Game freezes after playing a while (Can't load shaders)

walkman

I have had this problem for some time now. The game runs fine in the beginning but after a while it starts to freeze. The console says that shaders can't be loaded. It's always different shaders that can't be loaded anymore. I've attached a log file. I tried different GPU drivers, deleting the cache and deleting everything and reinstalling to no avail. Can anyone help?

Dusty killed Thegh with Gore
Shinda killed walther2920 with Gore
DutchQuaker killed Egg with Rifle
Relax (no mic) killed DutchQuaker with Bite
Dusty killed wastedninja with Gore
Dusty killed Riverbero 2 with Gore
Compiling 'cinematics/vfx_materials/jetpack_thruster.surface_shader'
Compiling 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader'
Error: Couldn't load shader 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader' for material 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.material'
Compiling 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader'
Error: Couldn't load shader 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader' for material 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.material'
Compiling 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader'
Error: Couldn't load shader 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader' for material 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.material'
Compiling 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader'
Error: Couldn't load shader 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.surface_shader' for material 'cinematics/vfx_materials/bilebomb.material'
Compiling 'shaders/Decal_Emissive.surface_shader'
Error: Couldn't load shader 'shaders/Decal_Emissive.surface_shader' for material 'cinematics/vfx_materials/decals/bilebomb_decal.material'
Compiling 'shaders/Decal_Emissive.surface_shader'
Error: Couldn't load shader 'shaders/Decal_Emissive.surface_shader' for material 'cinematics/vfx_materials/decals/bilebomb_decal.material'
Shinda killed Extractor with Gore
cyrestus killed zie with Bite
Dusty killed Thegh with Gore
cyrestus killed Phase gate with Bite
Bender killed Messiah_MouSe with Bite

DC_Darkling

start by disabling all mods and try again.
Also it should recompile everything if its not there last I checked

walkman

One of the mods is Jambi and I've had this problem before I installed it. The other one is the DAK admin kit. Can it cause such a problem and can you even disable it if the server runs it?

DC_Darkling

any mod can cause any problem

walkman

Okay, so playing without mods didn't help either. I just had to quit again cause the game began to freeze. I also ran a vram stress test to without errors. Any other ideas? This is ruining almost every game I play. Is there some log I can run while playing?

rws

Go into your local drive and navigate to Users\"your username"\AppData\Roaming\Natural Selection 2 and delete your cache folder. Then restart the game and let the shaders recompile.

walkman

Thanks for the reply but if you'd read the OP you'd know that I have tried that already and even reinstalled the game from different Steam servers without any improvement.

rws

While playing, in console type "p_logall". You can compress and upload it. Also, when the game freezes, leave it running, then navigate to Steam/steamapps/common/Natural Selection 2, and run the TechSupport tool.

IronHorse

Those shaders shouldn't be compiling during game play..

The fact that they can't be accessed is even worse.. Points to permission / hard drive access issues..
Right click ns2 short cut on your desktop and run as administrator.
If it still happens run some diagnostics on your hard drive to ensure its healthy

walkman

The game itself is on a Samsung SSD while the OS is on an Intel SSD. Both drives SMART values are fine. I also ran a full diagnostics scan on the Intel drive (which is where the cache etc. is) which was also fine. The permissions for the NS2 folders (both in AppData and the game folder itself) were also correct. I will try to run as admin next time but doesn't Steam handle this itself and shouldn't the issues come up right away if that's the problem?

I also ran p_logall today but the freezes didn't occur. I did notice however that the console was spammed with these error messages whenever I started p_logall:

Error: ExitNode for ClientGame::UpdateScript doesn't have matching EnterNode (current node is GUIDeathScreen:Update)
Error: ExitNode for ClientGame::Update doesn't have matching EnterNode (current node is GUIDeathScreen:Update)
Error: ExitNode for GUIManager:Update doesn't have matching EnterNode (current node is GUIDeathScreen:Update)

These are spammed for the entire duration of the log in repeat. Do they mean anything? Is there anything else I can try?

Thanks guys

DC_Darkling

It is possible you have harddisk errors in your windows event viewer. Can not harm to check.

walkman

I did, no errors

walkman

So the game froze again when I was playing 10 minutes ago. It didn't recover after the freeze so I'm not sure if it's the same problem as I had before with shader loading but I was running p_logall and also managed to run the TechSupport tool so I've attached both of the logs. Hope it helps.

Again, it may not have anything to do with my other problem.

Do these logs contain any sensitve information btw? If yes I might have to take them down and send them directly to whoever needs them.

IronHorse

No but they didn't create a dump file, as it would be a huge file being at minimum hundreds of megabytes.
Be sure to keep ns2 open even in a crashed state, when running tech if you wish to make a dump file

walkman

Actually it was running and it said it did make a dump file. Weird.

IronHorse

Hmm.. maybe that 11 mb was it. Forwarding to Devs. Thanks

walkman

Okay, so I just had that shader loading problem again. I was running logall and also ran the TechSupport tool while NS2 was still running, however I have to close NS2 to save the zip afterwards. Does the dump get deleted if you close NS2?

Here it is. It's really annoying because it always happens in mid/end-game and you suddenly get thrown out