Heap Error-Possibly Campfire Related

[John Three]

Second instance of this crash-to-desktop inducing error, occurred while I was in the Upper Carter Dam Environs.  I feel like I may have brought it upon myself, since my only really unusual behavior has involved spawning large numbers of outdoor campfires directly on top of each other in the Mystery Lake area (exploiting the unlimited durability of the magnifying lens and the abundance of sticks).  The first instance occurred while in the process of building campfires directly on top of burned out-campfires, hence my suspicion.  I'll see about reproducing the bug this weekend probably, see If it is limited to Mystery Lake and Mystery Lake-Adjacent areas (I hope it is, hate to lose this file completely) and double-check that the game isn't using an abnormal share of system resources.

2016-07-07_201908.7z

[Vilespectre]

When I experienced this error (posted elsewhere) I also had a large number of campfires (I was spelling out giant words with them...). There was also a huge overlapping stack next to my house on JR Island. I was able to reproduce this error reliably before I deleted the save. Might be something to look into. Anyone else's "too many heap objects" errors happening on a map with an excessive number of campfires, especially ones stacked on top of each other?

[Drifter Man]

Based on game stats and my estimates, I've produced about 50 campfires at the entrance to the Upper Dam from Mystery Lake since the April update that made campfires permanent. Mostly on top of each other to save space. I've got no errors yet but a significant lag of several seconds occurs whenever I exit the Upper Dam to Mystery Lake for the first time upon launching the game. The lag is either in the loading screen or afterwards, when it takes several seconds before any sound is heard. Subjectively, the lag is getting longer over time. I usually do very little in the Mystery Lake region except apart from the fires, I just pass through to the Ravine and back every day.

I should move my cooking to the Ravine before I ruin my 800-day sandbox. Thanks for the warning.

[John Three]

Man, I thought I did my due diligence looking for other instances of this bug.  I also had been strongly tempted to spell out giant words with my campfires, but the stacking was more efficient for my firestarting skill grind.

I did some tests this morning: normal RAM usage for Mystery Lake area is about 1.2 MB, in my file with roughly 170 campfires spawned in it that usage jumps to 2.7 MB and, more importantly, stays there even when you enter another area (hence the crash while in Carter Dam).  It looks like the memory issue can be sidestepped by leaving the affected area, triggering the autosave and then relaunching The Long Dark (tried just quitting the affected sandbox, but the excessive memory usage persists until the game is closed completely).  Cue massive relief on my part.

3 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Based on game stats and my estimates, I've produced about 50 campfires at the entrance to the Upper Dam from Mystery Lake since the April update that made campfires permanent. Mostly on top of each other to save space. I've got no errors yet but a significant lag of several seconds occurs whenever I exit the Upper Dam to Mystery Lake for the first time upon launching the game. The lag is either in the loading screen or afterwards, when it takes several seconds before any sound is heard. Subjectively, the lag is getting longer over time. I usually do very little in the Mystery Lake region except apart from the fires, I just pass through to the Ravine and back every day.

I should move my cooking to the Ravine before I ruin my 800-day sandbox. Thanks for the warning.

You should be safe with what you have, especially if you're careful to limit the number of campfires you spawn in each area or stick to places like the outdoor woodstove in the logging camp.  I bet I'd have backed off my firebuilding way earlier if I'd started developing a lag problem in the area.  It seems to take long enough to kick in that you should have time to clear all your stuff out even once the region gets unstable.

[Vilespectre]

Oh, great. Now as an added survival element: every campfire destabilizes reality! Make too many, and the region implodes into oblivion. Use them wisely...

Just kidding, but things like this make TLD my favorite horror game

What a long, dark trip it's been...

[hauteecolerider]

7 hours ago, Vilespectre said:

Oh, great. Now as an added survival element: every campfire destabilizes reality! Make too many, and the region implodes into oblivion.

 

Then you won't have to worry about hypothermia or starvation anymore, just Mehrunes Dagon's stormy portals on top of the wolves and bears . . . 

[Support]

Thanks for the extra info, we are looking into the issue. The increase in RAM usage might not related or an issue (Unity tends to use more RAM the longer it runs) but I've noted your findings in the bug tracker as well. 

[reggiedunbar]

I just created an account to report a problem with the game freezing that I think is campfire related.

I have an old save, currently 1375 days in. I always do my cooking outdoors to help with cabin fever. I must have started hundreds of fires. With the introduction of the skill system I decided to "power level" my fire starting skill to level 5 using sticks and the magnifying lens.

Now the game freezes after 1-2 minutes. I open the task manager and the task is showing as not responding. At first I though it was a problem with my PC but I started a new save and it works perfectly.

Thanks for looking into this, I'm interested in your findings.

[John Three]

@Support

Always happy to help, though I probably should have clarified that the RAM usage in unaffected regions appears to fluctuate normally from region to region, but upon entering Mystery Lake it climbs up to 2.7 Gigs and stays there even after, say, moving all the way through the Carter Dam, into Pleasant Valley and then quitting to the main menu.  I've also tried to control for runtime by saving at the entrance to the dam, relaunching the game and then entering Mystery Lake and gotten the same result.  If there's anything else I can try out to help narrow down the probable cause feel free to ask!