Strange arma2oaserver.exe crashing

[Masheen 10]

Hi, I'd like to start off by saying that I have researched my issue for a good 3+ months before resorting to posting here. At this point, I'm at my wit's end. I will try not to overload any readers with info, but if you require any more information to lend assistance, please don't hesitate to ask. I will provide any needed info upon request.

Description of the problem: arma2oaserver.exe is constantly crashing for no apparent reason after being run. Sometimes it takes a minute, sometimes it takes a few hours. The strange part is that simply opening arma2oaserver.exe directly without attempting to interact with it with a client still leads to a crash eventually.

Description of my system hardware: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/sampc/saved/MrTPxr

Description of system OS: Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)

Description of my A2 OA installation: Most up-to-date Steam version of Arma 2 OA (version 1.63)

Description of the issue:

1. Event viewer details of a crash:

Faulting application name: arma2oaserver.exe, version: 1.63.125.548, time stamp: 0x53b163ba

Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 6.1.7601.18247, time stamp: 0x521ea8e7

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x0003ae33

Faulting process id: 0xa04

Faulting application start time: 0x01d00c4e56ceda70

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead\arma2oaserver.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ntdll.dll

Report Id: 9ec036c1-7842-11e4-892b-005056c00008

2. arma2oaserver.rpt excerpt of crash details: http://pastebin.com/T1fvEtUn

Steps taken to attempt fixing the issue:

• Complete uninstallation/deletion and reinstallation of Arma 2 and Arma 2 OA
  
• Complete installation/reinstallation of MS Visual C++ Redistributables (x64 and x86) versions: 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013
  
• Updated BIOS to most current version
  
• Updated chipset drivers to most current version
  
• Completely uninstalled and reinstalled graphics card drivers
  
• Limited virtual memory to 1GB, 4GB, 8GB. Also allowed Windows to manage virtual memory settings.
  
• Tested with RAM speeds of 1600, 1866, 2133 MHz
  
• Ran /sfc scannow to check for corrupt Windows system files (no corrupt files found)
  
• Ran Windows memory diagnostic tool (no errors found)
  
• Updated MS .NET Framework to version 4.5.2 (most recent version)
  
• Disabled antivirus (Avast)
  
• Tested with Windows DEP (Data Execution Prevention) enabled or disabled
  
• Used each and every available malloc .dll provided with A2 OA. Also tested using default "system" memory allocator.
  
• Ran arma2oaserver.exe as Administrator
  
• Ran arma2oaserver.exe under every compatibility mode available.
  
• All Windows 7 updates installed
  
• Checked Device Manager for any warnings/errors (none found)
  
• Copied all Arma 2 files to a separate hard drive and ran A2 client and server through separate installation folders.
  

Description of different scenarios leading up to the crash:

1. System is running DayZ mod (any variant of DayZ mod produces the same crashing), both server and client. Server may crash at any point between arma2oaserver.exe starting and regular gameplay.
   
2. System is running only DayZ mod server with no clients connecting
   
3. System is running arma2oaserver.exe without any mods loaded
   
4. 
   

Note: I'm playing only in an isolated environment with only me running both the A2 OA client and server.

---

If any more information is needed to help find the solution of this problem, please do ask. Thank you very much for any and all help.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Masheen

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

Hi,

Your rpt is spammed with this CommunityConfigurationProject classnames

you should ask on this thread

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?141732-ARMA-2-Community-Configuration-Project-%28A2CCP%29&highlight=Community+Configuration+Project

and report your issues.

[Masheen 10]

@Günter Severloh Thanks for the reply. However, the fact that the issue persists even without any mods involved should hint that the CCP isn't responsible? Just simply opening arma2oaserver.exe and letting it sit there doing nothing still leads to a crash.

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

Welcome.

Having a look at your parts which i did not do before i posted, imo this is your problem:

Asus Radeon R9 280X 3GB DirectCU II Video Card

Everyone I know that has a radeon game crashes, more specifically Arma3, i have a friend on steam who has a radeon and to this day the game still crashes after so much time.

i personally think its a hardware issue, I have 2 nvidia 2 Gtx 560 Ti im running and haven't any issues with the game crashing or ect,. with arma2Co or Arma3.

It could be that or something else, but as you said your game still crashes with and without mods, then I'd look at hardware compatibility for the game.

An option is to send your crash reports to Dwarden http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?110823-Got-game-crash-Do-this

and see if he can determine the exact cause, it could be an issue with the latest v 1.63 patch, but again I myself have yet to run into issues

with arma2CO as I play both Arma2CO and Arma3 and have not any issues.

[Masheen 10]

Thanks again, I will look into forwarding my crash reports. The strangest thing is that the game itself (A2 OA and A3) has no crashing issues even with all graphical settings maxed besides AA, just the server that is acting up.

[Gunter Severloh 3948]

I see. Maybe delete the arma2oaserver.exe and then do a verify integrity of cache see if that helps any.

[Masheen 10]

I have tried that before, unfortunately it didn't do anything to prevent crashes. I've also tried deleting all .pbo files from the A2 OA directories and restoring them through cache verification to no avail.

I have tested my A2 OA files by transferring them to my laptop and using them to run arma2oaserver.exe, and none of the crashing issues have happened. It's a very old laptop from 2006. This suggests that the files are perfectly fine and that the problem is related to my computer system specifically. I have doubts that it's hardware-related issue since my PC is able to handle any game I've thrown at it at maximum settings (Crysis 3 comes to mind). I am thinking that the problem is software/driver related but I can't see how, I've uninstalled all software that I don't absolutely need, and updated all my drivers. The fact that only arma2oaserver.exe is experiencing issues is very puzzling.

