[15.280] Loud, bassy "pop" followed by sound cutting out

[Maoman]

Log file is attached. Save file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23553672/Maoville.7z

I should say I do have one mod installed - prepare carefully - but it is not active so I don't think it could affect the game. Just seconds before this save was created, with no warning, I heard a bass-y pop sound and all sound stopped from rimworld. Windows sounds and sounds from firefox and such still worked, only rimworld was effected. When I opened the windows volume mixer, the green bar showing how loud the sound is was frozen in place, and adjusting the rimworld volume would create the same popping sound with every tick it moved (but it didn't happen when adjusting the main volume slider). Saving the game and exiting to main menu fixed it and sound came back at the main menu (without restarting the game).

There wasn't very much going on, so I don't think the sound board was overloaded, as was suggested in previous threads I found when I searched, and they were from A14 anyways. There were no other sounds playing at the time, rimworld was the only source of sound.

Windows 7 professional 64-bit
Nvidia GTX 780
Intel i5 3570k
Sound Blaster Audigy FX sound card with none of the special sound "enhancements" in the sound blaster control panel active.

Edit: It just did it again, now with even less going on (at night with only one settler awake and almost no background noise). Exiting to main menu fixed it again. It may have just been coincidence but it seemed to happen at the same time I moved the camera with the keys (not mousing to the edge of the screen). Also, moving the volume slider doesn't actually make more "popping" sound, it makes a very quiet hum while the slider is actively moving, as if it is popping but much quieter. Rapidly moving the volume up and down makes the hum louder.

Edit2: Turns out simply loading an earlier save fixes it too, no need to quit to main menu.

[attachment deleted by admin - too old]

[Calahan]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

There have been a few "sound suddenly cutting out" issues reported in the past (as you probably noticed from your own search). Here is one that sounds very similar to yours reported back in December 2014 (although I'm sure there have been more recent reports than that, but I only did a quick search of the Support forum for "sound").
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=8779.0

There have been various reported causes as well. Sometimes it's to do with the O/S (usually Linux as opposed to Windows), sometimes a driver issue, sometimes a Unity issue, and sometimes simply unknown. And I'm pretty sure there have been X number of unreported cases as well (I know I've experienced this problem a few times myself, but never reported it).

The official answer from Tynan around the time of the above linked post was...
"It's a mysterious bug deep in Unity. I'm afraid I can't do much for this but wait till they fix it :p"
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=8333.msg84313#msg84313

I don't know if this is still the case, but I'm fairly sure I've seen a more recent post (say in the last 6 months) from Tynan about there still being sound issues regarding Unity that he has no way of fixing.

Unfortunately I personally don't have a solution to your problem for you, as I can only post regarding what has been posted in the past on this issue. I don't know if one of the other moderators has more (up-to-date) information on this issue, or someone (moderator or otherwise) more technically savvy than myself has some sort of knowledge or workaround for sound issues like this. But if the root cause is a Unity issue, then there might not be any solution until Unity actually fix the issue at their end (and I have no idea if that has anytime frame attached to it).

[loc978]

Can confirm. I've been playing on both Linux and Windows since Alpha 3... and this one has never changed. Happens once in awhile in Windows, often in Linux... the older, bigger and more complex  the colony, the more likely it will happen.
It always seemed like some kind of task overflow break to me... but I do play this mostly on 9 year old hardware.

[Garthybooks22]

right.. if the sound in other games and windows isn't cutting out, ...

I mean I'm sure it's driver or possibly unity related.. find other games solely based on unity and play them like crazy and see if the sound drops haha..

[twoski]

i have had sound cut out before and i think it was because of many entities all emitting individual sounds (ie. lots of fire, or something like that)

[Maoman]

Thanks, Calahan. It doesn't really bother me since it takes less than a minute to save, go to main menu, then load again. I just wanted to report the bug.

The other three commenters all talk about exactly what I was trying to explain is not the issue. I saw many of the posts talking about sound overload something-or-other causing this bug. Thing is, my save which this happened on is fairly new and small, only four settlers, and no animals or fire or anything that could cause a lot of noise. The second time it happened (in my edit to the original post), especially so: that happened at night, with three of my four colonists asleep and the fourth simply harvesting some healroot. It was almost silent save for the ambient crickets, so definitely not a sound overload, especially considering I was playing on a much larger base with 35 chickens and 10 colonists in A14, and hadn't once encountered this bug.

Actually, the fact that I didn't encounter this bug once during my ~90 hours of A14 playtime and have encountered it twice in my ~10 hours of A15 playtime is exactly why I reported it - I figured it was a version specific bug.

[Calahan]

@ Maoman - I'm very glad to hear you are still able to play the game okay. From your original post it wasn't clear whether or not the sound was guaranteed to quickly cut-out every time you started playing. Which could have turned an annoying bug into an infuriating one, and making the game unplayable for you. So happy to hear you are still able to play the game.

Actually, the fact that I didn't encounter this bug once during my ~90 hours of A14 playtime and have encountered it twice in my ~10 hours of A15 playtime is exactly why I reported it - I figured it was a version specific bug.

