Am I on to something here? I had the zoom-out crash progress from some of the time, to most of the time, to all the time.

This last time, I went into the homeworld, fought the battle, and before trying to leave I sold every ornamental item from every single city. I got rid of all the fountains, trees, and other junk...just left basic buildings. It was a lot of stuff and took several minutes. I zoomed out and to my astonishment I did not get a crash.

About 2 minutes later I was attacked at the homeworld again. I flew back, fought them off, and noticed many of the ornaments were back again. Not as many, but quite a few. Again, I deleted a whole bunch of the ornamental items and again I zoomed out without a crash.

Maybe I just got a lucky string of two zoom-outs without a crash but I thought it would be worth mentioning so others can try it. Unfortunately, it is a slow, painful and stupid thing to have to do every couple minutes when your homeworld gets attacked. Perhaps the memory load of so many objects in so many cities on the homeworld is the problem here. That may be why removing turrets might help initially, but as more ornamental junk keeps building up it overloads the game again.

Hmmm....maybe if I just go ahead and destroy a few of my cities completely that will permanently fix it....

to be continued...

bwbullough wrote:Am I on to something here? I had the zoom-out crash progress from some of the time, to most of the time, to all the time.

This last time, I went into the homeworld, fought the battle, and before trying to leave I sold every ornamental item from every single city. I got rid of all the fountains, trees, and other junk...just left basic buildings. It was a lot of stuff and took several minutes. I zoomed out and to my astonishment I did not get a crash.

About 2 minutes later I was attacked at the homeworld again. I flew back, fought them off, and noticed many of the ornaments were back again. Not as many, but quite a few. Again, I deleted a whole bunch of the ornamental items and again I zoomed out without a crash.

Maybe I just got a lucky string of two zoom-outs without a crash but I thought it would be worth mentioning so others can try it. Unfortunately, it is a slow, painful and stupid thing to have to do every couple minutes when your homeworld gets attacked. Perhaps the memory load of so many objects in so many cities on the homeworld is the problem here. That may be why removing turrets might help initially, but as more ornamental junk keeps building up it overloads the game again.

Hmmm....maybe if I just go ahead and destroy a few of my cities completely that will permanently fix it....

to be continued...

I like your line of thought. For me, and a number of other members, this problem ONLY happens on the home planet, which also happens to be the planet most loaded with colonies, creatures, city plants, vehicles, etc. As pointed out before, SPORE does not save until you zoom out from a planet and it is during this transition at the atmosphere level that most users are getting the crash. That seems to say something to me. Considering I can zoom in and out of any other planet without freeze, I would think it's something to do with the game hanging when it tries to save something specific to the home planet (perhaps it is the number of colony plants like you are suggesting).

Another member suggested this thread be forwarded to an EA member to have their professional opinion. I don't see why that would be a bad idea. I find it sad that we users, the consumers who paid money for this, are left to do all of the testing of this glitch and I would certainly welcome anyone on the EA staff to help us figure this out.

Imac 24" 2.4Ghz intel core 2 duo 3GB ramATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro video card

my issue with zoom out crash appears to be fixed by simple not running the game online.

i need to goof around with it but i was wondering if this helped any windows users. ( i don't feel like booting into windows and reinstalling the game just to test this theory out)

but my issue was a full blown crash with a memory exception error.

eddiethetroope wrote:

bwbullough wrote:Am I on to something here? I had the zoom-out crash progress from some of the time, to most of the time, to all the time.

This last time, I went into the homeworld, fought the battle, and before trying to leave I sold every ornamental item from every single city. I got rid of all the fountains, trees, and other junk...just left basic buildings. It was a lot of stuff and took several minutes. I zoomed out and to my astonishment I did not get a crash.

About 2 minutes later I was attacked at the homeworld again. I flew back, fought them off, and noticed many of the ornaments were back again. Not as many, but quite a few. Again, I deleted a whole bunch of the ornamental items and again I zoomed out without a crash.

