"Fatal Error in GC" Crash - Please contact the developer Window

[Palmer Eldritch]

Greetings!

The "Fatal Error in GC" Error occured to me three times. The first time, in the forest, right before the battle starts against the plant creature which captured Garnet. The second time right after the Crash while I tried to load the Auto Save, gave me the same error. Thought, the Savegame is corupted. Wasn't the case, the manually created Savegames working fine. It has something to do with this Cutscenes before the fight begins. The third time was when I fought against the plant Boss, the fight before you leave the forest. Same situation: "Fatal Error in GC" Crash after the Cutscene and when the fight is about to start.

The Error is not unknown in the wides of the Internet. But there isn't a true solution. People say it's the Firewall blocking something, well I'm only using the Windows Firewall and Final Fantasy IX, like every other Game on my HDD is an allowed program. I will try it tomorrow when I turn of the Firewall. If the crash did not occur in about 5 hours, it was the fault of the Firewall but I highly doubt it.

Someone with the same problem? I'm using Windows 7. This is the only Game and the only App-Crash on my PC since about 3 years.

This is what happens after the Crash, a new window opened with the following message: "The Game crashed. The crash report folder named *2016-04-15_D30820* next to game executable. It would be great if you'd send it to the developer of the game!"

If you know more, my eternal thanks are guaranteed ;D

Best Wishes!

By the way, I'm using Windows 7 64 Bit. This Error seems to happen to a lot of people playing Unity under Windows 7 64 Bit.

[Coleco_84]

引用自 patternjake：

引用自 Coleco_84：

Yesterday I even uninstalled it, and the game still crashed

Make sure you use the removal tool for that AV, as bits of it could be left over. The worse culprit is Norton AV.

I have ESET NOD32.

[spacefarergames]

引用自 Coleco_84：

引用自 patternjake：

Make sure you use the removal tool for that AV, as bits of it could be left over. The worse culprit is Norton AV.

I have ESET NOD32.

Hmm, suprising as thats the one I hold in the highest regard. So i'ts not your AV then. Try the DEP method.

[Haz408]

Ive had 5 crashes in the 3 hours i put into this game so far, running i5 2400, and GTX 970 for hardware, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit for OS.

[spacefarergames]

引用自 Haz408：

Ive had 5 crashes in the 3 hours i put into this game so far, running i5 2400, and GTX 970 for hardware, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit for OS.

Have you considered upgrading to Windows 10 for free? Being on a more modern platform *MAY* help. Personally I'm running Windows 10 under a virtual Parralls Desktop for mac machine and I don't have any issues per se.

[RiO]

引用自 patternjake：

NullReferenceException means that the game has hiccuped on compiling MSIL into native code.

A NullReferenceException happens when a developer has written code that tries to access a member on a variable of a reference type that doesn't actually hold an active instance, i.e. on a variable that holds a null reference.

In this particular case with FF9, the NullReferenceException originates from (wrapper managed-to-native) UnityEngine.Behaviour:set_enabled (bool) which, judging from the format of the method signature, is written in managed C++ and is used to bridge the game's C# code to the (unmanaged) C++ of the core Unity engine.

The set_enabled format is the mangled name for a setter function for an Enabled property. Probably the developer is trying to set that property at a moment where some part of the engine's internal state is not consistent (i.e. some value on which it depends is null).

I'm fairly sure this has nothing to do with 'hiccuping on compiling MSIL'.

引用自 patternjake：

By the way, just in cose for those who don;t know what GC means, it means Garbage Collection, which ironically Unity has terrible GC implemented meaning that it unloads files faster than the game can sometimes handle. If I was Silicon Studio, I would disable Garbage Collection entirely.

GC is not about unloading files. It's about tracking objects that still reside in memory but to which no further reference exists in the running program and which are thus safe to be collected and purged, reclaiming the freed memory for re-use.

Silicon Studio built the game in Unity using C# code, which means it runs on the build of Mono included with Unity and that it uses Mono's garbage collector. While it's an older release of Mono where the garbage collector has performance issues, the collector does work correctly.

If the Mono GC were to actually collect objects 'too soon', that would make Mono entirely unusable and unfit for any purpose, which is simply ludicrous.

[Zantagor]

引用自 patternjake：

引用自 Haz408：

Ive had 5 crashes in the 3 hours i put into this game so far, running i5 2400, and GTX 970 for hardware, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit for OS.

Have you considered upgrading to Windows 10 for free? Being on a more modern platform *MAY* help. Personally I'm running Windows 10 under a virtual Parralls Desktop for mac machine and I don't have any issues per se.

Has nothing to do with the OS version.

