Office Complex Stairwell Crash

[exodddus]

In the chapter Office Complex, thereis a stairwell with various pieces of furniture on it. It has a load zone in the middle of it. A few seconds after I enter the loadzone, the game crashes. I cannot progress at all.

[thray]

Uninstall all mods then Restart your computer and see if it still crashes.

Have you tried restarting that unlocked chapter to rule out a corrupt save file.
Go to the New Game menu and pick that chapter, just in case your saved game is corrupt. Stop using the old saves.

Unlock all the chapters by typing "sv_unlockedchapters 15" in the console without quotes and go to the New Game menu and pick a different chapter to see if it still locks up or to skip that area entirely.

Weird crashes can sometimes be fixed by setting all of the graphics settings to low and decreasing your resolution, then try the problem area again.
1. Disable Cascade Shadow Maps (CSM) same for the Dynamic Lights
2. Decrease shadows to the lowest setting
3. Turn off God Rays
4. Lower or disable Anti-aliasing (AA)
5. Decrease your resolution
etc.

[exodddus]

Solution
Ran past the area really fast. No crash :\

[Jack Shaftoe]

Originally posted by exodddus:

Solution
Ran past the area really fast. No crash :\

For you, maybe. Not for me.

[tuxdelux]

Had same crash at stairwell in v1.0
Sprinting up the stairs got me past the checkpoint.

[exodddus]

Yeah, just go fast, or reload from an earlier save. You guys revived a 2 year old thread, you know that? You had all the options to make a new one, but you dug up a 2 year old thread. Why? What kind of masochists are you?

[yo]

Got the same problem 1.0

[iamtakingiteasy]

Same problem, still occurs.

Crashing save (quick.sav) + save just before that (quick01.sav) + condebug's console.log + dxdiag output:
https://public.eientei.org/data/2022-05-14-bms-office-complex-crashzing-save-dxdiag.zip

Changing settings all the way down to potato, crash still occurs. Reproduces every time after turret starts firing.

[LU-C4]

The only way I managed to fix it was to uninstall all mods and doing a clean re-install of the game.

To do that, go to "Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/" and deleting the folder named "Black Mesa", then verify the integrity of the game files and let it download everything again. That fixed the issue for me, so I hope it works for you as well.

And just in case it's an issue with the save file as well, you might want to try starting Office Complex from the beginning just to be safe. Mind you, it's been years since I've had this problem, so I don't remember if restarting the chapter was actually necessary.

[iamtakingiteasy]

I do not have any mods and game is freshly installed, problem is with the base black mesa. Loading save on previous level/restarting the chapter and going through the affected section without saves does allow to progress, but saves does seem to frequently become corrupt at this chapter. It also seem to have been the issue for four years now.

[gru]

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

I do not have any mods and game is freshly installed

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Unless this is your first time playing the game, workshop mods can still exist between installations and still work even if you are unsubscribed from them. Playing the game with +workshop_disable 1 is the best way to make sure you're not running mods (doesn't include the custom folder, however).

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

problem is with the base black mesa

That depends. As someone said above, it was caused by mods and I did seen cases of it being caused by mods. It can't be generalised as just being a Black Mesa issue, cause if it was then a lot more people would've been reporting it, like the Xen intro crash with potato setting. The ones that were reported were few and in between.

[iamtakingiteasy]

Originally posted by MrZGrumpy:

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Unless this is your first time playing the game, workshop mods can still exist between installations and still work even if you are unsubscribed from them. Playing the game with +workshop_disable 1 is the best way to make sure you're not running mods (doesn't include the custom folder, however).

It is not first time I'm playing it, but unless some mods can be installed without ever using workshop and user consent, I can be sure. This installation also happened on clean OS and steam directory.

Originally posted by MrZGrumpy:

That depends. As someone said above, it was caused by mods and I did seen cases of it being caused by mods. It can't be generalised as just being a Black Mesa issue, cause if it was then a lot more people would've been reporting it, like the Xen intro crash with potato setting. The ones that were reported were few and in between.

I never used any mods outside of BMS itself, if it can still be considered that. Clearly it was not caused by the mods, but by BMS itself and it was reported multiple times over four years -- also without any indication of mods being the cause. Only mentions of the mods are in workarounds suggested. If I had to guess, mods are having no effect on this, but saves breaking in base BMS, at least in this chapter are.

[gru]

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

Only mentions of the mods are in workarounds suggested.

As they said above, and I quote:

Originally posted by LU-C4:

The only way I managed to fix it was to uninstall all mods and doing a clean re-install of the game.

That's not to say the issue is caused by mods only, hence my comment with "That depends". As I also have said, the issue is definitely not as wide spread as the Xen intro crash, which was a Black Mesa issue rather than an issue like this that seems to happen randomly on some people and not on others.

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

but saves breaking in base BMS, at least in this chapter are.

Saves breaking itself is more commonly reported, but there is almost nothing that can be done about it due to the fact that it's entirely out of the user's control and the developers as it's entirely engine related.

[iamtakingiteasy]

Considering this does not seem to happen, at very least as often, with valve's source games or other terrestrial BMS chapters -- it is not entirely outside of BMS developer's control, even if ultimately it is the engine misbehaving on saving with certain configuration of the assets. Identifying the configuration that leads to this issue may as well help engine developers to correct the underlying issue or at very least for BMS team to consider possible work-arounds on their level.

As for who this issue may affect, it seem to entirely depend on using saves and quick-saves. This alone would be very plausible explanation for this issue not as universally reported, as save-load cycle(s) under uncertain conditions is not what every player going through the level will use.

Hence the attached save files, that may potentially provide BMS developers with some insight what conditions that may be.

[gru]

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

Considering this does not seem to happen, at very least as often, with valve's source games or other terrestrial BMS chapters -- it is not entirely outside of BMS developer's control

Considering that the engine is already being pushed to its limits, it is kinda out of their control, especially when CC does not have control about whether or not a save corruption will happen. It can happen at ANY time.

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

Identifying the configuration that leads to this issue may as well help engine developers to correct the underlying issue or at very least for BMS team to consider possible work-arounds on their level.

The problem here is that if the fix needs a level re-compile, then it wont happen regardless because it'd invalidate saves, something they already got backlash for. Given that save corruption is out of their control and the issue isn't that widespread, there isn't a reason to attempt to fix it and then end up breaking other things, something that has already happened.

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

As for who this issue may affect, it seem to entirely depend on using saves and quick-saves. This alone would be very plausible explanation for this issue not as universally reported, as save-load cycle(s) under uncertain conditions is not what every player going through the level will use.

I use quick saves and loads a lot. I had not encountered an issue there, or anywhere else in the game for that matter. Save corruption, as I said, can be entirely random.

Originally posted by iamtakingiteasy:

Hence the attached save files, that may potentially provide BMS developers with some insight what conditions that may be.

I don't think a save file like that can help out CC. If anything, I could go ask them to take a look at the potential cause but once again, it isn't that widespread and if a potential fix requires a map re-compile, then it certainly won't happen.

[iamtakingiteasy]

With levels essentially considered immutable, there is indeed little can be done even if issue can be related to specific asset configuration. Thanks for explanation.