Unloading Unused Assets - how do i disable this?

[agnyeshkae]

I came back after 6 months to enjoy the game as i have always been.
I noticed there is some new thing, at times appears 'unloading unused assets' in the corner, which freezes me up for 5 minutes then disconnects from the server, EVERY TIME.
If it will happen in a wrong moment i guess i will be killed. How do i disable this completely stupid thing, please? The game was epic from the start, please developers, do not fix what isnt broken, you are destroying a very good game, i lost all will to keep playing because of this.

[GinsengSamurai]

Go to your Valheim folder for both the server and your local computer. Do you see any of these folders/files?

BepInEx
doorstop_libs
unstripped_corlib
winhttp.dll
start_server_bepinex.sh
start_game_bepinex.sh
doorstop_config.ini
changelog.txt

If so,move them into a temp folder or delete them. Now restart the game and see how that works out.

[agnyeshkae]

Thank you for your help, i will try that.

EDIT : I do not have any of those files. I have been told those files are from mods, i never used any mods in this game. So i hope someone can tell me another solution please.

[Kafka]

Other people reported the same issue:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/1/3841053719660314968/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/1/3842178984953998213/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/1/3781372783241565364/

It's possibly since the mistlands update, and maybe related to RAM problems (lack of? slow?).
But why is the unloading of assets -which is supposed to help to free ram- is actually *killing* the computer ? And why is it since the mistlands update?

[GinsengSamurai]

Originally posted by agnyeshkae:

Thank you for your help, i will try that.

EDIT : I do not have any of those files. I have been told those files are from mods, i never used any mods in this game. So i hope someone can tell me another solution please.

How much RAM do you have? Also, how much free space on the hard drive? This is coinciding the server. My dedicated server is running on 32GB RAM and on an SSD with about 340GB free space. Runs without any issues. Not that you need 32GB of RAM, but if your server is running 8GB or below, that might be an issue.

[Kafka]

The server has about 50GB of free ram (no mod).

[GinsengSamurai]

Originally posted by Kafka:

The server has about 50GB of free ram (no mod).

So 64GB total RAM? What about hard drive space? Have you tested your RAM? Do you have enough space for your pagefile? Have you tried installing it on a different drive? Have you tried making the pagefile automatic?

[agnyeshkae]

50 right, (Kafka and I play on the same server), and now we find threads from people about this issue posted months ago, and the problem is still here even if devs confirmed they know the issue.

So basically they broke something very big in their game long months ago, AND instead of putting all efforts and resources into fixing what they have broken in a very smooth working game (for 2 years), they post bragging about ashlands works... Good job devs, good job.
Maybe you will notice what is really important once people start leaving your game.

I dont get it, they realeased a smooth working fantastic game. And then started breaking it and do not fix what they have broken, wtf
And there is no customer service about it at all, heads buried in the sand and maybe it will fix itself.

[Kafka]

Originally posted by GinsengSamurai:

Originally posted by Kafka:

The server has about 50GB of free ram (no mod).

So 64GB total RAM? What about hard drive space? Have you tested your RAM? Do you have enough space for your pagefile? Have you tried installing it on a different drive? Have you tried making the pagefile automatic?

Yes 64GB and there's no memory stress on it, It has been working smoothly for a long time, and the setup hasn't changed., It's also never swapping (it's a linux server). not sure if the issue is server or client side but something has changed in an update this year and is not working properly.

Is there a way to generate a debug log on cli and server ?

[GinsengSamurai]

Originally posted by agnyeshkae:

So basically they broke something very big in their game long months ago, AND instead of putting all efforts and resources into fixing what they have broken in a very smooth working game (for 2 years), they post bragging about ashlands works... Good job devs, good job. Maybe you will notice what is really important once people start leaving your game.

I understand and acknowledge your frustration. It is legitimate and the developers need to address it. However, I have been working in software development since the late 1990s and you're making assumptions that don't fit how software development works.

Saying they are aware of the bug, means they acknowledge there is a bug. It doesn't mean they know where the bug is, and/or how it's triggered. Specifically, in this case, the developers need to prioritise fixing certain bugs over other bugs. It's just how development work.

Software development, especially in Early Access, will never put their entire development team on one task. It's inefficient and development will never get done. Bugs exist on a tracker. Developers get to it, when they have gotten to other things, or if enough people vote for it to get it fixed first.

This is Valheim's bug tracker: https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/ - More people want the Crossplay (545 votes) bug fixed, than the Unloading Assets (20 votes) bug fixed. This is on top of dozens of other bugs they are currently addressing. More specifically, this is the Unloading Assets bug: https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/suggestions/346524/game-freezesstutter-for-12-seconds-when-unloads-unused-assets

[GinsengSamurai]

Originally posted by Kafka:

Yes 64GB and there's no memory stress on it, It has been working smoothly for a long time, and the setup hasn't changed., It's also never swapping (it's a linux server). not sure if the issue is server or client side but something has changed in an update this year and is not working properly.

Is there a way to generate a debug log on cli and server ?

Yes, in Windows, there should be crash logs in the Appdata/LocalLow/IronGate/Valheim folder. However, I do not know what the Linux equivalent of that is. (Can someone like L1m3r address this? He uses Linux as his server.)

Just parsing through that thread I linked above, i see this comment from an admin:

06 Dec, '22
Smiffe Admin

That might explain things.

We have an issue right now with something called Garbage Collection where the game removes objects the player don't need to see.
Not sure if your older DDR3 makes things extra sensitive or not.

You can always try and adjust the settings ingame and see if you notice any diffrence.

Of course, that is a band-aid, rather than an actual solution.

