Mobile [HELP] mid game crashing on my iOS

[Lulamay]

There seems to be no rhyme or reason. Morning, noon, or night in the game itself it crashes and completely takes me out of the game. I’ve tried to track the cause, but to no avail. Regardless of the actions I’m in process of; ie: fishing, mining, planting, waking in the morning, greeting my animals. I stated this problem last week, but it appears my request was deleted. I’ve updated, turned my iPad off and on, searched for help...
Please help. Thank you

 

[kohlrak]

I don't want a post to just magically disappaer with no response, but i hate to say that iPhones are a peculiar issue for me. I can't even count the number of times i've seen devs blamed for things completely out of their control because iOS has draconian policies about certain things all in the name of "battery life," and these settings cannot be overridden by the user, either. Apple's aware of the issues, but is outright shadey about how it finds ways to avoid responsibility for things. Odds are, there's nothing you or the dev could do, and apple will just blame ConcernedApe. For more examples, look into the issues of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) on iPhones.

It becomes reasonable to ask, do you have any other unity based games to play, and do they run into the same issues?

 

[Lulamay]

Thank you for your response. None of my other unity based games have this issue. Solely SDV. I will look into the issues of IRC. So, is it iOS as a whole? Because my game is only loaded on my iPad, not my iPhone.

 

[kohlrak]

Thank you for your response. None of my other unity based games have this issue. Solely SDV. I will look into the issues of IRC. So, is it iOS as a whole? Because my game is only loaded on my iPad, not my iPhone.

Yeah, it's iOS as a whole. Basically, Apple likes to add and remove features for developers to use, but the general public is never informed about this. Moreover, it's 99 United States Dollars per year to make and sell an app on iPhone, even if you wanted give the app away for free, you need to pay this fee as a developer. Moreover, applications may not run for more than 30 seconds in the background unless they fulfill certain criteria. For things like IRC, this means it crashes in the background.

What's worse, is that these updates seem to vary from i-device to i-device. My website, for example, works on Safari on some iPhones, but not on other iPhones, but works consistently on anything that's not from Apple. From what i've been told by developers, Apple products are an absolute nightmare to develop for, especially lately. They say it wasn't always like this, but it's this way now. My girlfriend has an iPhone 6, and she wants to be able to do something that everyone on Android, Windows, OSX (so it doesn't affect OSX, but it does iOS), Linux, etc can do, but for an iPhone, the only app that's available would cost 20 USD to even test to see if it would even work (using GIT to manage saves as it creates backups that can be transfered from system to system relatively easily once properly set up). The overall opinion of many devs is that if you want to support iPhone, make it a web app so you don't have to fight the fee or the other things, which explains why so many "download from youtube" or "make a ringtone" and such apps are websites, despite how slow that is. It's just so much easier and cheaper to avoid targeting iOS. It's a known issue for devs that you have to constantly update and even rewrite major portions of code to deal with iOS updates. It might automatically fix itself if a new update is pushed just because it'll update the unity backend, too, but i can't know for sure. All i know is that i don't bother with iOS support outside of making simple things for my girlfriend to use to upload pictures to my IRC server. She had to download a whole separate app (Prowl) from the IRC client (Palaver) just to get notications. She had to replace her old client which had both in one (Mutter), because the dev had a full time job and a life outside of constantly keeping the app updated.

Anyway, in windows versions, there is a crash log. I hear iOS now has a "files app" which can be used to find the saves of stardew valley. Is there any way you can think of to find an "error log", "crash log", or even "crash dump"? That could give us a bit more information.

 

[Lulamay]

Yeah, it's iOS as a whole. Basically, Apple likes to add and remove features for developers to use, but the general public is never informed about this. Moreover, it's 99 United States Dollars per year to make and sell an app on iPhone, even if you wanted give the app away for free, you need to pay this fee as a developer. Moreover, applications may not run for more than 30 seconds in the background unless they fulfill certain criteria. For things like IRC, this means it crashes in the background.

