Error While Processing Packet Causing Game Crash

Help and Feedback Scripting Support
, , , ,
#1

After closing my previous post about game crashes approximately a month ago,
updating my game several times for it to run at a much more stable state.

I think I finally found the true cause of the game crashes,

“Error While Processing Packet”

More information relating to previous experiences and attempts at fixing the issue :

My game had always experienced performance issues such as, low framerate or stuttering. Me and two other members of the development team usually ignored such things due to the game still being in development. After nearly a year into development, Roblox released their Shoreline Update, which we wanted to try out. As soon as the game was updated to the new shorelines, we tried out the game which at that time didn’t notice anything odd. After a short period of time though, the game started to experience full-on game crashes (Crashing without any error messages, just directly closing). In which, I have made a post previously mentioning of such crashes, but wasn’t aware of the reason behind it.
We decided to remove all scripts from the game in an attempt to figure out the issue, it seems to have made the game last longer without crashing but still crashes in the end. Lastly, I began replacing different things in the game in order to improve performance.

And now, we’re here.

The Developer Console shows ‘Error While Processing Packet’ before the game encounters Error 260.
And according to one of the members, he encountered an even more descriptive crash message with ‘bad allocation’ (The image below)

Error1
Error11296×903 371 KB

I have searched around several forum posts, but they all seem to be fairly outdated and unrelated.

UPDATE : Several things I have forgot to mention,
the game crashes doesn’t occur on lower-end devices,
the terrain and nearby structures usually stop loading in or loads in incorrectly when nearing a crash,
the game tends to crash when the Client memory usage reaches near 3000MB,
the game’s Client or Server memory usage never decreases and only increases,
when StreamingEnabled is set to false, the game almost crashes within 10 seconds.
the game tends to face these issues more often when rendering in new regions of the map.

I personally don’t know much about what this all means, can someone please describe the error or even suggest a possible solution into stopping the game crashes?

#2

Based on the information you have provided, it seems like the “Error While Processing Packet” message in the developer console could be related to network issues. The error message suggests that there may be a problem with the way the game is handling data packets that are being sent and received over the network. It’s possible that the game is not properly handling the incoming data packets, leading to memory errors and crashes.

One possible solution could be to review the code that handles network communication in your game, to ensure that it is properly handling incoming data packets. You may want to review the code for any memory leaks or other issues that could be causing the game to crash.

Another potential solution could be to optimize your game’s performance, as it seems like there may be underlying performance issues that are contributing to the crashes. This could involve identifying and fixing any bottlenecks in your game’s code, as well as optimizing any resource-intensive scripts or assets that may be causing issues.

Additionally, it’s important to ensure that your game is up to date with the latest patches and updates, as game engines like Roblox are often updated to address performance and stability issues.

If you continue to experience crashes even after trying these solutions, you may want to consider reaching out to Roblox support for further assistance. They may be able to provide more specific guidance on how to address this particular error message.

#3

“exception while signaling: bad allocation” has to do with memory usage. Some culprits could be things like not having enough memory to accomplish a task, causing it to fail. Allocation is the act of distributing resources over multiple tasks, bad allocation can mean that a part of the game messes up while trying to allocate resources, what it could be beats me though.

Instead of showing the F9 console, can you go into studio and show the logs there? usually they contain a bit more information about what is going on.

#4

Sadly, I am unable to replicate the error inside Roblox Studio as running the whole server on my PC results in an unplayable 1 - 2 FPS and crashes a minute after.

But I do have a log from when I played the game, are such things safe to share?

#5

you should only share client logs with roblox staff, as it says on their help page:

Only upload logs by sending to the bug-files group and only do so if a Roblox Employee asks you to. To identify a Roblox Employee on Dev Forum, make sure it says “Roblox Staff” next to their account name

I can’t really help you much further if I can’t get more info on the error.

#6

Though according to all you have mentioned, I have previously attempted.

In one of the tests, we removed all scripts and all possible things (Any physics objects or anything that could relate to a major impact on performance) that could be the culprit of the crash, but is unsuccessful as the game continues to face either an Error 260 Disconnection Crash or Crashing Without Messages.

Optimizing the game is currently my first priority, this includes shortening the code
(Roblox’s Generative AI has been very helpful on this part)
or rebuilding certain structures with mesh or replacing distant objects with textures rather than parts and also removing unnecessary terrain.

Something to note is that the crashes doesn’t occur on lower-end devices, despite the horrible framerate. Playing the game on my phone is nearly unbearable, but never crashes regardless of the playtime.

**I have updated the post with some new info near the ‘UPDATE’.

The game is currently running on the latest version with TeamCreate enabled with some beta features enabled.

Lastly, how should I approach Roblox about this. I’m unable to post in the #bug-reports:engine-bugs or any other Roblox BugReport section at the moment.

#7

Such obvious ChatGPT.

Proof

Additionally, it’s important to ensure that your game is up to date with the latest patches and updates, as game engines like Roblox are often updated to address performance and stability issues.