Just curious, as a test, does the crash still happen if you play a new world? Alternatively, have you tried direct-to-player connection instead of to a dedicated server? I'm just checking off things to test.

[agnyeshkae]

Thank you for your polite and professional explanation. I looked thru these pages and seeing how many bugs are there in this game i have just one conclusion about this. They apparently do not check and test updates well enough and rush them to go live. And then a ton of bugs and problems appears. So still not too professional behaviour on their part. They must check every update, if they wont break the game going live with it, before they do it. I thought i had a problem lol but it seems the game is full of bugs right now and when i played it in 2021 and 2022 i had absolutely not a single problem with this game. So that tells me a lot about how incompetent developers are there in this game, sorry.

What they should do is to restore the game to the last no issues version (even if it means version before mistlands) and fix their bugs off line, not like they bugged the game like hell and do nothing about this now.

By the way sorry but considering the graphic quality of this game, the game should run on 1 gig ram machines, smoothly. Meanwhile 32 is not enough LOL

I guess ill take another 6 or 12 months break and come back then to see if they handled the bugs or not. But yeah i just checked 20k on line in game. And i remember times with 130,000 on line LOL so i guess what i said was true. Bugged game made many people quit. And they do not realize it, working on a new biom instead LOL

Good luck to them. They need it.

[Kafka]

Originally posted by GinsengSamurai:

Just curious, as a test, does the crash still happen if you play a new world? Alternatively, have you tried direct-to-player connection instead of to a dedicated server? I'm just checking off things to test.

She has it connecting to the dedicated server, her computer hangs (for a good 5 minutes) and then disconnects, the server does not crash, so far i could not replicate it on my side but i'm still testing. Her computer has little ram, however she didn't have the problem in the past, neither freezes nor disconnects.

If i'm not wrong and she can confirm, when she plays with a friend of her who hosts the game, she has mostly freezes.

However the world on the dedicated server is much more populated so i don't know if this plays any role in the freezes going til disconnect..

[Kafka]

One player here has the same issue and he has 16GB of ram, which should be more than enough not to face problems:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/1/3842178984953998213/

This one mentioned he had 8GB of ram (and didn't retry the game since he upgraded his pc):

https://steamcommunity.com/app/892970/discussions/1/3781372783241565364/

That's low but that still should be enough.

[GinsengSamurai]

Originally posted by Kafka:

She has it connecting to the dedicated server, her computer hangs (for a good 5 minutes) and then disconnects, the server does not crash, so far i could not replicate it on my side but i'm still testing. Her computer has little ram, however she didn't have the problem in the past, neither freezes nor disconnects.

I'm wondering if Mistlands added 'unnecessary weight' to the game's minimum requirements. 16GB of RAM should be more than enough to run the game. So far, I haven't ran across any game breaking bugs (knock on wood), but I am just curious as to why it happens to some but not with others... I really wish I can help you. You have been very patient with your explanations, and I really want to help resolve this with you.

The only other place that I can suggest getting better answers, is to join Valheim's official discord here: https://discord.com/invite/valheim

Sorry to waste anymore of your time with my unhelpfulness, but can you share with us your system specs and Agnyeshkae's system specs?

[agnyeshkae]

Originally posted by GinsengSamurai:

Sorry to waste anymore of your time with my unhelpfulness, but can you share with us your system specs and Agnyeshkae's system specs?

I have 4 gigs ram computer, sadly my mainboard wont see 8 that i have. But i play much more demanding games than Valheim, much more advanced graphics, such as State of Decay 2 which in some way may be a game to compare, because it resembles the mechanics. I never had any problems in SoD 2 and many others that are much higher graphic details. So its not a matter of my ram. Especially since iv been playing Valheim since the first release in 2021 and i never had any problems there until i came back lately. And its the 'unloading unused assets' that crashes my game. Its something new added lately. And since its something that many others have a problem with, even 16 gig ram people, it means its just another bug on a pile of plenty in this game and developers admited to know about it months ago, yet still didnt fix it. We found a few threads about this and majority of people who experience it, wont even bother to post, may not even know about forum either, they just stop playing the game and move on to another. So id easily say 4-5 threads about the issue translates into 100s with this problem who just left the game because its nearly unplayable.

I mean first big problem i can imagine, what happens when 'unloading unused assets' occurs when you are traveling between portals? Game moves you fast between A and B and if it breaks when youre above the open ocean, will you land in the middle of the ocean without a boat after you return, or where are you gonna be, its hard to forsee this, maybe that will bug completely, remove your character with whole inventory, we cant really know.

Next situation, im scared to sail. Because when it will happen in the open ocean and i log back in, i am going to land in open water without a boat. Considering i play always solo it may take me a lot to fix what the game broke. Wont even mention how unfairly deadly this situation will be for my skills that i have 100 or nearly 100 in most of them. At the start dying doent cost much. But when i die now, i lose progress on skills worth 4-6 weeks? And its not because i played bad, but because the game is bugged. So yeah i dont feel like playing it anymore until its fixed. If it will ever be. And i imagine im one of plenty.

And the careless attitude from developers regarding this issue works pretty much discouraging to even keep checking in the future. Each of us has tons of games to play and put our time there. And this kind of policy (not fixing what has been broken by an update, FOR LONG MONTHS), is something that drains the players base significantly. We just move on to the games that are not bugged and offer happy entertainment. No matter how much we loved some game once. My library is full of games i played long ago every day and now i realize i have not touched them for 5-7 years. And as much as i hate to think about this, Valheim is on its way there if they wont get their butts to work, fixing what they broke. Every break from the game i take makes it more unlikely to return. Considering how many new games appear on the market.

And lastest stats for Valheim are really not too good. It looks like they lost 75% of players compared to what i remember? Even more probably.