Hammer crashes abnormally often (Kind of solved)

[holly’s tea]

I firstly thought it was because I:

• had a custom style theme for windows (I removed it)
  
• had missing files (I scaned, even reinstalled)
  
• launched it with launcher not bin/hammer.exe, tried both,
  (I still prefer launcher because Portal 2s isn't so broken like hl2s :3 )
  
• have visual studio (it said debug or close when it crashed, I tried to debug and after a few tries I deinstalled vs)
  
• have a cd in my laptop, makes many programs lag, I removed that one
  
• work much with brushes at the time but it also crashes after some time when I have no file open, just a blank hammer

Still it crashes, I can work a few minutes maybe, then it doesn't respond anymore (loading window) and says Hammer doesn't work anymore a few seconds later. (with vs it said debug/close now) it says close.
I spam ctrl+s but still it's annoying, I can't work like this :(
any help?

Edit:
At this point in time I

• deinstalled all kind of *steamcensored word for poop* on my pc
  
• killed all background processes that aren't citrio (browser), steam or cortana
  
• learned how func_details and visleafs work (lowered numportals from >1000 to <20 while having more than 150 crashes on this one map)

... still crashes

The way I fixed it

I made a txt on my desktop listing all the very important apps I need.
I deinstalled all obvious programms, deleted all non-installed programs
I manually removed all appdata from applications that will be deinstalled
Then I went to Settings/Update and Safety/reset (names might be different, I only know the german ones).
I reinstalled windows, removing all apps on my pc. (keep files)
When I had that done, I reinstalled all the apps from the txt on my desktop, took a night to install Portal 2 and its tool, now it works

[76561198041347291]

Have you got another computer to test this on?

I've got a few solutions, but this is the first step of my troubleshooting methods.

[Please]

Try running hammer.exe with an older compatibility setting

[holly’s tea]

Originally posted by Ancient:

Try running hammer.exe with an older compatibility setting

How to do that?

Originally posted by Peter Brev:

Have you got another computer to test this on?

Actually no-
I have another really old and slow pc, I won't use it for this..

[Please]

Originally posted by Raybe:

Originally posted by Ancient:

Try running hammer.exe with an older compatibility setting

How to do that?

Originally posted by Peter Brev:

Have you got another computer to test this on?

Actually no-
I have another really old and slow pc, I won't use it for this..

Right click on it > properties > compatibility mode > choose windows xp sp2 or 3

[Wickid_Splat]

if this happens after you compile i think thats just a bug, after i compile i always just close it down and restart it. Wait till you experience the backwards typing when looking for entities lol thats a blast..

[holly’s tea]

Originally posted by JohnWayne:

after i compile i always just close it down and restart it.

Same but i don't compile so often..
Like i said, it also crashes if I just open an empty or no level at all after a minute or so..

Originally posted by Ancient:

Right click on it > properties > compatibility mode > choose windows xp sp2 or 3

I'll try

Thanks guys for your help

[Wickid_Splat]

couple of rules i learned from a pro with 30 years of experience.. Compile often, and have plenty of backups, i have had it crash opening a file i just compiled and i never could get the file back so i had to get a backup which luckily i made prior to compiling. With this editor you have to expect the unexpected so save and backup often and compile all the time, i mean as much as after 10 small changes do a fast compile, it will save you a heartache.

If someone new is reading this, mapmaking with sdk hammer is a long long tedius process of backing up, and compiling all the time. It is what it is, buggy and stubborn, but if you want to build maps then thats what you have to live with.

Map making is fun, i love it its a great change from coding in php all day, but its got its side that sucks just like other things.

[holly’s tea]

I backup my map after a hour of work or so under a new name (_version4) but I normally work until I got something, then compile, then trouble shoot a bit with a few changes and compiles.
Then I move on to the next big thing in the map, work until I got it ...

[Wickid_Splat]

the best thing is to have an error in the compile, the worst is to have the game crash when loading and having no clue what so ever why, that has happend a couple of time and we never could find out why, nothing reported anywhere it just crashed the game.. Makes troubleshooting really hard when it cant tell you whats wrong lol..

We even used the cordon tool many times and it passed all mini compiles but would not compile fully, that will make you want to rip your hair out and toss the computer accross the room lol

All we could figure is that i was doing a jumgle swamp map, and i may have had too many entities all bunched up.

Also your suppose to function detail stuff but be careful if you do it too much you can freak the editor out, i dont remember if he told me there was a limit or if i just was doing too many thing at once but just be careful with func detailing stuff.

[holly’s tea]

Originally posted by JohnWayne:

the best thing is to have an error in the compile

Well - the best thing is to get it work without any errors :D

Originally posted by JohnWayne:

nothing reported anywhere it just crashed the game

I had that, too with a map, guess it was too big and detailed..
Still doesn't help my problem though, it's a difference if the compiler or game crashes, but if randomly with no reason hammer crashes after a few minutes of work (or staring at the screen) is just (insert a word that steam will consore), it used to work

[Wickid_Splat]

just say explative explative lol it does take alot of memory i have 12gb i7 and it taxes that on some maps im working on. I was googling for you but have not found much as to your situation , i found a couple but no real answers just blah blah bs chat

[holly’s tea]

yea, thanks for the efford though-

[holly’s tea]

It's still crashing all the time

[Bill Jensen]

lower your view distances. I guess you dont have enough RAM

[Wickid_Splat]

oh yeah you must be loading stuff into view at a great distance and you dont need to. That makes sense, thanks snake thats great info..