If you continue to experience crashes even after trying these solutions, you may want to consider reaching out to Roblox support for further assistance. They may be able to provide more specific guidance on how to address this particular error message.

No human would say that

More proof

image
image716×572 21.4 KB

#8

This isn’t necessarily a problem with instances (Parts, meshes, textures, etc.), because Roblox’s engine handles garbage collection for those. There are many games with millions of parts and still running very well, although it is recommended to keep the part count low.

The issue lies within the scripting. You can narrow down the problem this way by understanding the basics of networking, specifically client-to-server networking. Recommendation: Use the “Find All Replace All” tool in Roblox Studio to look for FireServer(), FireAllClients(), or FireClient() calls. This isn’t necessarily the only way to troubleshoot networking, this is to narrow down the likely cause of the data packets being misallocated!

At this point, it requires a good amount of knowledge to debug / troubleshoot the issue because the underlying problem is variable. You could also post the place file in this thread, after you remove anything that you do not want to share. This way, we can investigate more thoroughly. We can only do so much through text.

1 Like
#9

Will try, despite there not being any scripts in-game (That I know of at the moment) and get back to you.

1 Like
#10

one more question: how much terrain does your game have? I’ve looked around a bit and some people get the same error when they get virtual memory issues due to a lot of terrain being loaded in at the same time.

#11

Sorry for a late reply, my game currently contains 2 islands, both bases which are made out of terrain, the map is approximately 18x18 baseplates at the maximum of 2048 studs large with underwater being also made out of terrain near the island bases. Most of the terrain are only 8 studs thick, but some areas such as, mountains or cavern systems have thicker terrain.

(I say approximately because some areas have been expanded even more since the original planning)
As to truly how much terrain does the game have, I have no clue…

The StreamingEnabled properties,
TargetRadius is currently set to 2048 studs,
MinRadius is currently set to 500 studs,
The behavior is set to Default.

#12

After searching through every script in the game (Including the removed ones),

There are plenty of scripts that contain such calls, with most of them being related to Datastores.
But if we were to conclude that all of such scripts have been removed already, they shouldn’t be the culprit.

That leaves only one possible source with FireServer() , FireAllClients() , or FireClient() calls, it being the Roblox SocialInteractions module still being in-game.

I’m sure this is safe to share, the client log files all have ‘HttpTraceError’ inside.

#13

Identifying the cause of the crash seems to be the main issue here. There are tools that you can use to narrow down the likely cause of the crash. We know that the console log errors with exception while signaling: bad allocation, this is an indication of a memory usage related issue because computer programs require memory to perform algorithms and process data. Computer science theory explains more about how data is allocated in programs (keyword: stacks, queues, stack overflow, etc.) We can also see that your Client Memory Usages is very high, typically a Roblox game has about 1000-1500 MB of memory usage. Here are several ways to pinpoint the cause:

Script Profiler is a tool that is built in the F9 developer console, you can use that to see what scripts are building up memory usage. It will also tell you what line in that script is causing the issue.

Network Stats in Roblox Studio lets you see how much data is being transacted between clients and server, this will include rendering of parts and networking events. You can use this to measure how much data is incoming and outgoing; compare this to an empty baseplate or a fairly decent sized game to benchmark against.

There are also other stats that you can see from the Roblox Studio stats menu. This will further help you optimize the game, once you’ve identified the main issue with the crashing.

You mentioned that the issue doesn’t happen on lower-end devices, like a mobile phone, right? If that’s the case, this could be related to rendering objects in the game. While you have Streaming service enabled, you can experiment with the distance to see if the issue is within rendering graphics. This renders anywhere near your character, so try to place the SpawnLocation in a different area of the game to make sure that it’s not just one specific area.

You may also try saving the game as a place file and testing it by yourself, this will isolate the probable cause of it being a Roblox server issue and focusing more on your hardware specifications or Roblox Studio.

These type of issues are a pain, I’ve gone through the same issue before and it came from storing a lot of data in the game; hence why DataStore is also something to look at, as you’ve mentioned in your post. It’s best to assume that every script that your team or yourself has written, is the issue. Roblox systems like the Social Interaction module, is not going to be a cause of the memory leak, but you can always take a look into their work and decide if you need it or not.

Most likely, you’ll find a solution to your problem soon. It’s easier to fix the problem than identifying what causes it, so you’ll need to stay careful about what you add to the game by verifying that it works in an isolated baseplate. Just a very good tip that I recommend before you add anything into your main game.

#15

Update : I have still yet to receive an answer on what is exactly going on, even after looking through everything in the game, but I do have some information regarding the crash.

After experimenting with numerous gameplay mechanics, the most common cause to spark a game crash would be if something was going ‘fast’ or loading the map far too quickly so to speak.

Reading through every log of the game’s playthrough, it has become apparent that some sort of data issue is causing the crash (No clue as to what that data might be).

I will continue to investigate into this matter.