GTA: IV Game Freezes and Rockstar doesn't know why.

[Hereward]

Mine is still running faultlessly, I was in big session last night online with about 7 of us playing some of the different game types and some teammatches against other teams....all faultless, perfect coms and one instance of slowdown which lasted about 30 seconds in a 16 player game.....this was out of a total of around 4 hours LOL But one problem did arise at the begining, One of our clan couldn't get online. He was having the same problem as me getting GTA to connect to the PSN, he however had already got his PSP system settings disabled, so he then disabled his media settings.....bingo straight in and working for the rest of the night.

 

[Pako]

My GTA 4 froze yesterday at start load screen, I tryied deleting my install, profile and my saves (backed up on USB) and reinstalled and attempted a fresh game, this still failed. Frustrated I finally tried the rockstar 12 step 'fix' and it worked perfectly, put my original save back on and havent have a problems since.

Still not happy though as I do want to reconnect my internet to the PS3 and other features, hope a patch comes soon.

Atleast you can play it now...., but I agree, the game is not as advertised.

 

[Pako]

I think I have a new plan. My PS3, 60gb is 18 months old and has a 2 year extended exchange warranty with Best Buy. I'll wait until the 120gb version PS3's come out, then do my one time exchange. I would exchange for an 80gb also, but they're all out of those to.

Getting mixed info from Bestbuy. Now they're saying the 80GB's will be available mid-June and will include MGS4 and a DS3 controller. Either the 80 or 120 makes no difference to me, I'll just have to wait and see I guess. 👍

 

[jammyozzy]

I think Rockstar have sorted whatever was broken with their servers, I've been able to play while signed in to PSN all day.

 

[land sea air]

In my case (60 gig PS3 bought about a year ago) I was stuck on the loading screen after the game itself loads and is loading your save file. First I tried deleting and reinstalling the game file, no good. Then I deleted the profile information (this is for your controls and other options), still stuck. Finally after several more tries I read about disabling the internet connection. After trying that the game loaded fine and I haven't had any issues since then, even after re-enabling the connection later on after saving again. I WOULD RECOMMEND TO ANYONE HAVING PROBLEMS TO FIRST DISABLE THEIR INTERNET CONNECTION AS THIS IS THE EASIEST AND QUICKEST METHOD. IF THIS WORKS YOU MAY EVEN BE ABLE TO ENABLE THE CONNECTION AGAIN AFTER SAVING IN GAME AT A LATER TIME. The only other problem I had was early on it froze for about 10 seconds twice, both times I pushed the PS button to try and quit and either that woke it up or it unfroze around the same time.

 

[jammyozzy]

I WOULD RECOMMEND TO ANYONE HAVING PROBLEMS TO FIRST DISABLE THEIR INTERNET CONNECTION AS THIS IS THE EASIEST AND QUICKEST METHOD. IF THIS WORKS YOU MAY EVEN BE ABLE TO ENABLE THE CONNECTION AGAIN AFTER SAVING IN GAME AT A LATER TIME.

Exactly. I think the 12 step 'fix' they put out was Rockstar stabbing in the dark and going after every possible cause until they found a common solution. There's no need to start deleting all you game data when simply doing this will almost certainly fix the problem. I had to start disconnecting from the PSN on Saturday morning, and this morning I was able to play while connected again.

 

[Pako]

Nope, not a fix for me.

 

[Spuds725]

My only issue was minor but had potential to be major--

I started up the other day and it hung up on the autoload of the most recent save-- shut down and tried again-- same thing. Luckilly I make it a habit of rotating among 3 save slots and when I quit playing, double save in 2 slots.... I deleted the most recent save, and then restarted and the one minute earlier save loaded up fine-- game has run flawlessly otherwise-- IMO it is a sony issue, not a Rockstar issue..... glitches by definition are random which these problems sound like they are-- bugs should happen to everyone as it would be a game programming error and we are playing the same game right??

 

[The359]

I did everything on Rockstar's 12 step program, except for deleting the game file and game save, and it still locked up after 20 minutes. The internet connection is not a fix to the problem with the disc drive.

 

[Eric.]

