Most (if not all) technical issues and crashes experienced on stable releases of MTA are somehow related to the user's PC, such as underlying OS or driver issues, bad mainentance state of the OS, viruses interfering with MTA, etcetera. In this subforum (client support) we have a range of users who are willing to offer you support, of which some have an advanced technical IT background and thus are able to dive deep into said problems, given that they have sufficient information to help you troubleshoot the underlying causal problem.
MTADiag makes their job easier, by collecting a set of information that helps them get started in advising you what to do next.
Client support information: (open spoiler) - also read this if you're not getting a response to your problem in a timely manner
Spoiler
The retrieved information, combined with your description of the problem, can however also make it clear that your issue isn't easy to get to the bottom of. For that reason please understand that if you don't get a reply or further support, that you're not entitled to this, as all such users volunteer their free time for this, and that in the case we're unable to assist you (further) it's very likely that the corruption located within your OS or PC is too deep for us to be able to assist you remotely. This can be our observation at either the very beginning, even before the beginning (the point where we may not make a first post in response to you), or in the midst of offering you support. Please understand and respect this, you could always take your PC or laptop to a repair shop, or as a last-resort reinstall Windows to resolve any potential corruption located within your OS, or eventually seek out more dedicated PC technical support forums such as https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/. If you do this, make sure you tell them that corruption somewhere within your PC or its hardware has resulted in the failure of MTA because of MTA being unable to function correctly due to this underlying problem.
Our elaboration on that last part: Windows isn't as closed as for example Apple iOs is, users that arent tech-savy can easily mess up something (system files, configuration) within their OS installation and so can sketchy software that this user decides to install. The affected part of the OS might just be something that certain games rely on, such as (a wild example) the Windows component that controls hardware directly which MTA uses for its graphical displaying of MTA, or a certain internal function of a graphics driver that gets corrupted by the user willingly overwriting the "This driver may not be compatible" warning while 'updating' their graphics card driver. Situations like this also explain why not all games are affected on a PC that runs into trouble, we often hear "I can play all games just fine, only MTA doesn't work properly" - the answer lies in that particular games (or a set of games) may rely on corruptable internal OS things, where other games may not use them at all and thus keep running.
For all we know, 99% of MTA installations worldwide run without issues (as in: no total blocks from playing the game) while approximately 20% of that count suffer from the adverse effects of a badly maintained OS full of junk and memory-eating software and perhaps light corruption that leads to reduced performance of network speed or connectivity, and hardware components; they still run MTA, but may perceive adverse effects of said circumstances, leading to a different experience than a tech-savy able to keep their PC clean and in good shape. The remaining procent suffer from heavy corruption that may even prevent successful launch of the game, or cause intermittent (network) interruptions.
Statistically speaking, the MTA community is dealt a bad hand because lots of our players live in poor countries where being able to afford a reasonable PC isn't natural, and due to a slower pace of technical development in said countries the average knownledge (tech-savyness in IT) of people can be subpar, leading to aggravated bad mainentance states of such PC's in software (OS) and hardware perspectives. In turn, the risk that a specific corruption found in their PC's may affect the working of applications and games such as MTA, rises. The lack of technical skills can also result in some people having less understanding of the troubleshooting and solution steps we offer them to follow in the Client support section, therefore making it extra hard for us to assist them remotely based on solely text messages. We don't blame anyone for this, we'd prefer to suggest a "last resort" solution (such as "just re-install windows") in cases like this, instead of digging deeper into the underlying problem under these circumstances..
Back to the subject of not getting useful responses in a timely manner: you are not neccesarily affected by any of the limitations our support persons are faced with that are listed here, it's also possible that the most active support section users (those being able to dive deeper due to their IT background) have just been busy recently, or are currently focussing on other parts of MTA or the MTA community, and are unable to tend to you in this moment of time. Again, we all do this in our free time, and we also have our ups and downs.
Obviously, random useful users who aren't usually active on the Support sections can try to help you too, so never give up hope. Please know that we are always looking for users with a deeper technical understanding who are willing to help out MTA users with more complicated technical issues, such as the majority of help requests is part of; feel free to start contributing by supporting on Client and Server support sections, everyone will be thankful!
MTADiag is a small open-source console application which will:
Read MTA's and GTA's install paths, and MTA's current version - if multiple versions of MTA are installed, it will ask the user to pick one to diagnose
Automatically remove compatibility mode settings for GTA and MTA (except for Administrator privileges)
Automatically download and launch MTA's latest patch installer
Automatically generate a dxdiag log
Automatically install necessary certificates for MTA
Create a log file with the aforementioned paths, MTA's previous and updated version strings, the generated dxdiag log, a list of currently running processes, the contents of CEGUI.log, core.log, and logfile.txt, directory listings of the MTA, GTA, and GTA\models folders, and some other miscellaneous information which is automatically uploaded to MTA's Pastebin.
Current version: 2.9.0 (January 2024)
It's a little unfriendly due to the fact that it's a console app, but it will streamline client support topics by aggregating all potentially useful information for our QA and staff to help troubleshoot your issues into the first post, or potentially eliminating the need to create a new topic altogether if removing compatibility mode entries, automatically applied repairs & installing the latest nightly and the DirectX runtimes fixes the user's issue. I've added a download link to MTADiag in the MTA CRASHING? Read here first! sticky thread.