What's worse, is that these updates seem to vary from i-device to i-device. My website, for example, works on Safari on some iPhones, but not on other iPhones, but works consistently on anything that's not from Apple. From what i've been told by developers, Apple products are an absolute nightmare to develop for, especially lately. They say it wasn't always like this, but it's this way now. My girlfriend has an iPhone 6, and she wants to be able to do something that everyone on Android, Windows, OSX (so it doesn't affect OSX, but it does iOS), Linux, etc can do, but for an iPhone, the only app that's available would cost 20 USD to even test to see if it would even work (using GIT to manage saves as it creates backups that can be transfered from system to system relatively easily once properly set up). The overall opinion of many devs is that if you want to support iPhone, make it a web app so you don't have to fight the fee or the other things, which explains why so many "download from youtube" or "make a ringtone" and such apps are websites, despite how slow that is. It's just so much easier and cheaper to avoid targeting iOS. It's a known issue for devs that you have to constantly update and even rewrite major portions of code to deal with iOS updates. It might automatically fix itself if a new update is pushed just because it'll update the unity backend, too, but i can't know for sure. All i know is that i don't bother with iOS support outside of making simple things for my girlfriend to use to upload pictures to my IRC server. She had to download a whole separate app (Prowl) from the IRC client (Palaver) just to get notications. She had to replace her old client which had both in one (Mutter), because the dev had a full time job and a life outside of constantly keeping the app updated.

Anyway, in windows versions, there is a crash log. I hear iOS now has a "files app" which can be used to find the saves of stardew valley. Is there any way you can think of to find an "error log", "crash log", or even "crash dump"? That could give us a bit more information.

I’ll look into this tomorrow. I have absolutely zero knowledge on where to look, I’m going to ask my son for help. You’ve been a whirlwind of information. I’ll get back to you with my findings. Thank you

 

[kohlrak]

I’ll look into this tomorrow. I have absolutely zero knowledge on where to look, I’m going to ask my son for help. You’ve been a whirlwind of information. I’ll get back to you with my findings. Thank you

I've been cowboy coding (coding without getting paid to do so, without working for some volunteer organization, etc) for 15-20 years in various programming languages (C++, Assembly, VB, etc). I'm in a unique position to not only know more than the average coder, but since no one owns me i can be blunt about certain issues. ConcearnedApe might not even be aware of the iPhone issues since his code runs, effectively, in an emulator called Unity which worries about iOS for him, but even if he knows about them he can't blast Apple, Google, and Microsoft, because he could offend his customer base. I will tell you what i hate about everything.[/shamelessselfpromotion] When it comes to iOS, i'm particularly angry at all the trouble it causes me since my girlfriend got an iPhone instead of an android. Androids aren't prefect, either, iPhone issues are particularly expensive to fix.

 

[Odin]

Moreover, applications may not run for more than 30 seconds in the background unless they fulfill certain criteria. For things like IRC, this means it crashes in the background.

It's true iOS will kill apps if they exceed memory limits, and so older devices with less RAM will experience these issues with greater frequency. It may be helpful @Lulamay, if you can list which iPad you have (you can check this by going to Setting -> General -> About and looking for 'Model Name') and which version of iOS you're on (it will be listed on that same page).

ConcearnedApe might not even be aware of the iPhone issues since his code runs, effectively, in an emulator called Unity which worries about iOS for him

I can't speak for CA, but it's worth mentioning that the mobile ports of Stardew are handled by another company, The Secret Police.

 

[kohlrak]

It's true iOS will kill apps if they exceed memory limits, and so older devices with less RAM will experience these issues with greater frequency. It may be helpful @Lulamay, if you can list which iPad you have (you can check this by going to Setting -> General -> About and looking for 'Model Name') and which version of iOS you're on (it will be listed on that same page).

All platforms respond to that, though. Even windows will kill an app if the RAM usage for a single program exceedes what is available. Some OSes like iOS, Nintendo's OS, etc will not swap kernel memory, or even OS (or rather, the part of the OS that's not the kernel) memory, much to the dismay of developers, but that's what makes "home menues" come back so quickly. Since we don't know for sure, i don't want to say this is the case, but usually applications use the stack for variables, unless stardew's using really large variables. Then again, i'm not 100% sure what exactly unity does, but it's just easier for everyone (especially unity devs) if stack is used. And if the stack runs out, i can't see why there couldn't be a controlled crash (then again, no one ever implements signal handlers on mobile apps, despite it being entirely possible to [though, since unity, i'm putting this more on the unity devs than ConcernedApe]).

That said, apparently crashlogs are at "~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice" which i assume "~" is short for "/home/lulamay" or something like that. You can apparently extract them from itunes according to this random page i googled, but i imagine these instructions are out of date. The "Files" app on newer iOS versions supposedly lets you browse files like you can on android platforms, which, if so, means you could navigate to this directory. I'd ask my girlfriend to show me more, but despite being so much of a fan of apple more than google, she doesn't seem to know how to navigate either fairly well (Hopefully she switches to android as soon as this pandemic ends, if our risk factors don't end up a problem). These crash logs, if you can find them, would be of great use, especially if i can find a way to read them (knowing apple, they're probably encrypted in a format that can only be read by purchasing a dev license).