Mine freezes about once a day (X360). Almost always during a loading screen for a mission or cutscene. A few of the times the dashboard has popped up saying the disc was unreadable. Could be the game, could be my fourth 360 crapping out.

 

[Jedi2016]

I read a more detailed explanation on the IGN boards, apparently a response from Take-Two's tech support center.

There are apparently two different problems on the PS3, and which problem you're experiencing depends on which version of the system you have. Launch consoles and older versions of the system (i.e. 20/60GB) have a conflict between the game and the PS2 emulation hardware. Although it's not necessarily used by the game, it's still a part of the system and needs to be taken into account in the programming. Some glitch or hiccup is causing the problem.

Newer PS3 versions (i.e. 40/80GB) have the problem with the network connection causing the freeze. This is why not everyone can resolve the problem by disconnecting the network.. because the network problem apparently doesn't affect older consoles.

From what the individual said, they're putting together a patch for the network issue on newer consoles, but are still trying to figure out of a patch alone will be enough for the hardware problem of the older consoles. They think a firmware update for the system itself may be required (this may have something to do with the Blu-ray reading problem mentioned by the359, that it's a firmware glitch brought to the surface by GTA4). In either event, they're working on both problems and updates/patches should be available soon to resolve them. How soon is anybody's guess.. even if they finished the patches tomorrow, they'd still have to go through Sony QA before they could be released. My guess would be that it's a week or more away.

Given the prevelance of the errors, and that I have a launch unit, I'm somewhat hesitant to buy the game right now if it's an actual hardware conflict.. those are more severe than a simple bug, and can cause all sorts of other problems.

 

[Small_Fryz]

Could be the game, could be my fourth 360 crapping out.

No wonder microsoft has sold so many, half of those are replacements!

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

The problem I have with many of the explanations/speculations on what is causing these problems is that if true, it should affect everyone with the same hardware.

I have a launch 60GB PS3 that I have had since December of '06 and have so far logged over twenty hours on GTA4 without a single freeze, and I have seen other people with launch 60GB also saying they too have not had any issues with GTA4 freezing on them.

I realize there is clearly a problem with GTA4, and it apparently is affecting an unknown amount of users with both 360 and PS3 consoles, but it also appears to be rather random.

Perhaps the problem is in the installation process, and that there are some poorly mastered discs out there that are causing this issue?

I know this has happened for some DVD releases, where a batch of pressings got screwed up, so those that got the bad discs had image problems, while those that didn't reprted no problems at all.




Pako, have you tried deleting the GTA4 Game Data file, returning the game you bought, getting a replacement copy, and installing it? Or maybe find a friend locally who also has a PS3 version of GTA4 and install it (assuming they haven't had any issues with their copy).

It certainly is a mystery... one that Take Two must be quite nervous about.

 

[Pako]

The problem I have with many of the explanations/speculations on what is causing these problems is that if true, it should affect everyone with the same hardware.

I have a launch 60GB PS3 that I have had since December of '06 and have so far logged over twenty hours on GTA4 without a single freeze, and I have seen other people with launch 60GB also saying they too have not had any issues with GTA4 freezing on them.

I realize there is clearly a problem with GTA4, and it apparently is affecting an unknown amount of users with both 360 and PS3 consoles, but it also appears to be rather random.

Perhaps the problem is in the installation process, and that there are some poorly mastered discs out there that are causing this issue?

I know this has happened for some DVD releases, where a batch of pressings got screwed up, so those that got the bad discs had image problems, while those that didn't reprted no problems at all.




Pako, have you tried deleting the GTA4 Game Data file, returning the game you bought, getting a replacement copy, and installing it? Or maybe find a friend locally who also has a PS3 version of GTA4 and install it (assuming they haven't had any issues with their copy).

It certainly is a mystery... one that Take Two must be quite nervous about.

I have replace the install data several times but not with a different disk. I was reluctant to get another copy so soon because the chances them coming from the same batch would be pretty good. Once they get another shipment in, I may exchange it for another copy. That is the only thing I haven't tried just yet.

Good idea.

 

[spyrrari]

I think Rockstar have sorted whatever was broken with their servers, I've been able to play while signed in to PSN all day.

same here...since yesterday all works fine...

