[Solved] PC freezes when I join a Mumble server (Crossfire issue)

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

I just don't see how that could be possible when the only issue I have with any part of my system at all is when I try to join a PRMumble server. No issues with any other game/web service/etc.

I'll keep slogging away...

[MaSSive]

Grey;1734987']I just don't see how that could be possible when the only issue I have with any part of my system at all is when I try to join a PRMumble server. No issues with any other game/web service/etc.

I'll keep slogging away...

Solutions are sometimes very simple and quite odd and unexpected. Ive seen a lot of alike. Try it cant hurt.

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

Just installed BF2 / PR / TS3 / PRMumble on one of my Thinkpads and gave it a go. No problems playing on a PRMumble server. So it is definitely some sort of driver/config/whatever issue in my desktop.

[LITOralis.nMd]

Just watched your video,

What is your hard drive set up on your desktop? Any SSDs? If on separate drives, might be a user volume access problem?

You should note the time your PC freezes, reboot, login and go to Event Viewer ,
in Win 7, Start->type in Event Viewer, will be first result.

Look for system errors, freezes, and anything related to BF2 and PRMumble,

copy the error report logs entries to Notepad, then paste that in a response here.

C:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\pr or where ever you have it installed,
find the file prError.log
SCroll down to the bottom, find your recent error reports, copy that and paste that in a reply here.

Between the two of those hopefully we'll find some info to help us.

The third option is to take a chainsaw to all PRmumble entries in the Registry, then reinstall PRMumble.

You could uninstall the older PRMUmble 0.5 beta, uninstall PRMumble 1.0, (and uninstall Mumble if you have it) .
Uninstall PRMumble in Control Panel.
Start command prompt and type "%appdata%" in it (without quotes) and press Enter. It should open YourUsername>AppData>Roaming directory. Then you can delete the complete Mumble(PR Edition) folder.
Then backup your registry inside RegEdit or your registry editor of choice.
Then backup your registry inside CCLeaner. CCleaner - Download
then use CCleaner and get rid of registry errors related to Mumble,
then search through your registry in RegEdit and delete everything (except the uninstaller entries) related to PRMumble.

Then reinstall PRMumble.

That's taking a chainsaw to a chopstick, but I'm completely out of ideas.

[LITOralis.nMd]

Since this will one take a few minutes maybe try this first:

I just thought of something... incidental... this only happened to me ONCE, when I use overlay with 2 monitors running after I've switched monitor settings (switched the screen PR was running on) between running PRmumble overlay. The overlay is sent to wrong screen, caused my PC to freeze.


Before you do anything else,
switch your monitor setup to Just One monitor , specifically one connected by dvi or hdmi.
Then start PRmumble and turn overlay to ON. save settings.
shut down PRmumble,
restart PRMUmble,
start PR.
try to connect to a mumble server.

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

I keep all overlays and other in-game services disabled. And again, this happens whether Mumble is running or not.

I've been testing for about ten hours now. I've tried all of Massive's suggestions, and went through all possible audio configurations (software/hardware rendering, Creative XFi on/off, VoIP on/off, integrated sound, external hardware sound, etc).

All drivers are up-to-date.

Registry is spotless.

I just don't have the time or energy to do this anymore.

Thanks for all of your assistance.

[MaSSive]

If it works on laptop on same network connection but wont work with desktop, then you see whats wrong there right? You tried almost everything except reinstalling system and changing NIC.

Guess that is all thats left here to try.

[LITOralis.nMd]

Sorry to hear,

Here are the best directions I have to completely uninstall PRMumble...

LITOralis.nMd;1735283']How to completely uninstall PRMumble 1.0 Beta 4

Here is how to completely uninstall PRMumble 1.0 Beta 4


PR TECH SUPPORT CAN NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FOLLOWING SUGGESTION. Altering the Windows Registry can cause Windows to cease functioning properly, causes various errors, or brick the Windows installation.

Taking a Chainsaw to ALL PRmumble entries in Windows Registry.

Uninstall the older PRMUmble 0.5 beta, uninstall PRMumble 1.0, (and uninstall any other Mumble versions installed.)
Uninstall PRMumble in Control Panel preferably.
Start command prompt and type "%appdata%" in it (without quotes) and press Enter. It should open YourUsername>AppData>Roaming directory. Then you can delete the complete Mumble(PR Edition) folder.
Then backup your registry inside RegEdit or your registry editor of choice. Directions to do this inside RegEdit: Back up the registry

Download and install CCleaner from Piriform: CCleaner - Download
Directions for the following steps from Piriform: CCleaner - Registry cleaning
ALWAYS backup your registry inside CCLeaner when prompted!!!.
then use CCleaner and get rid of registry errors related to Mumble,

Open Regedit again.
then search through your registry in RegEdit (In Menu, Edit->Find, or Ctrl-F ) Use search term: Mumble .
and delete everything (except the uninstaller entries) related to PRMumble and Mumble.

Then reinstall PRMumble.

That's what I call taking a chainsaw to a chopstick.

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

I missed reply #24 when I last posted, and it does raise a issue - it seems that PRMumble is indeed installed on my primary drive while all of my games are on SSD. I'll uninstall/reinstall PRMumble onto the SSD and see what happens. Thanks, guys!

[Psyrus]

This is a rather bizarre problem, but to throw my 2c in:

Do "mumble" servers have any server-side mumble shenanigans going on or is it all handled by the client-side mumble and the main PR mumble server. I was under the impression it was the latter case, in which instance there is absolutely no way that your computer can differentiate whether a server is a 'mumble' server or not, as there is actually no difference. Of course if the situation is that there are in fact differences between 'mumble' and non-mumble servers with regards to additional software to link everything, then I'd say it gives credence to the problem lying with mumble...