I've been running the game for almost 6 hours straight now on Win7 Ultimate 64Bit, on a GTX 960, i5-4670 without a single crash, I'm up to Burmecia now.
And for record, I've been alt-tabbing a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of time as well.

Also, people saying it's solely a bug in the game are wrong, if it was, this bug would be hitting 100% of the people out there, which is doesn't. This doesn't mean it isn't a bug within the game per say, but it's more of a combination of things that produces it. Either Hardware, Drivers, In Memory processes, etc.

If it crashes when running a FMV, it could very well be a 3rd party codec pack messing things up, happened in the past. Could be a very specific GPU driver version messing things up (most recent drivers are not always bug free, as we saw with the more recent NVidia ones), as a note, I'm running on version 361.43 right now.

as I said, if it was solely a bug in the game, everyone would be affected. It's a combination of the game and something else.

Furthernote, who having the crashes uses the Steam Beta Client? (I'm not) for all we know, the beta client messes things up. Happened with Disgaea PC where the Steam Beta would massively ♥♥♥♥ up the framerate, reverting to the non beta would fix that.

[spacefarergames]

Zantagor: Good point. Something like K-Lite Codec Pack could cause a problem, especially if it reads Thoeora Ogg (Video) files. Check for any of those. This game has native support for OGG video so you won't need the codec pack at all.

[RiO]

^
What Zantagor said.

Also, one of the most interesting external factors to test that comes to mind is the Steam overlay. If you get crashes and have the overlay enabled, try switching off the overlay.

Wouldn't be the first time the buggy overlay would cause problems...

引用自 patternjake：

Zantagor: Good point. Something like K-Lite Codec Pack could cause a problem, especially if it reads Thoeora Ogg (Video) files. Check for any of those. This game has native support for OGG video so you won't need the codec pack at all.

Iirc K-Lite includes FFDShow and if it's not correctly configured, FFDShow would definitely try to play back OGG video. Also FFDShow has a lo----ng history of causing crashes with video playback in games.

[Zantagor]

引用自 RiO：

^
What Zantagor said.

Also, one of the most interesting external factors to test that comes to mind is the Steam overlay. If you get crashes and have the overlay enabled, try switching off the overlay.

Wouldn't be the first time the buggy overlay would cause problems...

Ya, as a note though, I'm running with the overlay myself, since I wanted to see the FPS counter. But I am not running the beta client (not since the Disgaea PC mess)

[SergioRiv]

引用自 patternjake：

OK this is what I've got.

Basically the CPU of your pc paused during the game because it was a sharing violation. This means that there is a process running from within Windows causing a conflict with the game EXE. Since the NT kernel manages what processes are running, this makes sense for it to show up in KernelBase.dll.

My ONLY strageties I have for you are the following;

Disalbe Data Execution Prevention, as it may be tripping the game up. This happens quite often on 64bit processors as they are more secure by design, but does kill programs randomly sometimes. Google how to do this as I don't want to be responsible for false instructions.

Close down all programs using Task Manager that you don't need open at the time. The biggest culprits are Anti-Virus and Firewall apps. If you are comfortable using the game while your AV is switched off, then go for it. 9 times of of 10 you'll be better off. Remember to switch it back on after you've finished playing. Personally I use Windows Defender only because then there's less chance of conflicts. I'm also not stupid enough to randomly open some EXE and mess up my PC.

Last solution, update all your drivers to the most that's possible, they can cause countless errors especially on Windows systems.

Finally, after more than 1 hour playing, I had no crashes, I think the DEP thing fixes it, I disabled it totally and it works atm.

For Windows 7 and 10 users, you have to open as administrator the cmd, then paste there this:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

If you want to enable it again just change the "Off" to "On"

Then, restar your PC, and that's all. Anyway I did the "verify intrgrity files cache" in properties of the game in Steam, to download again the "broken" file.

For Windows 8/8.1 users I think it's a different command, but I don't know what it's atm.

So, thank you so much for this fix, I hope I have no crashes again. ;)

[spacefarergames]

引用自 SRiva7：

引用自 patternjake：

OK this is what I've got.

Basically the CPU of your pc paused during the game because it was a sharing violation. This means that there is a process running from within Windows causing a conflict with the game EXE. Since the NT kernel manages what processes are running, this makes sense for it to show up in KernelBase.dll.

My ONLY strageties I have for you are the following;

Disalbe Data Execution Prevention, as it may be tripping the game up. This happens quite often on 64bit processors as they are more secure by design, but does kill programs randomly sometimes. Google how to do this as I don't want to be responsible for false instructions.

