"AppHang" when playing Ren'Py games

[Jackkel Dragon]

I suspect this is the wrong place to ask since it's almost certainly a problem on my end, but I'm not sure where else to ask...

Lately, I've been having problems with Ren'Py and games made with Ren'Py, where seemingly randomly they will stop working with the error description being "AppHangB1". This then prevents me from forcing the process to close from Windows Task Manager and prevents me from opening anything Ren'Py related, while also causing the computer to freeze while shutting down. The only fix I can find for this so far is to do a hard reset and hope the problem doesn't appear again.

After having had a problem with a game from a different engine that was solved by adding exceptions to my virus scanner (Avast, in my case), I tried adding exceptions to the folders that contain Ren'Py and games made with Ren'Py, but that hasn't stopped the problem from occurring.

Has anyone else had a similar problem, and if so, has anyone found a fix for this? (I'm using Windows 7 as my OS, if it's OS-related.)

Error info from most recent crash (Sunrider Liberation Day):

Code: Select all

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:	AppHangB1
  Application Name:	Sunrider Liberation Day.exe
  Application Version:	0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:	5586cc5c
  Hang Signature:	a33d
  Hang Type:	0
  OS Version:	6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
  Locale ID:	1033
  Additional Hang Signature 1:	a33d10026b6147c855e81b789139beb0
  Additional Hang Signature 2:	8bd4
  Additional Hang Signature 3:	8bd4397d40f9c7e62d857de2166452a1
  Additional Hang Signature 4:	a33d
  Additional Hang Signature 5:	a33d10026b6147c855e81b789139beb0
  Additional Hang Signature 6:	8bd4
  Additional Hang Signature 7:	8bd4397d40f9c7e62d857de2166452a1

[firecat]

AppHangB1 is often related to viruses, Trojan horses, spyware programs, etc. You need to find that one program that is messing it up. the list of noticeable programs that causes AppHangB1 will include:

Any number of torrent programs

One of many Steam games (remember Steam never checks if a game is safe)

A broken program

and lastly you might have created the problem yourself without knowing.

The best suggestion would be to remove the program that you think or had downloaded, after that do a full on viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, etc scan. If none of that works than you do need to do a hard reset.

[Jackkel Dragon]

I don't think I've used any torrent programs on this computer, so that probably isn't the problem in this case. I've also done a full virus scan and did some of the things my virus scanner suggested for boosting performance. However, I still managed to get an AppHang while I was trying to do something in Ren'Py:

Code: Select all

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:	AppHangB1
  Application Name:	renpy.exe
  Application Version:	0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:	5586cc5c
  Hang Signature:	cbe4
  Hang Type:	0
  OS Version:	6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
  Locale ID:	1033
  Additional Hang Signature 1:	cbe46f2bf13274cb1561ea694d4b9576
  Additional Hang Signature 2:	5aa7
  Additional Hang Signature 3:	5aa7b7b761f0a357308bdb28d89b2866
  Additional Hang Signature 4:	cbe4
  Additional Hang Signature 5:	cbe46f2bf13274cb1561ea694d4b9576
  Additional Hang Signature 6:	5aa7
  Additional Hang Signature 7:	5aa7b7b761f0a357308bdb28d89b2866

I'll run a boot-time scan with my virus scanner, but at this point I'm not sure what the problem could be.

[papillon]

Whatever you do, don't start randomly deleting or reinstalling things 'just in case', this is a great way to turn a minor problem into a major one. Go slow and think it through first!

This is a generic crash message which certainly can be caused by viruses and malware but isn't always, sometimes it's bad interactions between multiple programs or a graphics card fault, possibly outdated drivers.

Did you start having this problem recently and can you think of anything that you might have changed on your computer recently? Anything that updated itself, or any 'helpful' tools you might have installed?

Unfortunately this sort of error message is, as far as I can tell, most likely specific to your computer and its particular configuration rather than an error with RenPy itself, though it is interesting if it's only RenPy games that are giving you errors. Do the errors happen differently if you change RenPy to use a different rendering mode?

[Jackkel Dragon]

Boot-time scan didn't come up with anything that would affect the problem, so unless my virus scanner is missing something that isn't the problem. I also went and updated the graphics driver after reading this thread, though I doubt it's the problem since the previous version was only 10 days old. (I've had this problem for a while, it's just gotten annoying enough that I want to resolve it. Unfortunately, that means I don't know of any specific things I may have done to trigger the problem.)

Unfortunately this sort of error message is, as far as I can tell, most likely specific to your computer and its particular configuration rather than an error with RenPy itself, though it is interesting if it's only RenPy games that are giving you errors.

Yeah, I've sort of guessed it's a problem with my own setup when I couldn't find any existing threads on the issue. The only things that seem to be affected are Ren'Py games (and Ren'Py itself), RPG Maker MV, and maybe Internet Explorer (that one might be a different issue, since it doesn't force me to do a hard reset to open a new IE session). (What's more annoying is that the problem is sporadic: sometimes everything works fine for hours, sometimes games crash/hang instantly.)

Do the errors happen differently if you change RenPy to use a different rendering mode?

I'm not sure I'm familiar with switching the rendering mode for Ren'Py. Does this have to do with changing the graphics card used (like from a laptop's built-in Intel card and a more powerful one)? Or is it something separate?

Since it might be important in resolving the issue, the main graphics card I've been using is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M. I've set it to default to this card for all programs unless specified otherwise, as I've had a lot of problems with other types of games not being able to run on basic Intel cards in the past.

[firecat]

it could be possible that you had install NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M the wrong way and is why so many programs are getting these message. check for any lose connections in your computer, make sure nothing is oddly out of place. if everything is fine than you have a broken computer.

[Jackkel Dragon]

Still getting the problem, despite the things I've attempted changing so far. I'll try seeing if switching the rendering mode for Ren'Py helps any, but I'm not optimistic.

it could be possible that you had install NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M the wrong way and is why so many programs are getting these message. check for any lose connections in your computer, make sure nothing is oddly out of place. if everything is fine than you have a broken computer.

The computer I'm working from is a laptop, so I don't think I can mess with the inner workings of it. So if it's a hardware problem, it'd be something I can't really fix...