PC 4 Times in 4 days

[BloodWulfe]

I’m assuming this is an MD5 or whatever, (I’m not a programmer) but I’m losing my patience, I bought this game to build up and play, and I’m to the point I wish I never had. This glitch is beyond just upsetting, I’m pissed. The first glitch that deleted everything, I checked suggestions and saw a thread where you said it “rarely happens in the same place more than once” so I figured since it was done, can’t hurt to stay there and rebuild! But it happened again, and again! 4 times in 4 days, just as I’m starting to get back to where I was, I’m dc’d and get back on to see EVERYTHING gone! Before i never had problems with it. Now it’s every day!

 

[sandman2838]

Sorry to hear you are having problems with the game, specifically with the "MD5 terrain rewrite". There is a lot of information on the forum about it, some of it true, some of it best guesses, some of it just plain conjecture. The main problem with this is there are many things that can "trigger" a terrain rewrite. There are proven steps that can help you avoid this, but they are not a 100% guarantee.

Some of the suggestions I have used with great success are listed below. Hopefully these will help aleviate your issues.

1) Limit continuous play to no more than 1.5 hours real time. What I mean by that is while playing the game, take a break every 75-90 minutes and shut the game down completely. That means quitting the game then going to the manage game menu and quitting again. This helps clear the cache of potential memory leaks.

2) When done playing for the session, completely shut down the game as above and then completely shut down and unplug the console (I am assuming you are on xbox 1 as this error is far more prominent on xbox than on play station. This will completely clear the cache.

3) Nearly all terrain rewrites have warnings (all of the ones I have had, and or heard about have certain characteristics) that give you an opportunity to react and avoid them. What I am referring to is the UI Flicker, and or menu freezes, improper displays of menus or missing content in menus. This is often followed by a buzzing sound and the game crashing to dashboard. If you see any of these, immediately, and I do mean immediately go to your manage games menu and delete your local save. Don't do anything else first, don't quit, don't hard reset, nothing. What you are doing is getting rid of the corrupted save before the console has a chance to save it to the cloud, which is why it is important that you act quickly as the game routinely saves to the cloud (though not as often as it saves to the console). Once you have deleted the local save, Perform step 1 above, and restart. Your game will sync to the cloud, restoring all your game files from what should be a point just a few minutes prior to the crash.

I have done this for over three months now, including on several massive builds, builds within POI's, and builds with massive excavations all of which were considered possible causes. I have only had perhaps six crashes in that time, every one of which I can attribute to getting too absorbed in the game and exceeding the 1.5 hour time limit. Now this is no guarantee you won't still experience problems, but it's the best we got. The problem is multi-faceted and the dev's are chasing it as best they can. Unfortunately it has proved as elusive and though they are making improvements, the problem still persists and we are left with doing the best we can until they manage to find a final solution.

Good Luck and don't give up. The game is well worth the effort.

 

[Clare]

Hi BloodWulfe,

I am sorry to hear you have been hit with the MD5 error, and I completely understand the frustration this error can cause. I also must apologize if I was the creator of the MD5 thread you mentioned. The confirmed post which I update when I have new info is here - https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?50175-Known-Issue-Terrain-Rewriting-(MD5-Issue) which contained an edit. However if there was another announcement post from me with inaccurate information please do link me to it so I can edit it. I am sorry if you have felt mislead in any way.

For the MD5 error, if you are playing on XB1, there is a player found workaround which sandman (thank you!) mentions in their third post. The original post about this can be found here - https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?69218-Possible-work-around-and-or-solution-to-md5-crashes(base-wipes-resets) - As this is an unofficial player workaround that involves deleting and resyncing data, caution is advised. While I understand this workaround is not ideal, many players have said it helps them avoid MD5 errors.

The other two suggestions Sandman mentioned about are also reported by a number of players before the resyncing workaround to have helped them avoid crashes and potential MD5s.

If you are finding your game is lagging a large amount before crashing, and it's in the same area, there are some items which can add to the lag. These include large amounts of toggle lights, torches, candles, a group of growing trees / tree farm and woodframe windows all in the same area. Consoles in bunkers and power stations also seem to add to this. Reducing this items may help reduce any excess lag that may speed up crashes.

As Sandman mentioned above, there are multiple triggers for the MD5 error. While the team have fixed a lot of them, there are still some triggers remaining that are a little more difficult to fix. The team have not given up though and are still working on the issue.

Can you tell me if you are experiencing the MD5 being more frequent since the 1.0.18.0 update? Is it centered around your forge / crafting stations / storage area?

Clare

 

[Thebigbafwolf82]

I'm sure the folks working on this have their hands full, but this is wholesale destruction of a cornerstone for this game. Having my game crash, reload and turn to see days of toil vanish, more than once as the op, is a perfect way for me, or anyone wash their hands of 7 days to die. Again, im sure hands are full and minds are busy, but if this glitch isn't seen to 7 days to die will die long before the 7th day. Please, for your own sakes and for the sake of this game, get this problem fixed. Player work around aren't good enough. I can't imagine why this problem wouldn't be priority number one.