Party crashing - HELP! I'm about to go postal!!!

[teddyFBI]

Alright, I made a similar thread about this 2 months ago HERE but didn't get any closer to solving the problem, and now Party has released 2 upgrades but the problem is as bad as ever!! I need help. I'm going out of my mind.

<font color="blue">Cliff's Notes: Since early March, the Party client crashes INCESSANTLY on me. Sometimes after just 5 minutes of playing, sometimes longer -- <u>i THINK it may have something to do with dual-core processors, so I'd be especially interested in hearing from people who use dual-cores</u>.</font>


Symptoms
Basically, with no warning at all, the party software will start the "Internet Delay...15 seconds...trying to reconnect" dialogue, but then it gets down to "Connection Lost", and never reconnects. Other times, the software will simply stop responding altogether. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like when that happens:


In either case, as soon as I realize it has crashed, I Ctrl-alt-delete kill the Partygaming.exe process, and re-open the software as fast as I can, hoping that my hands are still live; i don't even want to think about how many thousands of dollars I've lost on no-DP NL tables b/c of this.

**My own trouble-shooting attempts / ruling things out**

1) A simple system reboot isn't the answer; i've re-booted started to play on Party without starting ANY other programs and i still get this crash (btw, this computer is only 2 months old, and top-of-the-line...and the problem only started happening since early March...p.s. i also uninstalled and re-installed the party software a few days ago; doesn't make it any better.

2) I notice that these crashes are especially frequent when the Party lobby pops up; for example, u know how when you close a table, the lobby automatically pops up? Well, I've noticed that the crashes are very frequent whenever that happens, or whenever I maximize the lobby from the task bar menus at the bottom of my screen

3) I know it's not a prob w/ my internet connection b/c I'm not getting crashes like this on ANY other site.

4) Here's where things get especially weird: I get this very same error on TWO of my computers &gt;&gt; both of them are brand new top of the line and have dual-core AMD 3800 processors. But on my 2-yr old Dell 9300 (single-core), no problems whatsoever -- unfort one of the problem computers is my desktop computer w/ multi-monitors (aka my poker-playing computer)

Given that the exact same problem happens on TWO of my computers, I find it very hard to believe that SOMEONE out there isn't having the same issues and can't believe it hasn't been mentioned on the forums. Someone out there -- plz come to my rescue.

***p.s. there was recently a thread in the software forum where Juk described a different problem he was having with the Party software...that it was lagging the more tables he opened up and would eventually crash...and it looks like he finally figured out a solution was to turn off font-smoothing. Just FYI, my problem seems to be more or less unrelated since turning off font smoothing seems not to have had any effect and the crashing problem i'm having seems to be just as bad when i've got 1 table open, as when I've got 6 tables open (HECK, it even happens when i'm just OBSERVING tables!!)

[teddyFBI]

bump
(i will be bumping this thread until i get to the bottom of this; k thx)

[brendanb438]

F you and your damn country that still is allowed to play on Party. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Wish I could help Teddy. But I live in the land of the free and the home of the brave, so I can't click mouse and lose house anymore.

I was one of the few people that would 8 to 10 table Party a year ago with PA Hud and PTracker and I never had problems. I guess I was lucky.

-Brendan

[MrHoobris]

A bunch of other regs are having problems in this thread.

Unfortunately no solutions, but you can take solace in the fact you're not alone.

[aislephive]

I have had problems with the Party client on and off, where it would crash and stop responding completely just like it did to you. Restarting seems to fix it for a while, and it eventually starts crashing again at which point I restart yet again.

I hope you find a solution as I know several other people have had problems with party crashing. Gl.

[mustmuck]

imdonelosing plays 25/50?

[shipitkthx]

I run party on Dual Core,

For starters, here are my suggestions:

A. Have 2 gigs of ram minimum.
B. Use Postgresql for PT.
C. Compact your PT databases NIGHTLY.
D. Defrag your hard drive NIGHTLY.

A simple batch script can be ran for C and D.

This has helped my performance quite a bit.

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
imdonelosing plays 25/50?

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah - a TON. at first i thought he was really good (mostly b/c he plays so much and so many tables at once...but the more i've watched him play, i've seen him make some DN-esque preflop calls, and river calldowns that can't be profitable on any planet.

[ QUOTE ]
I run party on Dual Core,

For starters, here are my suggestions:

A. Have 2 gigs of ram minimum.
B. Use Postgresql for PT.
C. Compact your PT databases NIGHTLY.
D. Defrag your hard drive NIGHTLY.

A simple batch script can be ran for C and D.

This has helped my performance quite a bit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the suggestions.
a) i have 2 gigs of RAM
b) i use postGRES SQL for PT
c &amp; d) I compact my PT DBs every once in a while, but rarely defrag my HD.

I wonder how much that has to do with the problem, though, because I never defrag'd my old HD either (nor do i defrag my 2-yr old laptop), and i never got problems like this. Let me ask you this...is there any reason c &amp; d would be more problematic on a DUAL-CORE computer? (b/c as i mentioned, i only get this problem on my brand new dual-cores AMD 3800 chipsets, and not at all on my 2 yr old single core Dell 9300 laptop)

[slim]

Teddy,

I don't have a solution for you but I can tell you that I have similar problems but much less severe. Every once in a while, I get the "internet delay ....15 seconds" thing and on both tables. Sometimes it'll come back and work for a few secs and then delay again and then eventually "connection lost". Where I seem to differ from you is that I can't load up any other web pages which you may think must mean that there is an internet connection problem on my end, but I am sure that there isn't because:1) when I reboot everything works again and 2) this crash only ever happens when I'm playing Party i.e. it never happens when I am just surfing. But I do get the same problem however, it seems less frequent than you and it is resolved by rebooting. Also, I don't defragment and only compact the db maybe once every 1-2 months. And I don't even know what "post..." whatever the other guy said about PT, means so Im probably not even doing it.

One other thing, when you get this ineternet delay when the pot is shipped, do you often see the chips in front of the winner while the next hand is being dealt?

[teddyFBI]

Slim, I def don't have the problem you describe where i can't connect to ANY other internet page when this happens...everything on my computer including internet access works just fine even when party is crashing/not responding. ***I should stress that: not only does it merely say "connection lost" when this happens, but the Party client actually stops responding / freezes completely.

I know the bug you're talking about when u say you see chips in front of the winner while the next hand is being dealt, but that's just a bug i think, and unrelated to the problem I'm describing...when the problem happens, as i wrote, the entire client freezes -- in fact, that's always the first sign that the program is crashing: it either gives me the internet delay countdown, or just freezes altogether, so no more hands are dealt (at least that i can see).

<font color="red">I'll say it again -- what i find most surprising about this whole thing is that I can't find anyone who is reporting having the same problem -- but it CAN'T be localized to just my computer because I get the EXACT same headache on both my desktop (at home) and my laptop (when i'm traveling), and with just as much frequency on each. How is it possible that i could experience exactly the same problem on two different computers, but no one else is reporting the same!!? The only similarity I can think of between the two is that they're both relatively new Dells, and i think i got close to the same processor on both: a dual-core AMD 3800. I guess the same programs are installed on both, but they were ALSO installed on an old computer where i didn't get this problem.</font>