I can't speak for CA, but it's worth mentioning that the mobile ports of Stardew are handled by another company, The Secret Police.

Which also handled the android versions. If someone with android could poke in here with the same issues, the huge difference in restrictions would make it much, much easier to identify.

 

[Lulamay]

It's true iOS will kill apps if they exceed memory limits, and so older devices with less RAM will experience these issues with greater frequency. It may be helpful @Lulamay, if you can list which iPad you have (you can check this by going to Setting -> General -> About and looking for 'Model Name') and which version of iOS you're on (it will be listed on that same page).


I can't speak for CA, but it's worth mentioning that the mobile ports of Stardew are handled by another company, The Secret Police.

I have an iPad Pro 9.7 (2016) Version 13.4.1. Available Space 89 GB

 

[kohlrak]

I have an iPad Pro 9.7 (2016) Version 13.4.1

Of course, like all vendors, you can't find the technical specs you care about on the relevant page. Fortunatley, wikipedia told me 4 to 6GB depending on screensize. That's more ram than my tablet (and laptop) has, so it should not be a RAM issue, unless iOS is a titan, which i doubt since it is based on UNIX like android is. Then again, apple would not surprise me, but I try to give things the benefit of the doubt. I'm gonna go with not the RAM. Gib me log.

 

[Lulamay]

Of course, like all vendors, you can't find the technical specs you care about on the relevant page. Fortunatley, wikipedia told me 4 to 6GB depending on screensize. That's more ram than my tablet (and laptop) has, so it should not be a RAM issue, unless iOS is a titan, which i doubt since it is based on UNIX like android is. Then again, apple would not surprise me, but I try to give things the benefit of the doubt. I'm gonna go with not the RAM. Gib me log.

In following prompts, I was lead to Analytics for the crash log. Trouble is, no where do I read Stardew Valley (nor the initials). What exactly should i be looking for?

 

[kohlrak]

In following prompts, I was lead to Analytics for the crash log. Trouble is, no where do I read Stardew Valley (nor the initials). What exactly should i be looking for?

I wish i knew. I feel like I'd know it if i saw it, but i'm not sure what exactly we're looking for. If you could get a specific time for a crash and sort by time, that would be a dead giveaway, but I don't know what's really in there. I would ask for a screenshot, so i can see what you're seeing (since i don't have an iPhone of my own to follow along with you), but I don't know what all information goes into a crash report, and if you can't isolate the crash reports for stardew valley, I don't think it's wise to post crash data for other apps (what if an app crash occured that involved a password and it's stored on the stack frame?). Since stardew valley doesn't have a password system, that would be safe, but I don't know.

Here is something i found from apple, which could be out of date, telling me what kind of data I could expect to see. Does what you see look kind of like this? And are you seeing things like "exception type" or "signal"? If so, giving a list of the types of things you're seeing in that regard could help. SIGTRAP/EXC_BREAKPOINT/"Trace Trap" for example would tell us if someone accidentally left a breakpoint in the wrong spot. SIGABRT/EXC_CRASH/"Abnormal Exit" would be a C# type error. "exception code 0xbad22222" would mean that power saving features crashed the app, if i'm reading this correctly. EXC_RESOURCE/"Resource Limit" would likely be RAM or storage space (not the same thing). I could go on, but if you can identify which one is stardew vased on "timestamps", things like "ConcernedApe" or something like that, it would help. I believe stardew valley is a Unity game, so if it's the last unity game you played, identifying something specific to unity could help, as well. If you feel unsafe, but feel you can trust me (which i wouldn't encourage often), you could PM me some of what you're seeing, as well.

Spoiler: Supposedly, these are the steps, but i don't know for sure.

1. Open the Analytics & Improvements section of Settings.

2. Tap Analytics Data.

3. Locate the log for your app. The log name starts with <AppBinaryName>_<DateTime> for crash reports, or JetsamEvent_<DateTime> for high-memory use crashes.

4. Select the desired log.

5. Tap the Share icon, and select Mail to send the crash report as a mail attachment.

Just don't upload anything that you're not 100% sure is stardew valley, 'cause I don't know what data can be contained, and i don't want a password leak scenario on a public forum becaues you uploaded a crash log for skype, discord, or something like that in a place that everyone, including non-registered users, could read it.