I see you've tested it on various servers... In one post you mention that you joined a non-mumble server, it was fine, you then joined a mumble server and it was also fine. Are you able to replicate this behavior consistently? If so, it rings a very slight bell of a mostly unrelated problem from about 3 years ago... I can't remember the specifics but the person's workaround was to create a local game first, load in & spawn, disconnect and then join the online server he wanted, which would allow him to play. Again, this is only relevant if you can actually replicate the 'everything's fine' in this post.

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

Psyrus -

Yes, I can join and play on non-mumble servers with no issue, reliably.

Your mention of creating/joining a local server first makes me think that perhaps this is how I managed to join a mumble server successfully a few posts back.

I'm going to try that again, in addition to the reinstallation of mumble.

Thanks for your input!

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

Well, chainsawed and reinstalled PRMumble to the same drive as BF2 / PR, then tried playing on a local server first, but still froze @45 seconds after loading into the CIA Test Airfield.

Event Viewer returns no relevant results, which is even more confusing than the problem I am trying to solve.

[Psyrus]

Grey;1735407']Well, chainsawed and reinstalled PRMumble to the same drive as BF2 / PR, then tried playing on a local server first, but still froze @45 seconds after loading into the CIA Test Airfield.

Did you also try loading into and playing a bit on a non-mumble server, before jumping on CIA?

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

Did you also try loading into and playing a bit on a non-mumble server, before jumping on CIA?

Not this time, but I have many times before with no success.

[LITOralis.nMd]

At this point I have no further knowledge....

Here is a link to how to debug Mumble in Windows...
Debugging - Mumble

You can download two programs that will debug and then copy the log to a txt file for reading, IDK if you care enough to try it.

There is another line of debugging in the Linux version which might relate to you.,...

Can you list EVERY audio component in your system, apparently tvtuner cards, some audio cards, and other things like having certain USB audio device connected simultaneously to certain wired audio device (headphones, speakers, etc) can cause an infinite loop that freezes Ubuntu.

Are you running HDMI audio out of your GPUs?

Reductio ad absurdum, you could disable all your audio components and find if it's the source of trouble.

Might try disabling ALL of your audio components (in and out), then try to run PR and PRMUMBle, if still freezes, it's not a audio hardware/software issue.
IF doesn't freeze,
Might try disabling HALF of your audio components, then try to run PR and PRMUMBle, if still freezes, reenable first half and disable second half. restart pr and prmumble.

If doesn't freeze, reenable half of the half, to narrow it down., etc, until you find a combo that causes the problem.

Or it might not be the problem.

[LITOralis.nMd]

Another line of Reductio ad absurdum,

open up PRMumble, goto Settings and find the list of other games add-ons that comes installed in the PRMumble package.

If you have any of these games, try to start PRMumble first, then load into one of those games. Manually join the subchannel in Other Games and see if you freeze up or not.

[Psyrus]

... Lots of really great Mumble-troubleshooting info ...

The problem with the above is that his computer still supposedly freezes up when he *doesn't* run mumble and still joins the mumble servers. That, in itself... points to me that there is a deeper problem, and personally I have a feeling that it might be something like punkbuster related, but I have no way to make sure. The reason why I say this is due to my line of thinking in this post, where I assume that servers don't run any server-side mumble code, and it's all client-PRMumble based. This would mean that his computer wouldn't be able to 'choose' which servers enforce mumble or have mumble channels, especially if he isn't running mumble at the time.

As you'll find here, you can try changing your pb settings to 10 minutes to see if that alleviates the problem.

Reducing the number of punkbuster hard drive checks
Punkbuster scans your hard-drive for problems every 20 seconds. As you may have guessed, this causes a lot of lag. This process will increase the amount of time in between punkbuster checks to 500 seconds (the maximum). By the way, in case you were worried, this is 100% safe with punkbuster, and will NOT cause any problems with Punkbuster thinking you are a cheater. Punkbuster even recommends this on their website.

Step 1: Join any BF2 online server that is running punkbuster, preferably a ranked one.

Step 2: Once you are in, and respawned somewhere, press the ` key. This key is located on most keyboards above the tab key and to the left of the 1 key

Step 3: Once you have pressed this, a large white box should drop down with a load of text in it. Type ?pb_sleep 500? (without the quotation marks) and hit the enter key

Step 4: Once you have done this, make sure the box is still up and type pb_writecfg to save your settings

[LITOralis.nMd]

I see your point Psyrus.

Mumble client has NO kernel altering files.

Under your scenario then, either the BF2 uninstaller, PB uninstaller or PR uninstaller is leaving loose ends on the machine.

It's out of my league, .. I do know that PB also does not alter registry or OS files...

Although there is code inside the Game to allow PunkBuster to be integrated tightly with the Game, the PunkBuster software is completely separate from the Game software. It resides in its own folder called "pb" inside the game folder. For example, if your game is installed into a folder called "c:\games\bf2", then the PunkBuster files will be in "c:\games\bf2\pb". To remove or uninstall PunkBuster from your system, simply delete the "pb" folder using the explorer program on your computer. PunkBuster does not modify the system registry nor hide files or other information anywhere else on your system.

PunkBuster For Players


That means it's either a BF2 or PR file that alters something in the registry and/or kernel.

[MaSSive]

Was just wondering...could this be a Turbo Boost issue as well since he has I7-2600?

Try turning that off and see what happens.

[[508th_PIR] Grey]

Interesting new development.

My PC now freezes when I join a non-Mumble server, so I am guessing Mumble is not relevant to this problem. I see someone else has posted a topic on this very same issue. I'm going to reset my thinking on this and start back at square one.