Close down all programs using Task Manager that you don't need open at the time. The biggest culprits are Anti-Virus and Firewall apps. If you are comfortable using the game while your AV is switched off, then go for it. 9 times of of 10 you'll be better off. Remember to switch it back on after you've finished playing. Personally I use Windows Defender only because then there's less chance of conflicts. I'm also not stupid enough to randomly open some EXE and mess up my PC.

Last solution, update all your drivers to the most that's possible, they can cause countless errors especially on Windows systems.

Finally, after more than 1 hour playing, I had no crashes, I think the DEP thing fixes it, I disabled it totally and it works atm.

For Windows 7 and 10 users, you have to open as administrator the cmd, then paste there this:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

If you want to enable it again just change the "Off" to "On"

For Windows 8/8.1 users I think it's a different command, but I don't know what it's atm.

So, thank you so much for this fix, I hope I have no crashes again. ;)

Your welcome, I always have DEP AlwaysOff on my PC as I work with code for work, I can't have it crashing my programs all the time. It was a lucky guess, or hunch, through bad experience.

[Sad Salad Man]

I disabled DEP but unfortunately the game still crashed.

[Coleco_84]

引用自 SRiva7：

引用自 patternjake：

OK this is what I've got.

Basically the CPU of your pc paused during the game because it was a sharing violation. This means that there is a process running from within Windows causing a conflict with the game EXE. Since the NT kernel manages what processes are running, this makes sense for it to show up in KernelBase.dll.

My ONLY strageties I have for you are the following;

Disalbe Data Execution Prevention, as it may be tripping the game up. This happens quite often on 64bit processors as they are more secure by design, but does kill programs randomly sometimes. Google how to do this as I don't want to be responsible for false instructions.

Close down all programs using Task Manager that you don't need open at the time. The biggest culprits are Anti-Virus and Firewall apps. If you are comfortable using the game while your AV is switched off, then go for it. 9 times of of 10 you'll be better off. Remember to switch it back on after you've finished playing. Personally I use Windows Defender only because then there's less chance of conflicts. I'm also not stupid enough to randomly open some EXE and mess up my PC.

Last solution, update all your drivers to the most that's possible, they can cause countless errors especially on Windows systems.

Finally, after more than 1 hour playing, I had no crashes, I think the DEP thing fixes it, I disabled it totally and it works atm.

For Windows 7 and 10 users, you have to open as administrator the cmd, then paste there this:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

If you want to enable it again just change the "Off" to "On"

Then, restar your PC, and that's all. Anyway I did the "verify intrgrity files cache" in properties of the game in Steam, to download again the "broken" file.

For Windows 8/8.1 users I think it's a different command, but I don't know what it's atm.

So, thank you so much for this fix, I hope I have no crashes again. ;)

I'll PM you.

[Palmer Eldritch]

Wow, much is going on here. Thanks for the many Tips and tweaks.

I'm using K-Lite, and my Version I used was pretty old the Update told me. Before I looked here again, I installed a new Version of K-Lite. But if I don't use K-Lite, I can't play a Video anymore. I rely on these stupid Codec-Packs since years and there wasn't a problem, not even a single time.

Also, I'm, using Windows Firewall and Windows Defender. Should I turn them off while playing Final Fantasy IX?

Bah, this is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. This Game should playback as smooth as the skin of a Baby. It's pretty hard to find a solution here. The K-Lite thing is, what bugs me the most. I will now try again the Game from the Start, and turining off the Firewall and starting the Game with a brand new K-Lite Codec-Pack.

Anyway! I'm glad I created this Thread. Many thanks to all of you.

[Zantagor]

引用自 Bob Falfa：

Wow, much is going on here. Thanks for the many Tips and tweaks.

I'm using K-Lite, and my Version I used was pretty old the Update told me. Before I looked here again, I installed a new Version of K-Lite. But if I don't use K-Lite, I can't play a Video anymore. I rely on these stupid Codec-Packs since years and there wasn't a problem, not even a single time.

Also, I'm, using Windows Firewall and Windows Defender. Should I turn them off while playing Final Fantasy IX?

Bah, this is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. This Game should playback as smooth as the skin of a Baby. It's pretty hard to find a solution here. The K-Lite thing is, what bugs me the most. I will now try again the Game from the Start, and turining off the Firewall and starting the Game with a brand new K-Lite Codec-Pack.

Anyway! I'm glad I created this Thread. Many thanks to all of you.

These days, unless you're into video creating/editing/encoding you shouldn't need K-Lite or CCCP anymore. Video players like Media Classic comes preloaded with any codecs you'd need, and it's not going to mess up with DirectPlay at all, which K-Lite is known to do for many games.