Trouble with Spit5 skin.. need help!

[Kweassa]

I'm wondering if anyone else is having CTD/freeze problems with Spit5 skins.

 ...

 The skin downloads were commencing fine. After each new download, I would go to the hangar to check it out.

 But after I got a notice that the spit55.res file was downloaded, I pressed the 'Hangar' button on the clipboard. Then, the system froze up. I couldn't exit, or even warm-boot my system. I had to reset it.

 Initially, I thought it was a minor glitch of some sort, because I was running some background programs. So, after a new reboot I terminated all background programs and started AH2 again.

 Runs fine, until I press the hangar button. Woops, there it is again. System freeze.

 I tried to isolate what the problem was, but each time I went to the hangar the system froze up. So, I tried this. I started AH2, and by entering dot command ".plane 1", and forced a change in the 'last plane selection' thing to the P-51D.

 Okay, this worked. I could go to the hangar, and select other planes. No problems at all. But again, when I select the Spit5 in the plane roster, the system froze up.

 So what's the problem.. I thought to myself. It had to be something with the Spit5. So, I went to the skins folder, and deleted all Spit5 skins - all spit5*.res files -.

 Restarted AH2, and no problems at all now. I could go to the hangar and select whatever plane. No freezes or crashes.

 I thought it might have been some kind of corrupted download that could be causing a problem, so a new download should be good.

 The Spit5 res files were downloaded automatically... then the problem came again. System freeze, as I press the hangar button.

 ...

 I think something might be wrong with one of the Spit5 skins. I don't think it's my problem, because deleting the Spit5 skins worked, and other skin downloads weren't presenting any kind of problem.

[Engine]

This EXACT thing has been happening to me for a few months, and is my biggest gripe about AH.  It seems to be a skin or plane problem, definitely something to do with Spit5s, and it isn't just a hangar issue.  There have been times when I'll see an -enemy- spit5, get close (200-600), and I get a system hang exactly like the hangar one.  It seems to fix itself, somehow, but it always comes back periodically.  Otherwise, I get the same problems as you, Kweassa.  Click on hangar, lockup.  Reboot, same thing.  Give up, try a few days later, it works.

I've tried reinstalling AH completely in the past, but the lockups keep happening.  I've also tried unselecting Texture Precaching (since it seems to be a skin problem, I thought that might do something), but the lockups still came back eventually.

I've got an Athlon MP 1900+, latext DirectX, Geforce Ti500 (currently running 65.73 drivers), 1 GB of RAM.

It's a huge pain in the ass.

[Kweassa]

Holy shi*.. This is ironic..

 Engine, I think I fixed it.

 
 Engine, it seems to be a cache issue. My theory is if for some reason a download is corrupt, or a cache file is corript, there might be a sort of a 'mismatch' between the skin files and the cache file for that specific skin, which would cause a system crash.

 I deleted the entire content of the cache folder.. no more problems now.

 Judging from what you've said, there seems to be something with one of the Spit5 skins which might result in a high probability of cache problems. My guess is that since you have this problem every few months, it would imply that everytime a new Spit5 skin is registered and downloaded, it might be causing a corrupt cache problem.

 I've never had this problem with any of the skins until today, when new Spit5 skins were downloaded.

 Try deleting the contents of your cache folder too.

[Engine]

I'll certainly try it the next time it happens, and here's hoping it works!

Thanks.

[Kev367th]

Had it once.
When new skins are being released I always move any skins I am working on out of the main AH2/skins folder before getting the downloads.
Not had a hang since.

[Skuzzy]

You do not need to delete the entire cache contents, just the ones of the skin that is giving you an issue.  They are in sub-folders in the cache folder and named the same as the res file (i.e. SPIT55.RES = SPIT55 cache folder and so on..).

The reason the corruption occurs is a bit of a mystery (I would speculate some external application is having some effect), but adding CRC checks could cause the game to take forever to load.

It could also be due to modems using error correction and compression, if you are on a modem connection.

It is a tricky issue.

[Engine]

Thanks Skuzzy.