Game Freezing after Today's (9/7/13) Update

[Kydoimos 916]

Since today's update Arma 3 keeps freezing! It was working perfectly yesterday. It happens on the editor, single player, and on multiplayer. Having 3-4 second freezes where the sound and everything cuts out. It seems to happen a lot when I turn rapidly or use the scope. I have good FPS. What gives?

[Dwarden 1125]

question, is your RPT logfile being spammed by error messages ?

[Kydoimos 916]

I found about 8-9 RPT files that contain error messages... I'm not sure if that's spammed? Thanks for the speedy reply.

---------- Post added at 18:10 ---------- Previous post was at 18:07 ----------

I've noticed it does it on the main menu screen too - and especially when I use the optics on a scoped weapon in-game. Not sure if this helps but my latest RPT file was 519401 lines long and contained lots of different error reports!

---------- Post added at 19:04 ---------- Previous post was at 18:10 ----------

I've discovered that it does it a lot when I use the optics on the sniper scope. If I repeatedly press the right mouse button the game freezes for 3-4 seconds at a time.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Kydoimos

[Kydoimos 916]

I'm certainly getting a lot of RPT files appearing. Is that normal? Every time I go on a server, they pop up? Could this be the cause of the game freezes?

[Fritigern 10]

Having similar issues with no clue of the cause. When joining multiplayer (just the lobby, not an actual server), my game will hangup from anywhere between 5-10 seconds with FPS becoming zero and the game being unresponsive to alt-tabbing or commands, meanwhile the playerlist will be completely blank when it finishes even after refreshing. Restarting, updating steam, checking file cache, changing filter settings for servers, and just about everything else I can think of has no effect. I went from completely normal gameplay to unplayable now.

[Kydoimos 916]

I've uninstalled the game. deleted my RPT files, and reinstalled. So far, all is okay - but I'm not convinced... jus waiting for it to freeze up again. Do you have any issues in single player or in the editor?

[nikiforos 450]

Where can I find the RPT files so I can delete them? I have the same problem too.

EDIT: Ok i found them :)

Edited July 10, 2013 by Nikiforos

[dazhbog 10]

Deleting RPT files won't make much of a difference as the number of RPT files in the directory doesn't mean much (note: one RPT file is generated per one game run). The log spamming dwarden mentioned is a problem where there are too many log messages being written to the RPT file during a single frame. This might cause slow downs or possibly micro freezes.

It would be probably best to open the RPT file in some tool that will show its content in real time (keeping it refreshed) to check if there are too many messages being written again and again.

Dwarden also mentioned to me that it would be good to be able to run the game without any logging so I will check if we can provide a command line parameter for that.

[Fritigern 10]

Never had any single player or editor freezing.

After some digging I suspect I might not have the same problem as the OP, or maybe just a different symptom? Not sure. Either way, last night I found the game spy master server list which included the IPs and ports for all arma3 servers that were running and was able to connect and play normally with friends on those servers when I direct connected, which seemed to bypass whatever hangup was happening with the server browser. So multiplayer isn't completely cut off from me, it just seemed to be an issue centralized with the browsing of the servers. I honestly can't think of what could have changed on my end that would facilitate this between one day and the next. Hell, I didn't even turn off my computer between when it was working and when it stopped. Every other game I own runs fine, I have zero internet connectivity issues. Is it some kind of glitch with gamespy and their setup? No idea. I can provide more information if its needed, just.. lemme know what I need to dig up and where to find it.

[Mirudes 1]

question, is your RPT logfile being spammed by error messages ?

The log spamming dwarden mentioned is a problem where there are too many log messages being written to the RPT file during a single frame. This might cause slow downs or possibly micro freezes.

Did you just say the Debug-function in ArmA3 is slowing the game down (stuttering?) and probably crashes it, just by writing crash report logfiles?

Wait -- are you serious? Let me even lough louder.

This is another bug (reported and so far unanswered here) and it is probably already used by malicious cheaters:

- Hackers can slowdown and probably crash a server with a faked error.

-- This will bring the logfile to the border of its capacity.

---The hackers might use this leak also to cover their traces.

It would be probably best to open the RPT file in some tool that will show its content in real time (keeping it refreshed) to check if there are too many messages being written again and again.

This is actually a task for the developers. It isn't a good idea to create security relevant logfiles as a plain text on the clientside. You could find a way to encrypt it or transfer it in realtime to your servers.

Dwarden also mentioned to me that it would be good to be able to run the game without any logging so I will check if we can provide a command line parameter for that.

How about a "no debug"-parameter?

[Kydoimos 916]

This is all a bit above my head, I'm afraid. All I know is my RPT files are 100% getting clogged with spammed error messages...

---------- Post added at 10:25 ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 ----------

Is it possible that it something which could be fixed in a future update?

[Kydoimos 916]

So, how can the spammed messages in RPT files be stopped? Is it something that needs to be done our end? If so, is it hard to do? Thank you for the feedback - know you chaps are busy!

[Dwarden 1125]

so, in case someone want to test solution to the problem of too spammy RPT ,

try use commandline parameter in the DEV branch

-nologs

and tell us the results

[Kydoimos 916]

Hi - so sorry for the totally stupid question - how do I enter -nologs into the commandline parameter? I know how to get onto the Dev branch, but not sure about the commandline. So sorry - I don't doubt it's dead simple. Thanks!

[Dwarden 1125]

in the STEAM's game list, select Arma 3 Beta, then right-mouse-button click to raise menu

> select Propterties > in General tab (first one already) > select Set Launch Options > type in there (w/o the quotation marks) "-nologs"

if you want multiple parameters then e.g. "-nosplash -nologs"

more params http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma2:_Startup_Parameters#Available_parameters

[Kydoimos 916]

Thank you ever so much for that, I'll give it a go!

---------- Post added at 17:34 ---------- Previous post was at 16:11 ----------

I haven't had any freezes so far. All good!