A few more details that I recall but might not be relevant - I assembled my PC sometime in June 2014 and it ran arma2oaserver.exe perfectly fine for the first 3 months or so, after which I stopped doing anything related to A2 due to boredom. At this time I installed a few games:

• Batman Arkham Asylum
  
• Batman Arkham City
  
• Batman Arkham Origins
  

A few weeks later when I went back to running A2, I found the issues first appearing. The Batman games installed Nvidia PhysX as part of the installation process, but uninstalling PhysX did nothing to solve the problems. I've already uninstalled all the games a while ago but this also did nothing. I'm not aware of anything else that was installed with these games that I did not already uninstall.

Again, thanks for the help and patience. At this point I'm way past out of ideas and only grasping at straws.

[SavageCDN 231]

Have you tried a re-install of DirectX? (didn't see that in your list of steps)

Annoying but you could also wipe/re-install Win7 and see if that works.

[Masheen 10]

@SavageCDN: For DirectX, I've tried reinstalling without uninstalling, but I will attempt that again as I didn't track exactly which versions were reinstalled. I'm extremely hesitant about a complete OS re-install due to all the setting-up I would have to do again. I will reserve it as a "nuke it from orbit" last resort if I have some other issue that also needs a reinstall. Thanks for your assistance by the way, much appreciate it.

Edit: It looks like DirectX can't be uninstalled, and I have already attempted reinstallation of every version of DirectX available (9/10/11). I ran the installers from Arma 2 OA's folder and Microsoft's site again just to be sure, but I don't have high hopes it will have an effect.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Masheen

[Masheen 10]

Reporting back to say that I ran Microsoft's Web Installer for DirectX, but it said I had the most up-to-date version and stopped, then I ran the installer included with A2 OA as I wrote in my last post, which copied and installed some DX-related files. The crashing continues to occur some time after I run arma2oaserver.exe directly, unfortunately.

[Horus 83]

Did you have latest bios version for your GPU?

2014/01/26

R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 VBIOS update

BIOS update to remove rare artifacting events during gaming, Please also update the Catalyst driver to 13.251 or above

[Masheen 10]

My video card was shipped with that version of the bios pre-installed. I double-checked by downloading and running the bios installer, but it gave a popup saying that I already have the most recent version. I also have the most updated version of the Catalyst drivers.

Other attempted fixes:

• Updating network card drivers to most recent version
  
• Updated .NET Framework to 4.5.2 (most updated)
  
• 
  

Edited December 2, 2014 by Masheen

[SavageCDN 231]

I don't know if BIS still looks at crash dumps for A2OA but you could try submitting those + your logs. I can't think of anything else to suggest as it seems you've done all the troubleshooting steps.

Do you have an old PC lying around with XP on it? If so you could try copying your server files and see if you can get it to run for any length of time without crashing.

[Masheen 10]

My old laptop that I mentioned in an earlier post runs XP and it's able to run the server flawlessly with files copied from my main PC. This is a less-than optimal solution but workable for the time being, but I don't know how much more life it has in it.

Thank you very much for your efforts. I'll continue looking into this issue and if I ever find a solution, I'll be sure to post it here for anyone else with the same problem. I know they will have many hairs pulled due to the frustration.

[SavageCDN 231]

Good luck!! If I were a betting man I'd say you have a Windows 7 re-install in your near future :p

[Masheen 10]

Great news! I believe I finally found the solution to my problem. It isn't a proper fix since it doesn't solve the cause of the problem, but at least I can reliably run the Arma 2 server on my main PC.

As promised, these are the steps I used to run arma2oaserver.exe without any crashing:

1. Create a new "standard user" Windows account (I'm using Windows 7), making sure to assign a password.
   
2. Hold Shift + Right click the icon/batch file used to run the Arma 2 server. Select "Run as different user".
   
3. When prompted, enter the user/password info you created in the first step.
   
4. Arma2oaserver.exe is now executed under the new user account and should no longer crash.
   
5. 
   

Testing process used to verify stability:

1. Open arma2oaserver.exe directly, move it to one corner of the screen
   
2. Open arma2oaserver.exe indirectly, using the steps I used above to solve the crash issue. Move this second window to another corner of the screen.
   
3. Wait for a while (1-30 mins). The instance of the directly-opened Arma2 server should crash while the indirectly-opened one should remain functioning.
   
4. 
   

Again, thanks to everyone in this thread who took some time out of their day to contribute help. I don't know why my "fix" works and why another user account was needed to run the server without crashing issues, but I'm not complaining after 3 months of headaches.

Edited December 5, 2014 by Masheen

[SavageCDN 231]

Yeah that's fucked :p Did the account you were using before not have Administrator priviledges (and does the one you created have them)?

[Masheen 10]

My main account is an admin and is the first account created on this system, the second account is a hidden standard account that I use to share files on my LAN. The root cause seems related to my main account in some way, but I have no idea what it could be.

For now, I use a modified shortcut to arma2oaserver.exe that uses /runas to always run the server as the alternate account. So the "fix" is largely invisible and painless on my end.

[h3po 10]

for future googlers:

i just had the same problem, and I thank Masheen for posting his "solution" because that gave me the idea on what to try next. changing user accounts actually changes the battleye, since that's installed in your userprofile\appdata\local (well, one copy. i'm still not sure if i found all of them). when i reinstalled be and deleted the remaining files, i had to restart and then was able to reinstall it cleanly. now the server runs.