Game crashes to black screen upon exit, and must hard boot

[the truthseeker]

Hi there.

I'm running this game on an Acer AX3910-U4022 computer with windows 7 64-Bit, and this game (and only this game looking at all my other programs) sometimes upon exiting the game causes it to go to a black screen with no sound and my computer is frozen literally requiring me to hit the power button to

reboot. it doesn't always do this and it's very confusing why.


I am using the direct download to the PC (not steam) and have tried the following from
the generic crash link:

• I have allowed it access to my computer ignoring firewall/anti virus completely bypassing any checks or monitoring, so there is no conflict there.
• I have updated all my drivers (including the video card) so there shouldn't be a conflict via an "old version"
• I have tried multiple windowed modes and Vsync/frame-rate activations (both in game and on the video card) and have no anti aliasing/filtering with no
  
  success.
• I have run two different programs to check my RAM and HD which report no errors whatsoever.
• I have disabled Desktop Composition in the compatibility properties.
• I have done a clean uninstall and reinstall including removing any remaining folders before reinstalling.
  
• I also did a clean uninstall and reinstall of the video card drivers and separate steps for the BIOS.
  I did this a few months ago in preparation for another game, and have had no other gaming issues with my video card even if it's an integrated one. I triple
  
  checked I had the correct drivers even checking with Intel and Acer respectively.
• Finally, I am not having any temperature or heating issues, even running a third party program just to double check. I know how this was an issue with
  
  another computer of mine. Same thing with checking for dirt/dust/poor RAM connections.

So after doing all this, sometimes the game still makes the computer crash to black only after exiting. Any suggestions what I can do? I used to do t3 internet

tech support, so I don't mind getting my proverbial hands dirty, but need to know what in the world to do next.

[Matthew]

I'm sorry about the problem. It seems like you've covered a lot of options already!

Can you check your FTL installation folder for crash logs? There's a subfolder labelled "crashlogs" where they can be found

To my memory, I actually haven't ever heard of someone experiencing that problem, so this is new and I don't have a solution off hand. In general, the laptops with integrated graphics cards can have a number of unpredictable problems due to the poor OpenGL support their drivers usually have. That's the culprit 99% of the time, which is why we list the cards as not officially supported in our system requirements. That said, most people are able to get them running and it's usually just a case of finding the right drivers, but you seem to have already explored that quite thoroughly.

Since you bought it directly from us I can offer you a refund. If you'd like one, shoot me an email to zasdarq@ftlgame.com

[the truthseeker]

Sorry I didn't list it above, but since it crashes on exit, the crash log is empty. One of the first things I checked. I do love the game and don't want it refunded, but just know it has to be some conflict somewhere.

Edit: it happened once, and only once, but while I was playing it tried to minimize and then did the black screen in play not in exit this time. This means SOMETHING running must have conflicted with the game. It will be a slow process, but I'll try going through every program and see if I can guess what would make some sort of "system call" when not actively being used, etc.

Edit 2: And we have a winner:

IO BIT'S Advanced System care 6. While I didn't have it set up to "stop malware actively" eve it running in the background seemed to occasionally have "checks" while with 99.9% of all programs isn't an issue, was conflicting with this. So far, closing it seems to have done the trick, but it was never a regular thing so I'll wait a few days to see. I'm not a developer or programmer so I don't understand how these programs could cause a sharing conflict that would cause a black screen no computer response but now I know at least. I can continue to try and unlock all the fleet with the "Unknown" ship and the Ancestry achievement unhindered.


(Oh, and over 200 hours and not one success there, I HATE YOU ALL!!! )

[Matthew]

Well the game saves a profile / continue file on quit. It's possible that that program is detecting it and thinking it's malicious and shutting it down. It's strange that it would do it even when you tell it not to actively search though. Can you see if there's a place to add an exception to tell it to "trust" FTLGame.exe?

[the truthseeker]

Well the game saves a profile / continue file on quit. It's possible that that program is detecting it and thinking it's malicious and shutting it down. It's strange that it would do it even when you tell it not to actively search though. Can you see if there's a place to add an exception to tell it to "trust" FTLGame.exe?

I did that and it still wouldn't play nice. Perhaps the program has the normal "monitoring" part" and the separate "malware" part.

Either way, if I can't get it to play nice I can simply close that program down when playing. It's a secondary to McAffee Total Protection since that McAffee's program's heuristics lets too many trackers/malware files through. However, I'm not surfing when I'm playing so it's all cool if I close one of them (or even both of them if ever need be) down.


And I have yet even more good news.


[SPOILER]


The stars aligned, the Pirate sector gave the pod, the Zoltan sector analyzed it, and there was a Rock Homeworld that FINALLY had a found Crystal gate. By that time I had a serious arsenal, so I ALMOST felt sorry for the enemies (almost, considering I got the ion burst Mk I the the two crystal lasers (one and three and a frickin' BIO beam....oh, And had those fire bombs for a while to swap out before I found bore breach bombs mk II...it almost wasn't fair. The question wasn't if I would get the ship quest but when and with how much....I was at 324 scrap by sector 7 when I exited the hidden world...


And while I didn't unlock the B version on my first Crystal ship run-through...it was....oh gods...it was more terrifying ....the game REALLY liked me and gave me ANOTHER Bio beam with a Mk II Ion Burst this time...and a Glaive beam by sector 5....and got a hull repair in the jump before exiting sector 7 when I already had a Defense drone I AND II AND an anti ship I. I can't remember saying before "well, gotta sell the pike and Halbred beam and burst I for all these better things" before sector 4 before. I will say this...the rock ships taught me HOW to play that crystal ship, and well...

Oh, and found the portal again in the crystal play-through. (Free tip and kinda nested spoiler for that sector: mercy is for the WEAK; only SLUGS should surrender...sometimes! )





It's nice to FINALLY have my own private fleet...and that score on normal is icing on the cake (I'll break 6k next time, just you see )
[SPOILER]

[the truthseeker]

Update: while it listed the version as "the most current" it was not after all and had to manually update to v6.2.0.254. While it still does not seem to give me an "exclude" option for program files (or this would have been solved in 5 seconds...), I'll post to IOBit's forum if it still gives conflicts. It seems when there's some conflict with the program, black screen of death is not uncommon after all...


But if I'm lucky, the update will have resolved the conflict. If not I'll note on this post and provide the IOBit forum link I created (should the need arise.)


But one way or another, IOBit will get me a solution either through an update or through support.


Edit: Nope, it crashed again, but took longer to do so. Started a thread with them here

[the truthseeker]

The game now would hang on black screen when loading or exiting now but would finish loading/quitting, and the last time outright crashed. When I rebooted, I decided to check the running applications and manually shut them down and...


You've gotta be kidding me...


In my latest crash and reboot I checked the background programs running and Spigot was running...not good when I had paid a program to remove all sorts of tracking programs...so using another program (Exterminate it) found a R.A.T. (Remote Access Trojan) and a bunch of tracking cookies I manually line by line removed, including registry redundancies...I think this was causing the conflict between the two programs as well as the above thing I first wrote about...but I will need to wait the normal time of days and see if there are conflicts or not.

Just normally hate FTL with a passion when trying a shieldless stealth B run ATM with no other problems...so far so...umm... good?