Complete Device Shutdown: Possible Spoiler

[Trasd]

I've been playing off and on all day. I've also, earlier today and in the past, played for hours at a time with no problems.

Just a few minutes ago, the game completely shutdown my tablet. It froze for about 10-15 seconds, then the tablet turned off. This has never happened with this tablet before. I've been running this device for about a year and a half. The tablet was warm, but not too hot (IMHO).

Tablet: Samsung Galaxy TabPRO SM-T900 12.2" with Android 5.1.1, unrooted
EK: BETA 0.6.870
Location: Northern Varsilia, Kleyou Tomb

I had just picked up Gridssenda (my first interactive companion) and I took her into the tomb with me so I could finish clearing it out. I picket up some bracers and equipped her with them (fist item I gave her), then the lockup.

I wish there was a log I could submit, but no such luck. In fact, for the beta versions, you may want to keep a running log for these kinds of problems (or give us the option in settings). I'm sure most users would be OK with this - if not, they can opt-out by turning it off.

 

[DavidBVal]

Well, Exiled Kingdoms has no permissions to power off your device, so it must have been something else. Even if I purposely tried from code to shut down someone I couldn't, and the most terrible crash ever would never crash a device beyond its own allocated memory space.

I am sure there must be system logs somewhere in android, will look into it later.

 

[Trasd]

Well, Exiled Kingdoms has no permissions to power off your device, so it must have been something else. Even if I purposely tried from code to shut down someone I couldn't, and the most terrible crash ever would never crash a device beyond its own allocated memory space.

I am sure there must be system logs somewhere in android, will look into it later.

Android VM is supposed to do its own trash collection, but it doesn't always work. I realize EK doesn't register any shutdown hooks.

It wasn't a normal shutdown, it was a catastrophic failure. And yes, an app can bring down an entire system.

Android, as I'm sure you know, uses Logcat, but as I'm not rooted on this tablet, I cannot get to it.

 

[Trasd]

But, let me elaborate....

In theory, an individual app cannot bring down the OS, but they do. The VMs are supposed to be protected, but they are not (not completely or, clipboard sharing and such would not work).

If certain conditions are met, Android will shutdown the system.

I'm not necessarily saying EK is the culprit, but if others are experiencing the same issue under similar conditions, they'll now know they aren't alone and we'll know it could be EK.

 

[DavidBVal]

Well, Exiled Kingdoms has no permissions to power off your device, so it must have been something else. Even if I purposely tried from code to shut down someone I couldn't, and the most terrible crash ever would never crash a device beyond its own allocated memory space.

I am sure there must be system logs somewhere in android, will look into it later.

Android VM is supposed to do its own trash collection, but it doesn't always work. I realize EK doesn't register any shutdown hooks.

It wasn't a normal shutdown, it was a catastrophic failure. And yes, an app can bring down an entire system.

Android, as I'm sure you know, uses Logcat, but as I'm not rooted on this tablet, I cannot get to it.

Well, it is technically possible for a game to hard-crash a device, but it is a rare event, normally happening when there's an app that happens to call upon some unfortunate system bugs. Otherwise, excessive use of memory will just cause the system to shut down the proccess. And such bugs capable of crashing a system are normally related to faulty drivers. Example: calling the geolocation API where there's a crashy function, or, I remember a case back on Android 2.3 when trying to create accounts with empty data causeda hard crash. but nowadays, on a modern device like yours such possibilities are very, very rare, and EK doesn't do any specialized hardware calls... it just uses openGL and manipulates its own files. It also calls the GC proactively, although that's not guaranteed to work on all VMs. but it should normally never use more than 20-80mb of RAM.

Of course there can be a bug in my code that can potentially be the cause, I don't rule out any possibility. It *could* have been a bug in OpenGL or graphics drivers, triggered by something wrong in my code. but unless it happens again I am skeptic about EK being the cause, as no one ever reported something similar.

 

[DavidBVal]

But, let me elaborate....

I'm not necessarily saying EK is the culprit, but if others are experiencing the same issue under similar conditions, they'll now know they aren't alone and we'll know it could be EK.

Agreed that it is a good idea to post about this, so if someone else has the same experience, it can be linked to your case.

 

[Trasd]

Well, it is technically possible for a game to hard-crash a device, but it is a rare event, normally happening when there's an app that happens to call upon some unfortunate system bugs. Otherwise, excessive use of memory will just cause the system to shut down the proccess. And such bugs capable of crashing a system are normally related to faulty drivers. Example: calling the geolocation API where there's a crashy function, or, I remember a case back on Android 2.3 when trying to create accounts with empty data causeda hard crash. but nowadays, on a modern device like yours such possibilities are very, very rare, and EK doesn't do any specialized hardware calls... it just uses openGL and manipulates its own files. It also calls the GC proactively, although that's not guaranteed to work on all VMs. but it should normally never use more than 20-80mb of RAM.

Of course there can be a bug in my code that can potentially be the cause, I don't rule out any possibility. It *could* have been a bug in OpenGL or graphics drivers, triggered by something wrong in my code. but unless it happens again I am skeptic about EK being the cause, as no one ever reported something similar.

Yes, agreed, and well put.

I was working on an IME that consistently brought down the system (of course IMEs are a bit different). It was a simple error, but I think Android saw it as a security attack and shutdown the OS each and every time.

That's what I meant by specific conditions. I think it is more apt to happen if you're writing in C instead of Java.

I also agree this isn't something you need to waste any time on whatsoever, unless it is reported by multiple users.

 

[Aeron Rivers]

Same problem here, same tablet.
Always thought that android itself shut down the ystem as a reaction to either a physical limitation (ram, video memory or processor requirements at certain moments) or a logical incompatibility.
Haven't to much of a fuss about since the game always worked restarted. Until yesterday - now, I don't mean it is a result of the same bug, could be something else, but the game doesn't even start. While loading gives the stopping message, then dies.

 

[DavidBVal]

do you get a "report" button when it crashes?

I suspect the immediate shutdown has damaged some of the game files... did you make a backup of the savegames? if so, please unisntall and reinstall, then restore your backup.

Being the same device, I suspect the culprit must be some bug in the video/opengl implementation or in the drivers; although I will look up for it in support bases to see if it's identified and can be a workaround.

 

[Aeron Rivers]

Hi
Yes, there was a report buton, inside the Android (??) Message "unfortunately your application has stopped. Report/ok" . I pushed on report, I guess the log will somehow come to you.
I'm not sure the crash is related this time with the previous problems. Maybe is related with the last update, 0.6.879. In settings, EK appears as being 0.6.879 version, yet I didn't get any notification of application being updated. In playstore also no update buton, only uninstall and open.
If I re-install the game what happens with my progress? I hit the backup once, probably in the beginning, level 2 or 3... Do I get back there?
Thanks, cheers!