Maybe I just got a lucky string of two zoom-outs without a crash but I thought it would be worth mentioning so others can try it. Unfortunately, it is a slow, painful and stupid thing to have to do every couple minutes when your homeworld gets attacked. Perhaps the memory load of so many objects in so many cities on the homeworld is the problem here. That may be why removing turrets might help initially, but as more ornamental junk keeps building up it overloads the game again.

Hmmm....maybe if I just go ahead and destroy a few of my cities completely that will permanently fix it....

to be continued...

I like your line of thought. For me, and a number of other members, this problem ONLY happens on the home planet, which also happens to be the planet most loaded with colonies, creatures, city plants, vehicles, etc. As pointed out before, SPORE does not save until you zoom out from a planet and it is during this transition at the atmosphere level that most users are getting the crash. That seems to say something to me. Considering I can zoom in and out of any other planet without freeze, I would think it's something to do with the game hanging when it tries to save something specific to the home planet (perhaps it is the number of colony plants like you are suggesting).

Another member suggested this thread be forwarded to an EA member to have their professional opinion. I don't see why that would be a bad idea. I find it sad that we users, the consumers who paid money for this, are left to do all of the testing of this glitch and I would certainly welcome anyone on the EA staff to help us figure this out.

I THINK THIS IS A TEMPORARY FIX!!!! Ok, so after having read someone else's suggestion of doing this, I went ahead and did just that, sold every ornamental piece in all my homeworld cities. which in turn, lets me LEAVE MY HOME PLANET JUST FINE! WOW! I was surprised. I immediately saved the game, then zoomed back in to remove even more ornamental things. Some how I'm thinking these objects are getting randomly created, then perhaps (and I really don't know what I'm talking about), after a long time of playing more of these objects are made then there are place holders. So my thinking is that when leaving the planet the game has no idea where to store information on the placement of these "extra random objects", gets stuck in a loop and therefore in less words then more, crashes. After zooming in and out of my homeworld to get rid of these damned ornaments once and for all I was able to repair cities, and replace the turrets just fine. Seems like everything is ok as of right now. SO EVERYONE WHO IS HAVING HOMEWORLD LEAVING ISSUES...SELL OFF ALL THE ORNAMENTS IN YOUR CITIES BEFORE LEAVING THE PLANET! Granted this temporary fix is highly tedious and time consuming,BUT IT ALLOWS YOU TO PLAY THE GAME, which is good.

Igniskhin wrote:Imac 24" 2.4Ghz intel core 2 duo 3GB ramATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro video card

my issue with zoom out crash appears to be fixed by simple not running the game online.

i need to goof around with it but i was wondering if this helped any windows users. ( i don't feel like booting into windows and reinstalling the game just to test this theory out)

but my issue was a full blown crash with a memory exception error.

How do you do that? Is there an offline mode, or do you just unplug your net connection before playing the game? I thought most of the Spore files, like your saved games, were online so how does that work?

Add me to the list. Same deal, crashes after fighting off one of the endless homeworld attacks and I try to zoom out. Has happened with multiple games, always the same.

I've been watching this thread with growing dismay that despite the fact it is obviously a widespread, consistent and reproducible problem, there has been no comment or even acknowledgement from EA. SHAME on you!! and we know you check this - you shut down a poll someone tried running on here which would have indicated just how widespread the problem was!

I am fed up. For a game with so much hype, and delayed because they were apparently testing it, I have to wonder what the hell they were doing! Clearly not checking the games because besides the bugs, well fatal flaws really, they obviously didn't play the space phase long enough to tire of the endless attacks and biodisasters one after the other, like clockwork. BORING!

Don't get me wrong - the game clearly has potential - it's a great concept, just lousy in execution. Here's a thought EA - There are some very clever modders out there that have done amazing things with other games (fall from heaven for civ IV comes to mind - Kael and team are you out there???) I'm sure they could make this game what it should be - EA, the best thing you could do is hand it over to them!!!!