Hhhhhhmmmmm, that's an interesting observation. Not sure if that is just an odd coincidence, an unusual good/bad luck sequence, or whether something has changed game/engine/coding wise that is making the problem trigger more frequently than before. I don't actually know how to find out which version of Unity RimWorld is currently using (and a forum search for Unity runs into the community problem), but maybe A15 runs on a different version of Unity than A14, which has actually made the problem worse? But that's just a pure guess on my part.


It might be useful to hear if anyone else is experiencing more frequent sound (cutting-out) issues running A15 compared to A14, so as to establish if there has been a genuine worsening of the problem or not.

[billycop32]

 I can confirm his issue in regardes to A15- I've encountered this bug before, but usually it is late game and a simple reboot solves the problem. however, I booted up A15 via steam today for the first time, and my FRESH colony encountered it and the game is now unplayable for me.

[Calahan]

ItchyFlea has posted the following message regarding this bug, so I'm updating this thread with the info.

If you encounter this issue, please post the output_log.txt/Player.log file with your post.

Depending on your Operating System, the log file can be found in different places.
On Windows it's in this folder where you (or Steam) installed the game: \RimWorldWin_Data\output_log.txt
On Mac systems it's located here: ~/Library/Logs/Unity/Player.log
On Linux systems I believe you have to tell the game to generate the file when you start it according to this:
"Pass '-logfile /tmp/rimworld_log' to the Rimworld binary. It generates a log at that location."

@ billycop32 - As per the above, is it possible for you to post your log file next time you run into this problem? Thanks.

[miR]

Have begun to experience this exact issue for the first time since updating to 15c.  Loud pop, followed by no sound - restarting the game resolves it.  I have not updated any driver recently.

Windows 10, 1511 build with an Audigy (not onboard) sound card.  Checked windows event logs on the off chance something popped up, nothing shown (shocker).

output_log attached, though it doesn't appear to offer much useful info.

Code Select Expand


Initialize engine version: 5.3.4f1 (fdbb5133b820)
GfxDevice: creating device client; threaded=1
Direct3D:
    Version:  Direct3D 9.0c [aticfx32.dll 20.19.0.32832]
    Renderer: AMD Radeon R9 200 / HD 7900 Series
    Vendor:   ATI
    VRAM:     3053 MB (via DXGI)
    Caps:     Shader=30 DepthRT=1 NativeDepth=1 NativeShadow=1 DF16=1 INTZ=1 NULL=1 RESZ=1 SlowINTZ=1
Begin MonoManager ReloadAssembly
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp-firstpass.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\Assembly-CSharp.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.UI.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.UI.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.Networking.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\UnityEngine.Networking.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\System.Xml.Linq.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\System.Xml.Linq.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\NAudio.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\NAudio.dll into Unity Child Domain
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\NVorbis.dll (this message is harmless)
Loading C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\NVorbis.dll into Unity Child Domain
- Completed reload, in  0.069 seconds
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\System.Core.dll (this message is harmless)
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\System.dll (this message is harmless)
Platform assembly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\RimWorld\RimWorldWin_Data\Managed\System.Xml.dll (this message is harmless)
<RI> Initializing input.

<RI> Input initialized.

desktop: 1920x1080 60Hz; virtual: 3840x1080 at -1920,0
<RI> Initialized touch support.

UnloadTime: 0.677620 ms
RimWorld 0.15.1284 rev139

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 37)

desktop: 1920x1080 60Hz; virtual: 3840x1080 at -1920,0
Unloading 5 Unused Serialized files (Serialized files now loaded: 0)
UnloadTime: 1.418571 ms

Unloading 23 unused Assets to reduce memory usage. Loaded Objects now: 6078.
Total: 15.478194 ms (FindLiveObjects: 0.241398 ms CreateObjectMapping: 0.282010 ms MarkObjects: 14.925534 ms  DeleteObjects: 0.028399 ms)

Initializing map from file Braselton (Permadeath) with mods Core

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 37)

Could not resolve reference to object with loadID Thing_Steel16447 of type Verse.Thing. Was it compressed away, destroyed, had no ID number, or not saved/loaded right?

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 37)

Could not resolve reference to object with loadID Thing_Steel16448 of type Verse.Thing. Was it compressed away, destroyed, had no ID number, or not saved/loaded right?

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 37)

Could not resolve reference to object with loadID Thing_Steel16451 of type Verse.Thing. Was it compressed away, destroyed, had no ID number, or not saved/loaded right?

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 37)

Could not resolve reference to object with loadID Thing_Steel16453 of type Verse.Thing. Was it compressed away, destroyed, had no ID number, or not saved/loaded right?

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 37)

Could not resolve reference to object with loadID Thing_WoodLog16460 of type Verse.Thing. Was it compressed away, destroyed, had no ID number, or not saved/loaded right?

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/UnityEngineDebugBindings.gen.cpp Line: 37)

Setting up 2 worker threads for Enlighten.
  Thread -> id: 3444 -> priority: 1
  Thread -> id: 1b80 -> priority: 1


[twoski]

I noticed the game uses another library for sound related stuff,  i assume this library is csusing the issues?  Is it known to have this problem?