 

[KENJIusa]

Rock* will release a patch later today:
Link

 

[KieranMurphy]

It crashed on me for the first time this evening - first time after 40 something hours play (on Xbox 360). If every 40 or so hours is the average time between crashes then I can expect only a handful of crashes before I'm all GTA4'ed out. I can live with that.

I feel bad for those who can't play more than an hour or two and especially those who can't even get 10 minutes play out of it.

 

[Vonie]

Patchpatchpatchpatch is out.

 

[Pako]

Does it work for everyone? I'll offer my experience later tonight.

 

[Hereward]

Come on Pako, put that controler down and get Nico out of the strip club! You've had the brunt of problems on GTA IV let us know how it's going!


Quick update from PS£ fanboy..

Looks like Grand Theft Auto IV got a little band-aid patchwork today with a 1.01 update. It's a small little tweak at 18 MB, and it supposedly will fix up those freezing problems everyone's been getting antsy over. So far, we've been playing with the new patch for the past few minutes and everything seems to be going smoothly.

[Update: Looks like the freezing issue has not been fixed after all. Many gamers are stating the problem is persisting. Apparently, this update is supposed to fix multiplayer connectivity issues which cause the game to lockup. Eurogamer notes: "reducing the loads on the servers at GameSpy and hopefully the completely random hangs that some users have seen".]

Seems it works if the freez your experiencing was due to online PSN and game server problems but another issue still exists, I'll stick my PSP options on (those reading the whole thread will remember this fixed my freezing and logon problems) to see if the patch has cured my particular glytch! Nice to see rock star getting stuck in quickly and putting patches out so soon to fix the issues.

 

[Pako]

Come on Pako, put that controler down and get Nico out of the strip club! You've had the brunt of problems on GTA IV let us know how it's going!

I wish.

Didn't work for me...as I expected. Since my problem couldn't be solved by unplugging my network cable, I wasn't sure how the described patch was going to help, but I was hopeful never the less.

I think I need to stick to plan A unless I get some extra time and try plan B.

 

[Jedi2016]

I picked up the game yesterday and played for a couple of hours, didn't have any problems. I'm wondering what effect it will have considering I downloaded and installed the patch before I installed the game file or created a save-game.

Of course, I may turn it on here later tonight and have it lock up on me, who knows.. hehe.

 

[Robin]

This freeze issue made the news today... people are really pissed off that Rockstar are doing nothing about it but the devs are blaming in the consoles (go figure!) which is stupid because its your bloody game that doesn't work properly, not everyone else's games!

Robin.

 

[Joey D]

Ya Sony asked me if I was playing GTA when I called them to report a problem with my PS3. Seems like they have gotten a lot of calls.

 

[Robin]

What it is is that Rockstar doesnt want to face the fact that they might have to recall millions of copies of the game (if its something that is deep coded in the disc that can't be fixed via patch).

Did they seriously not ever play this game in their own development studio!.... how could they miss something like this... they cannot say it didn't freeze on any one of the tons of 360's and PS3's they must have!

Robin

 

[Joey D]

It's because game developers now, no matter what system(s) they make their games for do it half assed and make the general gaming population be their beta testers.

 

[Robin]

It's because game developers now, no matter what system(s) they make their games for do it half assed and make the general gaming population be their beta testers.

It seems to be an ever going trend that dev's 'release now - patch later' and its quite worrying as people are buying half assed games... you wouldnt expect this from someone as big as Rockstar!

They must be the biggest idiots alive to have not put one 'ready for production' disc into a console and played it for a bit before they printed millions..... simply insane!

Robin

 

[Jump_Ace]

Well said Robin....I haven't had the game freeze up *yet* but only played a couple hours and am now just waiting for it to freeze up. Perhaps if they recall it (which I HIGHLY doubt as no other game I can think of has ever gotten recalled) I will exchange it for MGS4...what do you say about THAT Rockstar?

Jerome

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

They must be the biggest idiots alive to have not put one 'ready for production' disc into a console and played it for a bit before they printed millions..... simply insane!

Robin

But they still cashed in. Cha-ching $$$$

 

[Joey D]

I wonder if this will hurt Rockstar at all? With the problems they've been having you would think that gamers might be turned off from future releases by them. Especially with the upcoming release of the next Midnight Club series.