Oh wait, then you can't release expansions and wring every last dollar out of this debarcle.

Silly me

Bump, untill sticky

Hi guys. Ok maybe Im the only one but I have not experienced the zoom out crash at all. Im not sure if I havent reached that stage yet but am in the space age, with 4 colonies, and bunch of other goodies and badges aplenty.

I preordered the Galactic edition and have experienced no memory leaks or any other programming issues or crashes. My homeworld was constantly under attack at one stage but I did not experience a crash or anything. Im running a 7600GT Nvidia with the latest drivers and XP Pro with service pack 3.

Am I in for an ugly surprise or do I not have this issue?

Only thing i can complain about it that even on easy mode the game is HORRENDOUSLY difficult.

George Carlin on businessmen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_knQsNb7SdI&feature=related
(for a longer and better version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWWGaFEA41I&feature=related )
Doesn't it fit just like a glove on EA's businessmen?
Pay attention to the "costumer service" he talks about. Isn't that the way they teach people in EA how to treat the customer? It really looks so to me!
I never felt more sorry about buying a game before...

Any update on a fix for this?

Same issues here... full retail-downloaded version, when zooming out - CTD.

I am thinking it had something to do with EA's download manager, one time I had uninstalled the dl manager and ran spore from it's directory. That seemed to work! But then I realized I can't get updates, so I went back and installed the dl manager. = Problem returned !!!

Please fix this EA! or get rid of the download manager somehow.

I think there might be something to this ornamental bug bwbullough mentions. This fix also shows up here:
http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/135/1000.page

jinkajobe wrote:

anakinxp1 wrote:Hi,

Here's my suggestion for "space phase crash at home planet".
This may not resolve all issues, but please give it a try.

Problem 1 Can not remove turrets, etc.
Problem 2 Unexpected? spawn of decorative objects under City Hall.

For problem 1, you can only destroy them with lasers. Destroying them may fix at the moment, but I suggest you leave it stuck. I've also found some decorative objects that can not be removed.

For problem 2, the main issue, check under your City Halls. You might find 15 or so decorative objects underneath.
If so, don't touch it.(it may crash :p)

Remove few decorative parts to make some empty placement holds, then hit Alt ENTER to redraw the screen.
The objects under the city hall should be replaced(moved) to empty holders. Repeat till no more replacements of objects occur, for all your cities.

I assume this will free some occupied resources, and give you space for drops or spawns, and may saves you from resource overflow.
This means, you should claim dropped resources once in a while to keep safe margins.


Good space ex-spore-ation all!

I believe this is the key for people who are having homeworld exiting crashes (number 2 at least). After having sold all my ornaments in my cities I was able to leave the planet. I then saved, zoomed back in and continued to remove ornaments until all were gone. Granted this process takes about 1 hour (at least for me it did), BUT it allows you to leave your homeworld. I suggest everyone who is having homeworld exiting problems try this fix.

I'm at work now so I cannot test this, but if anyone else can give it a shot, please report your findings here. ~crosses fingers~

If you haven't already, everyone should also submit this issue to EA's support to see if we can get their attention. Just login using the name and pass you use on Spore.

https://customersupport.ea.com/loginapp/login.do?curl=http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/home.php&surl=http://support.ea.com/cgi-bin/ea.cfg/php/enduser/cci/ecp_redirect.php?ext_vars=cF9zaWQ9QUJpcm01ZWomcF9hY2Nlc3NpYmlsaXR5PTAmcF9yZWRpcmVjdD0*@charset%20%22UTF-8%22;

bwbullough wrote:Am I on to something here? I had the zoom-out crash progress from some of the time, to most of the time, to all the time.

This last time, I went into the homeworld, fought the battle, and before trying to leave I sold every ornamental item from every single city. I got rid of all the fountains, trees, and other junk...just left basic buildings. It was a lot of stuff and took several minutes. I zoomed out and to my astonishment I did not get a crash.