Question
Towncivilian
Most (if not all) technical issues and crashes experienced on stable releases of MTA are somehow related to the user's PC, such as underlying OS or driver issues, bad mainentance state of the OS, viruses interfering with MTA, etcetera. In this subforum (client support) we have a range of users who are willing to offer you support, of which some have an advanced technical IT background and thus are able to dive deep into said problems, given that they have sufficient information to help you troubleshoot the underlying causal problem.
MTADiag makes their job easier, by collecting a set of information that helps them get started in advising you what to do next.
Client support information: (open spoiler) - also read this if you're not getting a response to your problem in a timely manner
The retrieved information, combined with your description of the problem, can however also make it clear that your issue isn't easy to get to the bottom of. For that reason please understand that if you don't get a reply or further support, that you're not entitled to this, as all such users volunteer their free time for this, and that in the case we're unable to assist you (further) it's very likely that the corruption located within your OS or PC is too deep for us to be able to assist you remotely. This can be our observation at either the very beginning, even before the beginning (the point where we may not make a first post in response to you), or in the midst of offering you support. Please understand and respect this, you could always take your PC or laptop to a repair shop, or as a last-resort reinstall Windows to resolve any potential corruption located within your OS, or eventually seek out more dedicated PC technical support forums such as https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/. If you do this, make sure you tell them that corruption somewhere within your PC or its hardware has resulted in the failure of MTA because of MTA being unable to function correctly due to this underlying problem.
Our elaboration on that last part: Windows isn't as closed as for example Apple iOs is, users that arent tech-savy can easily mess up something (system files, configuration) within their OS installation and so can sketchy software that this user decides to install. The affected part of the OS might just be something that certain games rely on, such as (a wild example) the Windows component that controls hardware directly which MTA uses for its graphical displaying of MTA, or a certain internal function of a graphics driver that gets corrupted by the user willingly overwriting the "This driver may not be compatible" warning while 'updating' their graphics card driver. Situations like this also explain why not all games are affected on a PC that runs into trouble, we often hear "I can play all games just fine, only MTA doesn't work properly" - the answer lies in that particular games (or a set of games) may rely on corruptable internal OS things, where other games may not use them at all and thus keep running.
For all we know, 99% of MTA installations worldwide run without issues (as in: no total blocks from playing the game) while approximately 20% of that count suffer from the adverse effects of a badly maintained OS full of junk and memory-eating software and perhaps light corruption that leads to reduced performance of network speed or connectivity, and hardware components; they still run MTA, but may perceive adverse effects of said circumstances, leading to a different experience than a tech-savy able to keep their PC clean and in good shape. The remaining procent suffer from heavy corruption that may even prevent successful launch of the game, or cause intermittent (network) interruptions.
Statistically speaking, the MTA community is dealt a bad hand because lots of our players live in poor countries where being able to afford a reasonable PC isn't natural, and due to a slower pace of technical development in said countries the average knownledge (tech-savyness in IT) of people can be subpar, leading to aggravated bad mainentance states of such PC's in software (OS) and hardware perspectives. In turn, the risk that a specific corruption found in their PC's may affect the working of applications and games such as MTA, rises. The lack of technical skills can also result in some people having less understanding of the troubleshooting and solution steps we offer them to follow in the Client support section, therefore making it extra hard for us to assist them remotely based on solely text messages. We don't blame anyone for this, we'd prefer to suggest a "last resort" solution (such as "just re-install windows") in cases like this, instead of digging deeper into the underlying problem under these circumstances..
Back to the subject of not getting useful responses in a timely manner: you are not neccesarily affected by any of the limitations our support persons are faced with that are listed here, it's also possible that the most active support section users (those being able to dive deeper due to their IT background) have just been busy recently, or are currently focussing on other parts of MTA or the MTA community, and are unable to tend to you in this moment of time. Again, we all do this in our free time, and we also have our ups and downs.
Obviously, random useful users who aren't usually active on the Support sections can try to help you too, so never give up hope. Please know that we are always looking for users with a deeper technical understanding who are willing to help out MTA users with more complicated technical issues, such as the majority of help requests is part of; feel free to start contributing by supporting on Client and Server support sections, everyone will be thankful!
MTADiag is a small open-source console application which will:
Current version: 2.9.0 (January 2024)
It's a little unfriendly due to the fact that it's a console app, but it will streamline client support topics by aggregating all potentially useful information for our QA and staff to help troubleshoot your issues into the first post, or potentially eliminating the need to create a new topic altogether if removing compatibility mode entries, automatically applied repairs & installing the latest nightly and the DirectX runtimes fixes the user's issue. I've added a download link to MTADiag in the MTA CRASHING? Read here first! sticky thread.
Please download and run MTADiag and follow the instructions.
Post any Pastebin URL MTADiag gives you in a new topic you'll create at https://forum.multitheftauto.com/forum/83-client/, after which support can be offered.
MTADiag supports Windows XP and newer, but must be run with Administrator privileges on Windows Vista and newer.
If MTADiag will not run for you, install Visual C++ 2017 runtimes and try again.
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Towncivilian
Most (if not all) technical issues and crashes experienced on stable releases of MTA are somehow related to the user's PC, such as underlying OS or driver issues, bad mainentance state of the OS, viru
Towncivilian
This program will run on XP. Wording corrected in the original post.
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