, people quickly flicking through the message can pick up the wrong idea – even if you’ve put a little caveat at the end of your message. Unfortunately, that’s the way that rumours sometimes begin!

 

So, just to be clear, there is currently no evidence to suggest that there are compatibility problems with any version of Mac OS within the game’s system requirements, or with any Mac OS update. This game has been extensively tested and verified on the wide range of systems supported by this game, right down to 10.10 (and actually in some rare cases on systems even older than that!).

 

There’s also currently no evidence that this is actually a bug in Geneforge Mutagen at all! Hopefully we can figure out whether that's the case in this topic!

 

Sorry to hear that you’e been having problems, trinko. In order to help you, it would be useful to try and figure out what’s happening on your end. While this may be a bug in Geneforge, there are plenty of other explanations that it’s worth ruling out before going down that road. It’s all to easy to cry “bug” when something else is going on – it’s happened quite a few times on the boards recently!

 

For instance, one possible explanation jumps out to me. This is just a suggestion, to illustrate some of the possible problems you could be experiencing. For example, your computer could be having problems reading and writing from your file system. That could explain the apparent freeze you had at the Icewall, no pun intended – if the game was trying to produce an autosave, and had to wait for the system to write the save file, the game would become unresponsive. That would be the fault of the OS, not the application.

 

So, could you help us out by answering a few questions?

 

1. Have you ever experienced a slow response from your OS when moving files around, opening folders, or opening applications or documents?

 

2. Do you have problems with small pauses in any other applications? This is particularly relevant if those applications have an autosave feature.

 

3. Do you have problems with sound playing on any other applications? It’s worth testing this right now, in case you’re having problems with your speakers/headphones, or with the software producing the audio.

 

4. If you're playing the sound over speakers, do you still get audio problems when using headphones? Or vice versa?

 

5. Do you get a slow response from Geneforge Mutagen when you make a manual save?

 

6. Do you currently have problems with lag or audio in any other Spiderweb applications?

 

7. If you download a fresh version of the Geneforge Mutagen application, do the problems continue on that fresh copy?

 

Sorry for the slight barrage of questions! But this should hopefully give us a bit more of an insight into what’s going on!

I've been writing software for 49 years and I think you're a little too quick to say it can't be a bug.

While the slowing down could be due to a slow system the out of place image showing up is unlikely to be due to that.

1) Yes when moving gigabytes of files around it sometimes slows down. It never freezes.

2) No

3) No

4)I don't have headphones but given that the sound problem is only in Geneforge Mutagen and didn't occur when I was first playing the game would make the specific output port I'm using unlikely to be at fault.

5) No

6) Haven't played any other Spiderweb game since I got this computer as far as I can recall.

7) I can try downloading a new copy but since I've got the latest version that would only make a difference if the program rewrites all the support files or if there is disk corruption.  But a corrupted application is unlikely to behave the way I'm seeing.  Also disk corruption is rare these days.

FYI your response was really bothersome to me. Normally when I report an issue like this the vendor asks me questions but doesn't give me a lecture about how its likely that it's the fault of my system not their product.  It's a minor thing but my perception of what you said was that gee it can't be our fault which, as I'm sure you know when you're reporting an issue with a product you paid for, is not what customers want.

So no problem with all the questions but why didn't you ask this:

Is the problem repeatable; if so what do you have to do in Geneforge to cause it to happen?

Answer: Seems fairly random and I can't link it to any particular activity like saving the game, entering a new area etc

What I'm pointing out is that the questions you asked all were pretty much based on the assumption that the problem couldn't be an obscure bug that your extensive QA effort didn't catch; which happens to all of us.

To be clear I'm a great fan of Spiderweb. I was buying his games before they were spiderweb and he was producing modules for a long forgotten role playing game in the 1990s or earlier, I forget it's been so long.

After literally decades of playing his games, and being a play tester for a long time--having the maps before terrain was all in allowed you to access otherwise inaccessible areas by saving in one version where there was no terrain and then opening in a version where the terrain was in place--, this is the first time that I've encountered a problem.

Any way it's not a big deal but I'd thought I'd mention that your well intentioned response might rub some unreasonable people such as myself the wrong way.

4) 

[Randomizer]

I wouldn't rule out file corruption since during beta testing Jeff said one of my bug reports had extensive save game file corruption This was on a new computer using OS 11.2.

[Ess-Eschas]

Hello trinko,

 

I think perhaps there’s been a slight issue of miscommunication here.

 

My intention was simply to indicate that there was a chance that this was not a bug, and then to learn a little more about your problem to determine whether or not that was the case. Once we’d ruled out some potential causes, we could then narrow down our search and figure out what the problem was. If it turned out to be a bug – great, that’s fixable, and we can solve the problem for other players as well! If it turned out to be something else, then we could try to fix that too.

 

I wasn’t trying to say anything concrete, and I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Whenever I try to help with a problem like this, I always like to maintain an open mind. In my case, that means not assuming the causes of a problem until I can learn more about it.

 

However, my response seems to have caused you some concern, and prompted you to write rather critically of my attempt to help you. Please do accept my apologies for causing you any problems.

 

Under the circumstances, I think it would probably be best if someone else helped you with this issue. I wouldn’t wish to cause you any more problems. I give you my best wishes, and I hope you manage to find a solution to the issue you are experiencing!

 

If it turns out that tracking down the problem is difficult, do by all means contact the official support line for Spiderweb Software. You may be able to get more cogent comments there than from us mere volunteers! In that case, please do send an email containing as much detailed information about your problem as you can to the following address:

 

support@spiderwebsoftware.com