[Pro_D]

Hi, first of all I am new to the boards (first post this one).

I have been having a problem with SCP (perhapse since SCP released or nearly so) where I get an error message (below). I don't know if this is a bug or just something wierd as it doesn't 'always' happen.

The instruction at "0x004326d4" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "read".

This is reguardless of if any special features are on (this last one was with them off).  This happens early in the mission loading (I would estimate when it is loading sounds based on if precaching is on).  If I disable sound then SCP works dandy (except for the glaring lack of sound).

My specs are win2k pro sp4, geforce 6800GT, SB audigy platinum (not sure if platinum or not but it isn't the basic model either) 1 gig ram, dx9c.

SCP is 3.6.5 or "T-20050212" (a recent build released on these forums including many fixes).

On occation SCP works up to a single mission and then stops or works fine except if I try to play more than one mission in a row it crashes (with a different message) on mission start.  I can live with that last one but in general I can get passed the sound related crash about once a week.

The message is identical per boot every time I try but it is different on different boots (so if I run the game 10 times on 1 boot same message each, if I run the game 1 time per 10 boots I get 10 different messages and maybe it will work).

I haven't even tried mods yet or non-default (part of retail) missions since the retail ones wont even work.  I did figure out my multiplayer problem from reading these forums so I wont go into that but I haven't seen anything on this.

[got interupted mid typing for a bit and got an idea that packages might be at fault]
I think it might have something to do with vp packages but not sure which but when I took out all the packages except core the game ran...
after some testing it seems to be the zpack, when I put it in it starts crashing...
I don't know what packages precisely the zpack contains but I will fiddle with the other packages to see if I can narrow it down more.

[kasperl]

It's probably the OGG crash. Get all the media vp's except for the Zpack and the music, and use that instead of the Zpack.

[Pro_D]

Actualy music was one of the first vp files I put back.  The crash didn't come back till... strangely enough... I put textures pack back in.

The vps I had when the crash came back were (in order of addition followed by test with no problems): NOTE: core.vp has never been removed if that matters.
mv_adveffects.vp
mv_music.vp
mv_effects.vp
mv_models.vp
mv_textures.vp * this is the one that it crashed on...

as per your sugjestion I removed mv_music.vp and ran; result:
worked... not sure how music stayed in from so many attempts with no problems and then textures crashed it...

added music back, crash, removed textures, worked...
so the problem seems to be that if both textures and music are in for this mission it crashes (the SP mission that you first hear about the shivans being back).

for fun I removed adv_effects and effects and it still crashed. not sure if textures is dependent on models or not or I would have pulled that too.

It seems to just be textures + music = crash.

[edit]
just noticed, I may be dealing with 2 different problems...
a: the early, common, crash if sound is enabled and
b: the crash with textures + music
the textures + music crash error message is a bit different (barely noticed since I see SCP crashes so darned often):
The instruction at "0x77fcdf2a" referenced memory at "0x04fef6e8". The memory could not be "read".

the early sound crash ALWAYS ' referenced memory at "0x00000000" ' (though instruction varies)  This one is different, will track this other one to see if it is consistent.

for all I know both are related to the ogg issue, i suppose I will have to wait and see once the ogg issue is 'fixed' assuming I don't continue to crash with music removed (and aseffects removed for multiplayer)

[/edit]

[kasperl]

Thank you for the very complete bugreports, I wish every tester was as persistent and complete.

You might want to try what they're doing in this thread:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,29938.0.html
It isn't exactly like your problem, but see if it changes anything.

Also, could you please look at this report and see if it is like your own problem.
http://mgo.maxgaming.net/mantis/bug_view_advanced_page.php?bug_id=0000323
If it is, please post a comment there.

[karajorma]

The mv_Music is definately responsible for some of those crashes. I recognise all the symptoms

As for the others, what build are you using? Have you tried others from the recent builds forum? Are you using any mods?

[Bobboau]

hmm... someone's trying to read from a NULL pointer