Constant crashing after update to android 7

[Rebel Scum]

So I've been playing this on my Galaxy Note 5 formerly running Android 6 for a few weeks now and I've never had any issues with it. Yesterday I updated the phone to Android 7 and since then Pathfinder Adventures crashes on startup more often than not. When I go to start the game I get the loading screen but as soon as it goes to transition to the main title screen it freezes and drops me back to the home screen with a popup saying Pathfinder Adventures has stopped. While that popup is up I can hear the app playing its music but it stops as soon as I close the popup. I don't see the thing for Google Play signing in before it crashes if that matters.

 

On two occasions its gotten past the load screen - once I was able to play a full scenario with no issues before quitting the app normally and the other it crashed in the same manner as I was starting a scenario just as it was about to display the villain.

 

I've tried restarting the phone and clearing caches for both the app and Google Play with no effect. Im considering uninstalling and reinstalling the app in case the OS upgrade borked something but I'm not sure if that'll erase my progress or not. If it will, is there any way to save that somehow? Or failing that, is there some other troubleshooting step I can or should take before doing that?

[Ethics Gradient]

So I've been playing this on my Galaxy Note 5 formerly running Android 6 for a few weeks now and I've never had any issues with it. Yesterday I updated the phone to Android 7  Im considering uninstalling and reinstalling the app in case the OS upgrade borked something but I'm not sure if that'll erase my progress or not. If it will, is there any way to save that somehow? Or failing that, is there some other troubleshooting step I can or should take before doing that?

 

Try the reinstall.  It is generally harmless as long as you've been regularly playing online/connected to the internet.

 

After the delete/reinstall all your characters/parties/cards will sync back down from the server as long as you're using the same Google Play Store account that you used previously.

 

If you want to back up everything first, this post from a long time ago should give you an idea where to find the saves.  If things don't sync back from the server, you should just be able to copy your save folder back after you reinstall pathfinder.

[Rebel Scum]

Thanks for the confirmation about the save files. Unfortunately, after reinstalling the app it still crashes in the same fashion. Only difference is I don't get music playing behind the error popup anymore. Restarting the phone let me get into the app at least but it crashed again as soon as I selected a party. Any other ideas that might help determine what's causing this? I'd really rather not have to find out how to roll back to the previous version of Android just for one game.

[Rebel Scum]

After some further testing on my own, I've discovered something odd. Sometimes the game will run fine and not crash at all. Specifically, it seems if the local time is anything AM it crashes on startup as described in the first post. However, if I manually set the phone's time to anything PM it will run fine. Likewise, if it's anything PM it'll run fine but if I manually set it to AM it crashes. If I set the phone to 24 hour time it still crashes if it's anything that would be AM. Anyone know if the way the operating system handles time changed at all from Android 6 to Android 7? Cause this is a reliable thing I've tested at four or five different times of the day, if the phone is set to anything AM it crashes and if it's anything PM it doesn't, seemingly regardless of what the time actually is.

 

If nothing else I suppose it's a workaround - if anyone else is experiencing similar crashes after updating, try that I guess.

[Hannibal_PJV]

Thanks for interesting information! It may help tracking down what an earth is hapening. I have newer seen anything quite like this. Have you tryed to use 24h vs 12h clock. Is there difference in there. What part of Unity engine use system clock for anything. Random Number seed?

[Rebel Scum]

As I said, if I try using 24 hour time it still crashes if the time is anything before 12:00. Though it does crash slightly differently - instead of crashing at the loading screen I see a glimpse of the next screen, the transition with the logo that normally slides away to reveal the title screen. It crashes just as that slide away begins to animate.

[Rebel Scum]

I'm not sure if this is relevant but I happened to have the app running in the background as the clock hit midnight local time (16 minutes ago at the time of writing) and right on 12:00 I got a popup saying it had stopped. So it's not only during startup that it'll crash, presumably. Something in the app or the system refuses to let it run or be running if the clock says AM.

[Ethics Gradient]

That's officially one of the weirder bugs that has been reported.  I personally can't think of anything in the game itself that would directly cause that error.  it is certainly the first report I know of on this forum.

 

Best I can guess is that there is something system-side prompting a disconnect with Google Play.

 

I remember some anecdotal fixes during the the Android 6->7 transition that involved going into the Date and Time settings and enabling (or disabling) the automatic time zone detection and rebooting the device.  Something about a change in system time settings during the upgrade caused errors maintaining the connection to Google Play, which in turn would make apps requiring that link to go boink for unexplained reasons.

[Rebel Scum]

Tried disabling that setting, rebooting and starting the app and it still crashed, unfortunately. And also crashed after re-enabling it and a second reboot. So looks like that's not it at least in my case. Thanks for the thought though.