About 2 minutes later I was attacked at the homeworld again. I flew back, fought them off, and noticed many of the ornaments were back again. Not as many, but quite a few. Again, I deleted a whole bunch of the ornamental items and again I zoomed out without a crash.

Maybe I just got a lucky string of two zoom-outs without a crash but I thought it would be worth mentioning so others can try it. Unfortunately, it is a slow, painful and stupid thing to have to do every couple minutes when your homeworld gets attacked. Perhaps the memory load of so many objects in so many cities on the homeworld is the problem here. That may be why removing turrets might help initially, but as more ornamental junk keeps building up it overloads the game again.

Hmmm....maybe if I just go ahead and destroy a few of my cities completely that will permanently fix it....

to be continued...

Confirmed!

I went through all of my cities deleting every non-functional decorative addition (trees, fountains, lamp posts, etc.) And it worked! I was able to leave my home planet and save the game.

I don't have time right now to keep playing and see how long it will last but at least for the moment this seems to be a workable temporary solution - this suggests to me that it was some sort of memory buffer overload for the video card, but I'm not expert so I can't say.

Anyway, my cities look really drab and boring now but at least I can play the game again!

decrepitude wrote:

bwbullough wrote:Am I on to something here? I had the zoom-out crash progress from some of the time, to most of the time, to all the time.

This last time, I went into the homeworld, fought the battle, and before trying to leave I sold every ornamental item from every single city. I got rid of all the fountains, trees, and other junk...just left basic buildings. It was a lot of stuff and took several minutes. I zoomed out and to my astonishment I did not get a crash.

About 2 minutes later I was attacked at the homeworld again. I flew back, fought them off, and noticed many of the ornaments were back again. Not as many, but quite a few. Again, I deleted a whole bunch of the ornamental items and again I zoomed out without a crash.

Maybe I just got a lucky string of two zoom-outs without a crash but I thought it would be worth mentioning so others can try it. Unfortunately, it is a slow, painful and stupid thing to have to do every couple minutes when your homeworld gets attacked. Perhaps the memory load of so many objects in so many cities on the homeworld is the problem here. That may be why removing turrets might help initially, but as more ornamental junk keeps building up it overloads the game again.

Hmmm....maybe if I just go ahead and destroy a few of my cities completely that will permanently fix it....

to be continued...

Confirmed!

I went through all of my cities deleting every non-functional decorative addition (trees, fountains, lamp posts, etc.) And it worked! I was able to leave my home planet and save the game.

I don't have time right now to keep playing and see how long it will last but at least for the moment this seems to be a workable temporary solution - this suggests to me that it was some sort of memory buffer overload for the video card, but I'm not expert so I can't say.

Anyway, my cities look really drab and boring now but at least I can play the game again!

If you return to the home planet though, don't the colony plants start reappearing? If you only have to delete them once, I could live with that, but it would be unacceptable if I have to manually delete all of those useless colony bits just to play the game. By the time I finished getting rid of all the plants, I would probably be getting attacked again...

I can confirm it as well, at least tentatively.

Upon removing all the colony decorations and pressing alt+enter to make everything redraw, I found (as the poster suggested) a wealth of extra decorations, some of my cities even reused all the available space I cleared. After cleaning then alt-entering a second time I mopped up the straglers that had appeared, zoomed out...and left my homeplanet! (with a very slight hangup, which scared me)

I have only tested once so I'll report back after playing longer, but since others are having success, I'll say that I think we've found a fix, great thinking.

One thing that crossed my mind however, is that some of my cities had generated enough decorations to fill their slots twice over with some spare. So it seems to me that cities can just keep cranking these items out. If that is the case then I suggest that over long periods of time even non-homeplanet colonies will cause upper atmospheric difficulty. For now we'll have to play janitor to our empires' wasteful decorating.