Anybody know anything about memory dump files?

from Sins Forums
I'm having some trouble figuring out why my sins mod continues to crash, I figured it would help if I could figure out how to read this nifty .dmp... I can't see to get this windows de-bugging utility program to function, it tells me that ti's unable to load symbols for sins? Not sure what this means, please advise.

modding
8,912 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
As far as I know, MiniDumps are completely useless. I hope someone comes along and says different but for us modders they don't seem to serve us any purpose at all.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
What Uzii said, Ironclad has debug tools to make sense of them, but for us they don't do much.

That said, minidumps are usually caused from technical reasons - incorrect definitions/syntax, missing/incorrect references, incorrect totals counts, things like that.
CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
The minidumps containing the data what is in the memory when the game crashed. To make them readable you need to make an Assambly dechypher.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Hello,
This may help...
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/041105-windows-crash.html?page=1

regards
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks guys, I ended up giving up and just randomly finding the typo after screwing about with dump files for about 2 hours... So I can load the .dmp, but it just tells me 'Hey, it screwed up, something about a memory exception pal, but couldn't tell you why!' It's like a redneck mechanic working on a fancy import car.
So, Skyline, or anybody else, I assume this Assembly Decypher thing-a-majig would give the reader whatever symbol sets it needed to make sense of the thing... How might I go about getting one? I think it would be a pretty huge benefit to the modding community as a whole if there was someway to tell what file the game was processing when it crashed... Might help to narrow down those typos a bit faster.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
To make full use of minidumps you need the source code. With that it'll usually take you to exactly the line (in the code) that had a problem.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
You can enable error logging by changing LogOutput FALSE to LogOutput TRUE in your user.setting file. The log files are saved in the debug folder.

(Your user.setting file is in Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting)

(and your log files are saved in Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Debug)

This will help you find odd changes you made.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Solar, you are my hero. If I could hug you from here, I would, and then we would have a strange awkward pause, and go our seperate ways.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
You can enable error logging by changing LogOutput FALSE to LogOutput TRUE in your user.setting file. The log files are saved in the debug folder.(Your user.setting file is in Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Setting) (and your log files are saved in Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Debug)This will help you find odd changes you made.
End of quote


Oh holy jesus I love you.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Excellent! In the folder where user.setting was is a file called camera.setting where I was finally able to get the spin-till-you-puke toned back to something reasonable.
It just amazes me how much they buried in the AppsData path considering that it is invisible in Vista. Thanks for the info Solar!