Universe Sandbox 2 instability results in computer total freeze

[Harambe 41]

Universe Sandbox 2 is the only unstable program which causes my computer running Pop!OS Linux (Ubuntu distro) to utterly freeze, hang, or crash. It hangs so badly that no keyboard inputs can affect it, not even alt, shift, ctrl, or f number buttons. It leads me to suspect it is not even gnome, or that gnome is legendarily overwhelmed that not even a keyboard input can fix it. You can tell it is starting because the game starts to go slowly and I start to be unable to click anything in my desktop either. But if I can act fast before the worst symptoms begin, I can hit the "windows" button on my keyboard to revert to steam or terminal. If I close the game it often works better on reopening but may soon return. If I close steam, it always fixes it, and lasts longer before starting again 30-60 minutes later. If I run steam from terminal, it works better than running from desktop, and can be shut down better. Steam often will not run from clicking its icon in desktop. it may stand for hours after the proper clicks, to get it to run.... unless I spam click the icon and then it does open, and multiple instances also open, "when it rains it pours," "all or nothing." Running steam from terminal solves this problem though, making one instance that opens reliably. Often I cannot open or play games like destiny 2, halo infinite, or LA Noire. But BF V and Sekiro run fine.I would offer logs but I don't know how to get them, and the problems are usually so severe that it requires a full shutdown and maybe the logs are lost. The system freezes usually occur in sims with a lot of mass in the solar systems, or when opening a new sim, especially when opening a new sim from community workshop, or when leaving the game to browse the workshop, or when calculations are complex, but this even happens when the simulation is empty or modestly filled. It seems that closing all simulations does not help the problem. Once the "load" of the problem begins, the computer has it in memory and cannot dump it, so even if you delete the rings of Saturn and clear the whole simulation to be empty, the ball has already started rolling and the process continues until steam is closed, or the game.

[bshapiroalbert]

I'm sorry that you are having issues running Universe Sandbox on Pop!OS. Your description of what is occurring is helpful. It would also be helpful if you could answer some questions for us.

Are you running the native Linux version of Universe Sandbox or are you running Universe Sandbox through Proton? Our most recent test showed that performance in Universe Sandbox is better in Proton than in native Linux.

Could you try finding and sending us your Player and Player-prev.log files? If you can open Universe Sandbox, the easiest way to find these files is:
1. Launch Universe Sandbox
2. Open the Home menu (three stacked horizontal bars in the upper left)
3. Scroll down and select "Debug Tools"
4. Select "Show Log File in Folder"
If that does not work, please let me know.

Have you been able to monitor your computer memory usage while Universe Sandbox is running? If your memory usage starts to go up as Universe Sandbox slows down, that would be helpful for us to know.

[scire.]

I run the game from the same computer running Pop!OS through PROTON and that works wonderfully, however I have experienced freezes before, but that occurs around/after 3 hrs into my playing session. Not sure how quickly this individual is experiencing crashes.

[bshapiroalbert]

Originally posted by mrthebigERC:

I run the game from the same computer running Pop!OS through PROTON and that works wonderfully, however I have experienced freezes before, but that occurs around/after 3 hrs into my playing session. Not sure how quickly this individual is experiencing crashes.

I'm glad Universe Sandbox is running well through Proton for you, but I'm sorry about the crashes you have experienced.

If you experience a crash like this again, could you please send us a copy of your log file? Instructions for how to do that are above.

It would also be helpful if you could monitor the memory usage of Universe Sandbox while you are playing it next time and let us know if it increases continuously.