 

[Lulamay]

I wish i knew. I feel like I'd know it if i saw it, but i'm not sure what exactly we're looking for. If you could get a specific time for a crash and sort by time, that would be a dead giveaway, but I don't know what's really in there. I would ask for a screenshot, so i can see what you're seeing (since i don't have an iPhone of my own to follow along with you), but I don't know what all information goes into a crash report, and if you can't isolate the crash reports for stardew valley, I don't think it's wise to post crash data for other apps (what if an app crash occured that involved a password and it's stored on the stack frame?). Since stardew valley doesn't have a password system, that would be safe, but I don't know.

Here is something i found from apple, which could be out of date, telling me what kind of data I could expect to see. Does what you see look kind of like this? And are you seeing things like "exception type" or "signal"? If so, giving a list of the types of things you're seeing in that regard could help. SIGTRAP/EXC_BREAKPOINT/"Trace Trap" for example would tell us if someone accidentally left a breakpoint in the wrong spot. SIGABRT/EXC_CRASH/"Abnormal Exit" would be a C# type error. "exception code 0xbad22222" would mean that power saving features crashed the app, if i'm reading this correctly. EXC_RESOURCE/"Resource Limit" would likely be RAM or storage space (not the same thing). I could go on, but if you can identify which one is stardew vased on "timestamps", things like "ConcernedApe" or something like that, it would help. I believe stardew valley is a Unity game, so if it's the last unity game you played, identifying something specific to unity could help, as well. If you feel unsafe, but feel you can trust me (which i wouldn't encourage often), you could PM me some of what you're seeing, as well.


Just don't upload anything that you're not 100% sure is stardew valley, 'cause I don't know what data can be contained, and i don't want a password leak scenario on a public forum becaues you uploaded a crash log for skype, discord, or something like that in a place that everyone, including non-registered users, could read it.

Thank you for all your research and info. I have to call it quits for today. I’ll do some more research and let y’all know my findings tomorrow.

 

[kohlrak]

Thank you for all your research and info. I have to call it quits for today. I’ll do some more research and let y’all know my findings tomorrow.

Awesome. When people report bugs like this, you're actually helping the whole community, because it helps people like ConcernedApe find nagging bugs in the code that he wouldn't find otherwise, because, most people who play a game or use a piece of software never report bugs, or report bugs as "★☆☆☆☆ diz gaym iz borked!!"

 

[ric]

There seems to be no rhyme or reason. Morning, noon, or night in the game itself it crashes and completely takes me out of the game. I’ve tried to track the cause, but to no avail. Regardless of the actions I’m in process of; ie: fishing, mining, planting, waking in the morning, greeting my animals. I stated this problem last week, but it appears my request was deleted. I’ve updated, turned my iPad off and on, searched for help...
Please help. Thank you

Can you be more specific about when the crashes occur. There are some known mid-game crashes which are very difficult to recreate - which is why we haven't been able to fix them.

 

[Maby]

Can you be more specific about when the crashes occur. There are some known mid-game crashes which are very difficult to recreate - which is why we haven't been able to fix them.

Hi, I don´t know about files and data but I have the same problem and I don´t know if it could help but for me it crashes every time I have more than half an hour playing or when three days have passed in the game and it´s totally random, you could be walking or fishing or talking to someone, I have to save the game every time I do something so I don´t have to start the day again or I just close the game and open it again and play three more days and close it again and play again, I repeat this routine everytime I play. I have an iPhone 6 and I just downloaded the game like a week ago

 

[Odin]

I have an iPhone 6 and I just downloaded the game like a week ago

Not a dev, so I'd wait to see if they can offer any further help, but this may just be your phone. The iPhone 6 is now five and half years old and with only 1GB of ram, it may just not be up to the task, especially the longer the app stays open for as you mention.

On the other hand, this may be a resolvable issue, so let's see what others say :)

 

[kohlrak]

Hi, I don´t know about files and data but I have the same problem and I don´t know if it could help but for me it crashes every time I have more than half an hour playing or when three days have passed in the game and it´s totally random, you could be walking or fishing or talking to someone, I have to save the game every time I do something so I don´t have to start the day again or I just close the game and open it again and play three more days and close it again and play again, I repeat this routine everytime I play. I have an iPhone 6 and I just downloaded the game like a week ago

Please do look into iphone crash logs. Ultimately, devs would end up needing them anyway to fix a problem.

 

[Odin]

Please do look into iphone crash logs. Ultimately, devs would end up needing them anyway to fix a problem.

I may be wrong, but I don't think the iOS version stores crash logs anywhere user-accessible like the PC version does.

 

[kohlrak]

I may be wrong, but I don't think the iOS version stores crash logs anywhere user-accessible like the PC version does.

I don't know for sure, but i assume the kernel level logs are available to the user, though. Given how apps crash anymore, the kernel level logs might be far, far more useful.