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

[TheMetetron]

I'm having the problem with opening jackpot tables. Trying a reinstall now to see if that does anything.

On a related note, Absolute Poker and www.wikitravel.org are also not working. No idea if there is some larger problem with my internet, but I find it odd that I can open regular Party Poker tables but not Jackpot tables.

Reinstalling did nothing. Still can't play on Jackpot tables. Also, the Party Cashier portion of the web site isn't functional for me.

Edit: Dual core Athlon, 2 gig RAM.

[TheMetetron]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm having the problem with opening jackpot tables. Trying a reinstall now to see if that does anything.

On a related note, Absolute Poker and www.wikitravel.org are also not working. No idea if there is some larger problem with my internet, but I find it odd that I can open regular Party Poker tables but not Jackpot tables.

Reinstalling did nothing. Still can't play on Jackpot tables. Also, the Party Cashier portion of the web site isn't functional for me.

Edit: Dual core Athlon, 2 gig RAM.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay this is pissing me off and I can't fix it. I see why TeddyFBI was so upset before.

[The_Scout]

We've experienced some of the same problems with the PartyPoker software, and we've have a lot of experience trying to keep it running. Based on that, we've come up with a couple of tips that seem to help.

Disclaimers: I am far from being a computer whiz, and this is just ad hoc knowledge. Also, this is based on trying to keep the Party lobby running without actually playing, so we haven't dealt with any problems associated with opening tables. And lastly, these problems were confirmed to occur on multiple computers, but they were all single-core Dell Windows XP machines.

OK, here are the main things that cause us problems:

1. The NL Hold'em tab is the Tab of Death. When you are on that tab, your chances of a freeze/hang are much higher.

2. The Party lobby has a tendency to randomly spawn additional processes when you click on stuff. The processes (including the original one) are all named "PartyGaming.exe." We've had as many as 4 PartyGaming.exe processes running at once. I have no idea what the other 3 are doing since only one lobby is open.

Here are some tips that may help:

A. Keep the task manager open to the processes and sort them alphabeticaly. If you see multiple PartyGaming.exe processes, find some time to restart the software. This is not usually urgent, but it will cause a problem eventually. When you close the lobby, only one of the processes will go away. You have to kill the other ones in the task manager.

B. If you see the Mem Usage for PartyGaming.exe start to escalate beyond normal, find some time for a restart. This is more urgent. Normal usage for us has been in the range of 30-50K. 70-80K or higher is a sign of trouble. Again, when you close the lobby make sure all PartyGaming.exe processes are killed.

C. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE. If you start up the lobby on the NLH tab, your chances of a crash in the first half-hour are much, much higher. Before you close the lobby, click on another tab (it will remember the tab you selected next time you boot up). Every time you start the software, look at what tab is selected. If it's the NLH tab, click on another tab and close the lobby, then restart it. I can't emphasize enough how much the average running time of the lobby has been increased by never starting up on the NLH tab. Also, you might not want to stay on the NLH tab while you're playing unless you have to.

Remember the disclaimers, and take it FWIW. YMMV.

I'd be interested to hear any other tips people have for keeping the software running.

[jukofyork]

[ QUOTE ]
We've experienced some of the same problems with the PartyPoker software, and we've have a lot of experience trying to keep it running. Based on that, we've come up with a couple of tips that seem to help.

Disclaimers: I am far from being a computer whiz, and this is just ad hoc knowledge. Also, this is based on trying to keep the Party lobby running without actually playing, so we haven't dealt with any problems associated with opening tables. And lastly, these problems were confirmed to occur on multiple computers, but they were all single-core Dell Windows XP machines.

OK, here are the main things that cause us problems:

1. The NL Hold'em tab is the Tab of Death. When you are on that tab, your chances of a freeze/hang are much higher.

2. The Party lobby has a tendency to randomly spawn additional processes when you click on stuff. The processes (including the original one) are all named "PartyGaming.exe." We've had as many as 4 PartyGaming.exe processes running at once. I have no idea what the other 3 are doing since only one lobby is open.

Here are some tips that may help:

A. Keep the task manager open to the processes and sort them alphabeticaly. If you see multiple PartyGaming.exe processes, find some time to restart the software. This is not usually urgent, but it will cause a problem eventually. When you close the lobby, only one of the processes will go away. You have to kill the other ones in the task manager.

B. If you see the Mem Usage for PartyGaming.exe start to escalate beyond normal, find some time for a restart. This is more urgent. Normal usage for us has been in the range of 30-50K. 70-80K or higher is a sign of trouble. Again, when you close the lobby make sure all PartyGaming.exe processes are killed.

C. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE. If you start up the lobby on the NLH tab, your chances of a crash in the first half-hour are much, much higher. Before you close the lobby, click on another tab (it will remember the tab you selected next time you boot up). Every time you start the software, look at what tab is selected. If it's the NLH tab, click on another tab and close the lobby, then restart it. I can't emphasize enough how much the average running time of the lobby has been increased by never starting up on the NLH tab. Also, you might not want to stay on the NLH tab while you're playing unless you have to.

Remember the disclaimers, and take it FWIW. YMMV.

I'd be interested to hear any other tips people have for keeping the software running.

[/ QUOTE ]
The multiple PartyGaming.exe processes are caused by lockups - ff the Party client detects that it has deadlocked, then it will try to kill and restart itself. Sometimes it doesn't kill off the old process properly leaving you with the phantom processes still running (this has happened to me a few times while I was getting the "CPU spike" problem).

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

PS: One other thing I should add is that even though turning off font smoothing and using 16bit colour fixed my "CPU spike" problem, I still get real bad CPU lag if I play on Empire (rather than Party) and leave the lobby maximized, but if I minimize it )or go back to playing on Party) then everything starts to run smooth again.

[teddyFBI]

Good tips Scout -- I also keep the task manager open and sorted alphabetically but for a different reason than you...for me, it's so that as soon as I see Party initiating its internet delay / crash sequence, i can ctrl-alt-del kill the process and restart it hopefully before my hand has been folded...i've lost SO many pots b/c of this damn crashing.

I'll try out the NLH-tab tip you gave...although i'm a little skeptical, i must admit -- there's been a half dozen times when i'd *thought* i'd found the solution b/c of one crash-free session only to have it crash on me minutes later.

Can I ask u this: are your symptoms the same as those i described in my OP? B/c there seem to be a host of other party crash bugs that i think are probably unrelated to what i'm experiencing. In particular, a lot of people are describing a LAG...or maybe it's a memory leak...but anyway, they're describing how party runs slower and slower the more tables they have open until it basically runs too slow to even be playable and has to be restarted...you seem to be describing something similar...

The problem i'm experiencing, though, seems to be a little different than this (although maybe related...who knows)

[jerG123]

teddy - have you contacted party support about this problem and if so did they offer any explaination or tips to fix?

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
teddy - have you contacted party support about this problem and if so did they offer any explaination or tips to fix?

[/ QUOTE ]

lol

[The_Scout]

[ QUOTE ]
Can I ask u this: are your symptoms the same as those i described in my OP?

[/ QUOTE ]
They are the same as this from the OP:

[ QUOTE ]
Other times, the software will simply stop responding altogether.

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree that there are probably many different problems that occur. My tips might help with some of them. I know for a fact that the NLH tip helps considerably on our computers.

[TehVader]

I'm having problems opening it too, I'm on a Dell 1900x1200 Duo Core comp. Everytime I try to load up a table everything just freezes...

[MrHoobris]

Has anybody come up with a solution to this other than the temporary fix of constantly reinstalling that doesn't work half the time anyway? Thanks.