Game hangs on saving in tactical missions

[frankh]

Among the bugs I've experienced in the v20 stable Version, on three different machine, which makes the game absolutely unplayable, is this:

After getting a little while of playtime, the game now suddenly hangs EVERY TIME I try to save it in a tactical mission. Sometimes it crashes when I alt-tab to the desktop, and other times I have to kill it. But it allways hangs. And it's never possible to load the game afterwards; The game is listed in the save game list, but trying to load it hangs the game again - and then it crashes when existing to the desktop.

I've deleted all save games and created new games four times now, and the result is consistant. Prior to this happening, I've built a new base, finished the first research and started on the scout car.

EDIT: And now, a little later, the game cannot even be started. It hangs in the background when trying to start. Also after restarting. It hangs the desktop, and I have to use ctrl-alt-del to get the task manager and kill it.

How is this possible? The game isn't even installed in the system - it's just run.

EDIT 2: After 10 or 20 tries (and reboots), the game finally started. I deleted the old saves (after again verifying that the game crashes when trying to load a saved tactical mission) and started a new game. At the first tactical mission, the game tried for 12 minutes to load the mission, and then was non-responsive when opening task manager.

Strange how the game can get worse and worse, when there are no updates or changes to it?

EDIT 3: Deleted all save games again. Started a new game. Selected the primary base location. Tried to save the game - it hangs.

EDIT 4: I deleted the unpacked version, and unpacked the game anew. Exactly the same as above - the game hangs when saving, period.

Edited February 11, 2014 by frankh

[Max_Caine]

Just a couple of questions:

1) Which OS are you running this on? There are some hints in your post which suggest which OS you're running this on, but the OS could be very important.

2) If you're running this on a PC under Windows, did you get this from Steam? If you did, could you try the experimental version to see if there are the same problems?

[frankh]

1) Windows 7 Ent.

2) No steam, unfortunately.

However, I tried running the game as Administrator, and I've been able to run it for a while without crashes. I'll continue as I did before, and see if it turns into a crashing game again.

[Max_Caine]

Ah.... that's a pity. Steam also features v19, so we can't run tests to see if it's specifically v20 that's the problem.

EDIT: Erm, you still getting it through Desura, then?

Edited February 11, 2014 by Max_Caine

[frankh]

Uhm...humblebundle?

[Max_Caine]

Well, so much for that idea. Desura really takes a dump on the Xeno files. Would you be ideologically opposed to trading in the Steam key you should have got when you got it from the humble store so you could try out different versions?

[frankh]

Not at all. I've just never used Steam, since I normally don't do gaming on the PC :-)

[frankh]

Ok. I installed steam, redeemed the code and installed the game. Then I started the Steam client and then the game from the client. I started a new game, tried to save it, and it hung. Same as with the downloaded version. Unlike with the downloaded version, running steam as Administrator didn't help here. So now I cannot play the game at all, since I removed the downloaded version.

Since I've never used Steam before, I'm not sure how to go about installing other versions, updates etc.

EDIT: I figured that out, of course. I'll be downloading the latest experimental release and see if anything's different.

Edited February 12, 2014 by frankh

[Max_Caine]

You don't have to run it through the steam client. You can run it directly by going to:

/Steam/steamapps/common/Xenonauts/

That shouldn't engage the Steam client.

[Giovanni]

It may be an issue with the savegame directory. In the xenonauts launcher, click "Save Location" and select a folder in which you are sure you have write permissions. (The default one is C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\Xenonauts but it might be that is somehow screwed in your PC)

[frankh]

I just thought of that too, actually, so I've changed it now. I'll try it out after work this afternoon.

[frankh]

I should naturally have changed just one thing at a time, but I didn't. I downloaded the experimental versjon AND changed the save folder. And now I haven't had any problems after allmost an hour of playing.

[Max_Caine]

EXCELSIOR!

(Thanks Giovanni!)