Bug - Normal Ad-Related Crashes

[Lililira]

EDIT: Previous title:

Mid-Battle and mid-Ad crashes, new today​

Starting earlier today, I've had multiple mid-battle crashes during Prize Fights. It started after I got a specific Ad for the first time ever, which also crashed mid-advertisement. Almost all other times I've gotten this Ad (or another Ad for this game) it's caused a game crash, and it seems to be a problem with these Ads only since I've seen other Ads since with no problems.

After the first time I got this Ad, my game crashed within the next 5-10 battles, which was the first time it's ever crashed like that this update. Every other time I've gotten this Ad, a mid-battle crash follows soon after, even if I restart the app to try and prevent it. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is a pattern, yada, yada. I don't know what 5 times is, but it's certainly Not Good™.

The Ad responsible:


The crash accompanies another issue with the advertiser's UI overlay not loading in properly, so I can't even tell which service is hosting it. The one time it didn't crash (out of the 5 times I've had this Ad) was when the UI loaded successfully, and it's the one host that has the green download button in the bottom right, and the end screen with the X shows the game being advertised on the left, with a white box and a jumping green download button on the right.



I haven't had any mid-fight problems like these before today, so I *think* it might be an issue with a bad Ad that showed up once it was placed into rotation in the Viewing Parlor. Maybe the mid-Ad crash is causing the game to improperly deallocate the RAM the Ad takes up or something, I don't know. For now, I've fully restarted my phone (which I'm hoping cleaned out any lasting gunk from the memory) and am going to be avoiding the Viewing Parlor for the time being. If I still end up with mid-battle crashes I'll report back soon.

 

[Lililira]

So I kinda just tossed this out here and left it to sit, but just for the sake of possibly helping other folks out, I will say that restarting my phone definitely helped with the Ad crashing issue.

I've also seen a lot less in-game crashes in general since restarting my phone and avoiding the Ad Parlor.

I've only seen the crash where it crashes on a server call after too many consecutive server calls twice since restarting. ( The crash that would happen at the start of fights or the CoC or Friends List after navigating through the main menu. )

The game also closes itself far less often when it's not the active app. ( Seen other folks that were having this issue, where the game would restart itself if left running in the background, even if no other apps were open / used while SGM wasn't the active app. )


Basically, turn your phone off and on again and avoid the Ad Parlor if you're getting a lot of crashes, it seems to help tremendously.


(Now to go back to using the ad parlor to see if that brings the crashes back...)

 

[Bones]

What device and OS are you playing on? We have a previous bug with certain Ads where it's music will play in the background so it's certainly possible that some other Ad may cause other issues. With the 4.5.2 and now 4.5.3 we've added some fixes to address crashes occurring at the start and end of fights. If you've updated to the latest and are still getting crashes please repost here.

And if you're still crashing after watching that specific Ad please let me know as well, sometimes they remove Ads if we can confirm they're bugged.

 

[Lililira]

I'm on an iPhone 7 running iOS 13.6

It's entirely possible the two issues are related if there's some kind of buffer overflow error happening with ads, or some other error that's causing ad data to be held onto for far longer than necessary, causing buildup of junk data in the RAM over time.

I haven't seen any start-of-fight crashes since 4.5.2 (EDIT: Thought I had updated to 4.5.2, but apparently I hadn't yet), but I did have one when opening the friends list after navigating through a bunch of menus as detailed here: Thread link

I have an Iphone 7 running iOS 13.6.1, and I've also experienced these crashes, and would like to give some more info on what I've noticed about them.


I've seen them happen on practically any page / window. Not only when starting a prize fight, but also commonly when opening the CoC or Friends List, and occasionally when viewing a Fighter's full page. Haven't seen it happen on Daily Events yet though. But I think all these crashes are related due to the second thing I've noticed.


They seem to happen when navigating quickly through different screens and menus. I've noticed it often when returning to Prize Fights after checking the CoC and sending gifts to friends. But it never seems to happen if I stick to the same mode / menu for an extended period, like when I'm clearing one of the dailies and just going from one fight to the next. If it does crash when starting a prize fight it's always on the first fight after entering that mode from the Main Menu.

One example would be: Starting at the Prize Fight menu > Main Menu > Friends List > CoC > Open Relics > Main Menu > Prize Fight menu > Crash when starting a fight. All actions within 1-2 minutes of each other.

Another would be: Starting at Daily Events > Main Menu > Collection > Sell some moves > Main Menu > CoC > Crash when opening Friends List. All actions within 1-2 minutes of each other.


I'll try and pay closer attention to what I was looking at the moment before it happens to see if it's related to any single menu / page, but so far it just seems to be an issue with quickly switching between things. Maybe it's a bug relating to too many server calls too quickly, or with the Main Menu itself? Who knows, certainly not me.


EDIT: Also worth mentioning that I haven't experienced the PF crashes as often as other folks seem to (only around 3-5 times since they started happening), even though I have an older phone so I'm not sure it's a hardware issue. Lots of crashes on other menus, mostly Friends List and CoC, but very few on the actual PFs. Could be due to some differences in how I use the app and menus, but it's still worth mentioning.

I have been avoiding the Ad Parlor since the first post in this thread (Jan 22), so I can't say for sure whether this specific ad is still in rotation / still causing crashes, but I'll let you know if I see it again after I start using the Ad Parlor, and if I start encountering crashes in general more often.

 

[Lililira]

Once again, I just kinda tossed out the last reply and let it sit for a bit, but now that I've had some time to run some basic experiments, I have some results.

After starting to use the Ad Parlor regularly again, I have seen many of the above issues return. Mainly the following:
1. Closing itself when not the main app, even when there were not other apps open during that time.
2. Menu navigation crashes.
3. Some near-crashes / severe lag during fights where everything would freeze after using a special move, most often when playing a match directly after viewing an ad.

None of the above are resolved / made less common by restarting the app, but restarting the entire phone seems to make them go away for as long as I avoid the Ad Parlor. Once I start viewing Ads again however, they start popping up again, and it seems like the frequency of these issues is directly proportional to the number of Ads viewed since the last phone restart.

 

[Bones]

I'll see if my team can repro on an iPhone 7. This is the first report I've heard of Ads being connected to game performance specifically but it makes sense that it's possible. We also have that bug where music from the Ads will play in the background and I think in that instance as well it only fully resolves when restarting the phone.

@Lililira if you come across any other players that have your same issue please let me know!

 

[Lililira]

@Bones

Of course!

I'll also see if I can figure out if it's related to specific ads or ad hosts from my end, since while it's kind of hard to tell how much of an effect each individual ad has since it seems to be a cumulative problem, I get the feeling that some ads might cause more problems than others.