Factorio Forums

For at least the past two versions, I have been experiencing a rather inconvenient crash-- one that shuts down my entire operating system.

Here's what happens.
1. I open the game
2. It gets ~78% through the loading bar (pre-title menu). I can't say for absolute sure, but it is most likely the same step of the process every time.
3. My entire computer shuts down.
4. I turn my computer back on, log in, and open the game again
5. Works great, I play Factorio for a while.
6. I close the game, let my computer sleep and go to bed.
7. Next time I wake up my computer and play Factorio, steps repeat starting at 1).

It is possible it is related to the computer going to sleep. I have tested opening the game twice in a row after a shutdown and it has successfully opened.

Attached you will find two logs. factorio-previous is an example of a complete system shutdown caused by opening factorio (step 1). factorio-current is an example of a session that works fine directly after powering my computer back on (step 5).

If your machine shuts down, then something is wrong with your machine. Try running some graphics and cpu benchmarks.

Also look at the systems log files for why it shuts down. Check /var/log/syslog, /var/log/messages and the system journal if you preserve that across boots.

But it really sounds like bad ram or worse.

Thank you for the tips. Yes, I beliieve the only other time an application has caused a system shutdown is running heavy research loads. I tried testing a couple more times. CPU and RAM looked fine during startup / crashes, but apparently my laptop was hitting critical temperature.

I was most likely experiencing this problem only recently and with Factorio because I have recently been playing Factorio with my laptop lid closed when before I was playing it with the lid open.

Again, thanks for the help-- sorry for the false alarm. I will keep an eye out to see if I still run into the issue any more. Most likely is solved.

aim a fan at the keyboard 8)

Sounds like something is wrong with either or both:

a) the fan. Maybe clean it?
b) the fequency scaling. Modern CPUs lower their speed when they get hot. Older systems you had to lower the frequency yourself (as in some daemon watching the temp) before it just shuts down to prevent damage.

You should look into that as running too hot adds a lot more mileage to the system so it will break much earlier.

That said leave the screen open for better ventilation. Playing factorio at less than the max frequency sucks when it can't keep 60 UPS.