Team Fortress 2 crashing on playing demos

[Teataim]

Whenever I start Team Fortress 2 using lawena and play any demo, it crashes out of the game relatively soon, but it still starts the demo normally.
It appears the crash happens when I first deal damage or the first time when it would make a hitsound.
I have a custom hitsound that changes its pitch depending on how much damage I deal and I use ToonHUD and have customized (bigger) damage numbers.
I have tried having both hud and hitsound turned on, but TF2 still crashed at the exact same point.
Is there anything I could try?

-Teatime

[quanticc]

I've seen this problem but never crashing on the exact same place, only randomly. Anyway this is most likely related to the maxquality configs in the cfg/recording.cfg file, especially if you can play it normally without using Lawena.

I'm not sure what command is triggering the crashes, so I'd advise you to use a different graphical config. Like this:

https://gist.github.com/iabarca/382ab3a7ad0785e49a02

Download that recording.cfg and replace the file in the cfg folder. Create a copy of the original file if you wish so you don't lose it.

If you could test that config and let me know of your results, it would be very helpful. Thanks for reporting this issue.

[Teataim]

I did that, it didn't help and actually changed nothing.
Apparently the moment it crashed just happened to be the moment that I dealt damage to someone in some demos, so that's not the actual reason.
The crash also often happens at around 1000-2000 ticks in.

[quanticc]

I still find weird that crashes occur on the same spot. I assume this only happens when using Lawena, right? Because Lawena is just swapping files and configs for you.

There are two things that can be tried:

1. Try typing mat_queue_mode -1 in console. This is a multithreading setting.
2. Can you upload a demo of yours to reproduce it in my machine? And to further test without bothering you much.

Thanks

[Teataim]

Yes, it only occurs when I use lawena, sorry I did not mention that yet.
mat_queue_mode -1 does not change anything, still crashes at the same spot.
You might want to back your cfg folder up before playing my demo, there have been problems with people having my crosshair switcher (broesel's crosshair switcher) after playing one of my POV demos.
Otherwise, there you go:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/132809724/20150127_2052_koth_viaduct_pro5_red_ablu.zip
Also feel free to bother me as much as you want, you can add me on steam if you want (http://steamcommunity.com/id/timefortea).
Thank you for your help so far.

-Teatime

[quanticc]

I could not reproduce the crash during playback of that demo when viewed normally (no tick skipping). I'm convinced it's related to the graphical settings but at this point I can't give you a proper solution.

Sorry I can't help you much further.

Edit: I always forget to ask, are your files validated right? A quick verify integrity wouldn't hurt.

[ze-gomes]

Have you tried disabling the custom hud for recording and use one of the ones provided by lawena? It might be a problem related to that.

[scoliono]

Since this hasn't been closed yet, I'd like to add to this discussion. I am having the same problem, and the demo crashes at tick 65262 every time I play it, whether I'm using mat_queue_mode -2 or 0. I don't remember this problem ever happening in the past with much longer demos (but I also don't remember if I had used Lawena back then). The demo plays/tick-skips fine without Lawena. I use broeselhud when recording but use the default on minimum mode during regular play. I hope that this problem can be fixed.

[quanticc]

I'm still not sure it's unrelated to other threading/graphic convars. Have you also tested changing the cfg/recording.cfg file with this one? That is a modified cfg from Source Recording Tool.

Also if you could, please check if you crash when using no recording.cfg file at all (default settings).

[scoliono]

TF2 still crashes with your modified config and no recording.cfg at all.

[quanticc]

Thanks for testing them, I'll continue looking for the cause.

[TremFortyTwo]

Hey,

I had a similar problem, and actually stumbled across this page trying to find a solution. Often mat_queue_mode 0 and -1 (and 2 when playing normally) are suggested, none of them working. However, after trying a gazillion different things, it seems that simply putting mat_queue_mode to 1 fixed it for me; I just finished rendering 2 clips on a demo that used to crash at the same point all the time before.
Don't know if this will solve it for you as well, but hopefully it'll help some at least :>

[Cod-ZA]

When I launch TF2 through Lawena and try to play a demo, TF2 freezes and the demo doesn't play.

[quanticc]

@Cod-ZA Is it with a particular demo or all of them? Can you check with mat_queue_mode 1? The main difference between playing a demo with and without the tool is the recording.cfg config file.

mat_queue_mode is one of the settings there, along many others to push maximum graphic settings. You could also try temporarily renaming the recording.cfg to use TF2 default settings.

[Cod-ZA]

@iabarca All of them. Mat_queue_mode 1 fixes the problem. Thanks